Yet another “last” big synthesis… until the next one

Big books, especially syntheses.  Nobody writes them anymore.  We’re all pretty much agreed about that.  In fact, I recently turned in a book review (to appear this spring in Common-Place) of one, the author of which makes a point of how rare they have become, like unicorns whose left eye is brown, right eye is blue, and […]

Bailyn’s Ideological Origins at Nearly 50: Brilliant Book of Bygone Age

Although I haven’t had the privilege of teaching a course on the American Revolution for a few years, this semester I’m leading a graduate student on an independent study of the Revolution, and among the books we’re reading is Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.  Because it’s insights have become so central to […]