Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Winik, The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800 (2007)

Jay Winik.
The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Author Information:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Book Reviews:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Winik's The Great Upheaval is not a survey of world events during the Eighteenth Century nor especially of the 1790s. Instead he makes broad claims about globalization and the inevitability of social and political change arising from this era while focusing on the United States, France, and Russia. For all Winik's talk about the global interchange of people and ideas he rarely or never mentions the three most global imperial powers of that age: Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal. If one were to add up all the text referencing Great Britain in the main text of 582 pages it would add up to one page and perhaps part of a second. The British figures who receive the most attention from Winik are Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft, who get one paragraph each (pages 557-558). Spain is mentioned only tangentially in three places and Portugal is never mentioned. Instead, global interchange means the French Enlightenment philosophers and restless adventurers like the Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Paine, Tadeusz Kościuszko, and John Paul Jones. The Great Upheaval is more like three separate books spliced together, one each for France, Russia, and the United States: a survey of the French Revolution; Russia across the Eighteenth Century; and the United States from implementation of the Constitution through the election of Jefferson. Winik appears to have a particular interest in Russia given the many pages it consumes, but Russia had little to do with France and nothing to do with the United States during this period. Winik's mention of Pugachev's Rebellion in the same sentence as the American and French Revolutions (page 572) seems to me the best evidence of his idiosyncratic perspective. The Great Upheaval is not a book about revolutions generally since he says little about the American Revolution and never mentions either England's Glorious Revolution of 1688 or the Haitian Revolution, despite the fact that Winik often mentions a transition from monarchical to republican government. He does not compare and contrast the American and French Revolutions.

Some other, perhaps better, books on the Late Eighteenth Century:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wikipedia Articles:
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