Cliff-Hanger
THE SHA PING OF A MERIC A
A People's History of the Young Republic by Page Smith '40 McGraw-Hill, 1980. 894 pp. $20
Reading, for the first time in my life, a thoroughgoing account, of the events of the years between the summer of 1787, which produced the Constitution, and the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence the 39 years that, as the title of the book says, shaped America brought me face to face with an unexpected question that stands at the center of my reaction to the book and of my reflections upon it. The question is a long one: How is it that I who love my native land, with its 2,000 years of history, its inspiring succession of great men and women, its eras of adventure and exploration, its stability and freedom from tyranny, with all the magnificence of its literature and the integrity of its institutions how is it that I can contemplate that story dry- eyed and with the hair of my neck undisturbed, while this narrative of the formative years of the American Union brought a lump to my throat over and over again and made my mind and spirit thrill at the realization of what a magnificent story it's?
At the heart of the answer is the fact that this is a rather special kind of history book. In the first place, the impression is inescapable that its author loved writing it and is as electrified and moved by telling the story as anyone will ever be by listening to it. The fact is that this is a very American book, and I realize that if I re- main dry-eyed when reading English history written by English historians, it may be in part because the English are so frightfully restrained. They refuse to get carried away, even when there is something to get carried away by.
The second thing that must be said about why this book produced such an effect on me is that Page Smith never lets one forget that this particular story is, to put it mildly, a cliff- hanger. It is not simply that he reports so adroitly the slender margins by which so many of the great decisions were voted in, but that he chooses so well his ways for reminding us of the doubts and anxieties in the hearts of even the staunchest and most optimistic of patriots, of the tenuousness of the various leaders' holds on their followers, of the risks that were run, of the volatile mix of the population, especially on the lengthening frontier for reminding us, in a word, of the fragility of the Union, early decade after early decade.
Just as valuable as the element of suspense is the effectiveness of enlivening the broad sweep of the narrative of major episodes by means of the telling detail,, the illuminating "for in- stance" which sharpens one's grasp of a generalization. Nowhere is this approach more influential than in those numerous paragraphs based upon diaries and letters written by "nobodies." One feels the deepest kind of gratitude toward whoever treasured these ephemeral writings by this Kentucky preacher or that Massachusetts farmer or the other Swiss immigrant, for these writings never in- tended for History's Page deepen our perception of what people were thinking, what made them act (or refuse to act), what they saw as their blessings or heartaches.
Perhaps it is because the Johannes Schweizers and the Richard McNemars come to life in these pages alongside Washington and Adams, Burr and Marshall and Madison, that one is made so acutely aware that American history is supremely the story of a Lot of people, men and women who argued and acted, planned and made choices, worked and sacrificed for a future in the new world. So many other nations' histories (even those with revolutions in them) seem so much more "evolutionary," as it were, so much less a matter of cause and effect resulting from what men and women decided to do with their lives. Compared with the almost glacial development of those nations and civilizations, in these pages one can read of the swift flow of events, and see why something happened, who made it happen, and what it led to next.
Reading this book was a profoundly pleasurable event. I know that I will return many times to three or four of those chapters which moved me most, among them the ac- count of the "Grand Procession," the review of the work of John Marshall's Supreme Court, the section on "Migration and Immigration," and, a kind of culminating blessing, the story of Lafayette s coming to the country he had helped make possible, a journey which com- bined pilgrimage with triumphal march in a way which stirred the very soul of the nation, and stirs one still.
Finally, I must try to convey a particular kind of wonder that this narrative inspired in one Englishman, wonder at the way in which contemporary America and this history are so incredibly all of a piece. I must have made a note almost a hundred times of being struck by something "familiar" when reading about America 150 years ago. I could not help feeling that a journey back in a time machine would bring an Englishman to something far less recognizable than would be the case for an American. The 1980 man-in-the-English-street would find at his 1820 destination a world described in Dickens's tidy quatrain: "O let us love our occupationsBless the squire and his relationsLive upon our daily rationsAnd always know our proper stations."
He would, one hopes at least, feel terribly un- happy about it. The average 1980 American, on the other hand, would surely settle quickly into the 1820 arguments about, say, states' rights, or he would head west, or put his money into some splendid new enterprise, all the while reminding himself of how fortunate he is to be an American.
That one should be struck by the seamless cloth of American experience is something Page Smith clearly intended should happen. Two pages from the end of the book he gives us his own long list of those characteristics our own society has in common with the one he has been describing. Such continuity suggests to me that especially in this country the study of history should be not only one of the most useful of pursuits, but also, certainly, one of the most inspiriting. In fact, this thought led to the outrageous idea that, if I had the money, I would make a present of The Shaping ofAmerica to every student at the author's alma mater and at my own! Certainly, if I had the influence, I would get it published in manageable-thickness paperbacks and put them alongside the volumes of the Fury family saga in the drug store racks. And, if 1 had the time, I would follow each of the extraordinary stories the book touches on through the specialized works which others have written about fhem. Above all, I look forward to the volumes which we are assured will follow the three already published in this "People's History." Perhaps by the time Page Smith's 50th reunion comes along in 1990 they will all be written, and he will be honored then as one of the most eloquent and humane of Dart- mouth's sons.
Peter Smith, director of Hopkins Center, lefthis native England in 1956 and arrived inHanover in 1969.
