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Title: American Aurora : A Democratic-Republican Returns : The Suppressed History of Our Nation's Beginnings and the Heroic Newspaper That Tried to Report It by Richard N. Rosenfeld, Edmund S. Morgan ISBN: 0-312-19437-4 Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback Pub. Date: 15 September, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.26 (27 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Be warned.
Comment: Be warned: read this book only if you ready for a real eye-opener, and a heart breaker, about the rise of corporate power in the US. This is not some southern polemic, but a well researched and powerful analysis of one of the great myths of American politics. Dilorenzo takes you to the head waters of the flow of events in our history that led to the replacement of our decentralized, American republic advancing the liberty of our people, with a centralize American empire serving corporate power. I was both convinced and deeply shocked that much of what we learn in both high school and college about the civil war is largely nonsense, spun origionally in the 1860s by the mercantile faction of the republican party to justify the creation of a centralized state to service corporate interests, and an unnecessary, awful war that was used to create the opportunity to radically alter the course of our history.
Rating: 2
Summary: All The News?
Comment: It pains me to give American Aurora a relatively negative review, as the book was entertaining and well-prepared. I must do so, however, because the book offers only part of the story. James Thomas Callendar is one of the most amusing characters of early American history -- the forefather of folks like Walter Winchell and Matt Drudge, the first American "scandalmonger," as William Safire calls him. But he was motivated by money and personal pique, embracing and denouncing Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in turn to sell papers and whenever he felt one had slighted his ambitions. American Aurora focuses only on the period of the Alien and Sedition Acts and Callendar's campaign against Adams. The book makes Callendar out to be a John Peter Zenger-caliber hero of free expression, ignoring the fact that Callendar once praised Adams, and would later tarnish Jefferson -- Callendar's hero in American Aurora -- and breaking the story of Sally Hemings. This is a fun read. Too bad it's not the whole truth.
Rating: 5
Summary: Imagine that !
Comment: It's hard to imagine how a twenty-fifth 5-star review can do any more to convince anyone to read this book... But I will try!
I HATED history in school, and rarely read history as an adult. Nevertheless, I was engrossed by this book and could hardly put it down, notwithstanding 900+ pages! It has revived my interest in (accurate) history, and might do the same for you.
If you like your history shined-up with the polyurethane glow of hero-sweat, don't go near this book; unless, that is, you would like to actually learn something and enjoy the learning along the way. In the end you might discover a hero or two, but mostly you will come away quite convinced that the "popular" history of our own nation is seemingly as intent as that of the old USSR on covering-up and inverting the facts. Imagine that!
Say "Alien and Sedition Act" to most people who have not completely blocked their recall of high school US history and you will see the whites of their eyes - rolling up into a coma! This could be the single most boring and meaningless datum we were required to remember, no?
But now, on reading "American Aurora", I find that the "act" was slammed through Congress as a way of shipping as many as possible of the troublesome new Irish immigrants off-shore as possible - before the election of 1800 where they were expected to cause electoral trouble for the Federalists. Imagine that !
For that matter, say "Federalist" to most folks and you can clear the room... a few desperate souls mumbling about "Marbury and Madison". But, WHEN you read this book (it cannot be an "if"), you'll realize how fundamental the rift was and how vicious the political battle was that constructed the foundations of our political structure.. So many of our history teachers wished that we would understand the "fundamental" part - but that we would somehow accept that anything so important was settled by a bunch of powdered wigs (or was it whigs?) in grand public session - that it was all neatly sewn up, somehow, after Cornwallis's band played "The World Turned Upside Down." The true story reads more like Capone's Chicago and the "settling" of the issue was a messy, decade-long business.
In style the book frightened me. Really! It is peppered with original documents of the era - letters and the like. That sort of "authenticity" often seems to just introduce confufing fyntax and fpelling that drives me away. Well, consider a quote from a letter from Thomas Paine to Washington. "You slept away your time in the field till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have little share in the glory of the final event. It is time, sir, to speak the undisguised language of historical truth.". Sheesh! We realize that even Paine, usually cast as a firebrand only in the 'liberty or death' category, was outspoken in other ways, which have not echoed down the halls of official history. Imagine that!
Ultimately the mixture of original source documents and well-crafted storytelling is a knock-your-socks-off combination. This is absolutely compelling history and a great read to boot.
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Title: The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic by Jeffrey L. Pasley ISBN: 0813921775 Publisher: University of Virginia Press Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic by John E. Ferling ISBN: 0195159241 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind by Gerald Graff ISBN: 0300095589 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Enemy Aliens by David Cole ISBN: 1565848004 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: 26 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity by Tariq Ali ISBN: 185984457X Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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