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The demise of the Christian faith. Secular humanism, moral relativism, and materialistic hedonism are going to lead the West to its ruin if nothing is done to stem the lurch toward spiritual depravity. 😥
We must be careful when trying to fashion sources for historical documents. This tends to tempt historians to overlay personal themes onto historical events that don’t quite fit. It is highly possible if not probable, that Jefferson read some Dutch materials which inspired him in some way. I, however, find it pointless to “redact” historical documents to somehow delve into the mind of the author. I find it more beneficial to recount the intentions of the document in question rather than become distracted with linking it to other documents. For example, the Declaration of Independence was a document designed to argue constitutionality of British imperial behavior toward the colonies. It’s intent was to declare independence on legal grounds as argued by professional lawyers writing a legal brief to George III and Parliament. Whether or not the colonists used Dutch legal theory etc…in the fashioning of their arguments is a sidenote. Having said this, the Magna Charta should not be overlooked in its influence on the Constitution. Clearly British commonwealth laws and precedents were preserved in modified forms one way or another.
Send me a copy and I’ll post it on my site in the amateur section. I’ll convert it to a PDF file. 😀
The French Revolution was an experiment in radical egalitarianism just the same as the American Revolution, but the difference was class oriented. The French were obsessed with eliminating a caste system (the Estate System), the Americans were interested in restructuring class distinctions by eliminating the aristocracy and incorporating the poor (as far as possible which excluded slaves and women at the time). The French Revolution was a reaction to years and years of class warfare. The American Revolution was a reaction to the increasing power of Parliament which the colonists felt did not adequately represent their interests. Yes, religion played a role in the American Revolution, but it also played a role in the French Revolution as well. You might recall that human reason and Isaac Newton (Reason’s personification) were deified and worshiped before Napoleon hijacked the movement and seizing the deified role himself. Thus France began to worship nationalism and sought to export the revolution to its neighbors. In sum, both revolutions sought remedies for class disparity and both had elements of religiosity only in very different manifestations.
I agree. The Industrial Revolution actually facilitated the spread of slavery as the cotton gin and the mechanical reaper allowed planters the opportunity to cultivate more land which increased the volume of cotton produced per square acre. Of course the increased volume required more slaves to warehouse the cotton etc…but in the end, the technology would have made the need to maintain large numbers of slaves counter productive. Slavery would have continued in the form of hand and maidservants for the household, but the need for “gangs” would have ceased all together.
If I were to make a movie it would be entitled: Disturbing the Imagination It would be about George Whitefield and his triumphal entry into Colonial America setting off the fires of the Great Awakening. 😀
Check out Mark A. Noll: America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
See also, Alan Heimert: Religion and the American Mind
See also, Martin Marty: Pilgrims in Their Own Land
These secondary sources will help you to understand the religous mentality of the period you are studying.
You might also look up anything by Sacvan Bercovitch, Patricia Bonomi, and Jon Butler. 😀I’ll have more on AcademicHistory.org in the coming weeks that you can download and read……pending JSTOR permits it (which I emailed them and they didn’t bother to email back, so we’ll see). 😀
Mark A. Noll, America?s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Gewehr, Wesley M., The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740-1790, 2nd ed. (Gloucester,
Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1965).
David Harlan, The Clergy and the Great Awakening in New England (Ann Arbor:
UMI Research Press, 1980).
Martin E. Marty, Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (New York:
The Dial Press, 1970).
William Gribbin, The Churches Militant: The War of 1812 and American Religion
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973).
Alice Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (New York:
Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1958).
Gaustad, Edwin Scott, The Great Awakening in New England (Gloucester,
Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1965).
Jon Butler, Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776 (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2000).
Heimert, Alan, Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the
Revolution (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1966).
James West Davidson, The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth-Century
New England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1977).
Suzanne Geissler, Jonathan Edwards to Aaron Burr, Jr.: From the Great Awakening
To Democratic Politics (New York: The Edwin Mellon Press, 1981).
Frank Lambert, Inventing the Great Awakening (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1999).
This is enough to chew on for awhile I suppose. 😀Good points Nemesis. Hitler gave the Germans the Audobahn Highway system, the Volkeswagon (people’s wagon), and brought Germany out of the Weimar Depression while restoring the dignity of the German nation at the same time. Good things such as these only work to keep a mad killer in power. They have to offer the people a carot from time to time.
Attacking China would be utterly stupid on the part of the terrorists. China would unleash holy terror back on them, and would not be constrained by a constitution of moral laws as we are. The Chechens deserve some credit. They bomb Russian targets and have faced Russian retaliation, but Russia has failed to break their spirit. If the Chechens were bombing Chinese targets, well let’s just say the Chechens would find themselves lost in outer Mongolia in gulags and rehabilitation centers. 😆
I like critical expository articles found in Academic Journals such as The Journal of American History etc…
I also like reading primary source material from the era being studied. Classical works, pamphlets, sermons etc. generally strike my fancy. The best non-fiction expository book I have read would be Gnosis by Kurt Rudolph. Rudolph basically taught me everything I needed to know about Gnosticism and its core components including the various manifestations of it. I also love to read theological expositions from the Patristic Fathers and modern Theologians such as Karl Barth, Walter Brueggeman, and Hans Conzelman. Personal historians I admire include: Hillaire Belloc, Martin E. Marty, Michael Grant, James MacPhereson, Gordon S. Wood, J.G.A. Pocock, H.H. Scullard, Edward S. Morgan, John Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and Louis Hartz. I also have a fondness for historiography. I like reading about what historians have written and the schools of thought they joined or created. The history of historians is always fascinating, and a good way to nail down a subject area within History.
