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Ideology andSocialChange inRevolutionary America Aleine Austin.Matthew Lyon:·;Vew Man"of the Democratic Revolution 1749-1822. UniversityPark: Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 1981. !92 +xiipp. Lawrence Delbert Cress. Citizens in Arms: The Armyand the Militia in American Societ~· to the Warof 1812.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. 238 +xivpp. Drew McCoy.The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America. Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress, 1980.268 + xi pp. Reginald C. Stuart Eversince J. Franklin Jameson published his little book on the American Revolutionas a social movement, historians have probed the issue of social changein Revolutionary America. Currently, social and intellectual history haveblended comfortably, and in turn inform more traditional topics. Sc,it seems a natural product of historiographical evolution to have a social study ofthemilitary and an intellectual study of economics. But this trend relates closelyto another aspect of the historiography of the Revolutionary era the ideological interpretation of politics, constitutionalism and law that beganwith Bernard Bailyn's seminal studies of the 1960s. The three books under review bob safely in the social-ideological mainstream .They also show the wealth of new talent among scholars of the Revolutionaryera who sift and resift the evidence in search of fresh insights. Thefield is now so rich and diverse that neophytes must grow pale when theybehold the bibliographies. For those conversant with the literature, however, the ideology of republicanism has emerged in the past two decades asthe most widely used explanatory device, not only for political and constitutional topics, but also in social, economic, mstitutional and military subjects.Currently, champions of ideology compete with spokesmen for self-interestto explain the events and personalities of the Revolutionary era, apointbrought home by Aleine Austin's study of Matthew Lyon. It remains tobeseen which school will gain the upper hand, or whether a new synthesis CanadianReview of American Studies, Volume 15,Number 2,Summer 1984, 159-165 160 Reginald C.Stuart will emerge from the debate. The proliferation, in some cases fragmentation of the literature suggests that we are in need of a new synthesis, but itwill prove a daunting assignment. Together, these books also suggest the need for balance because the emphasis on ideology, however sophisticated and subtle its execution, generates an ethereal atmosphere that at times seems detached from reality. Drew McCoy's book illustrates the problem. This is a stimulating analysis of eighteenth-century ideas on political economy, emphasizing the importance of Scottish thinkers, such as David Hume, for Revolutionary Americans. McCoy's study carries the political-economy concept past the Revolution, through the policy debates of the 1790s and 1800s, and finishes withthe transition that settled in following the War of 1812.The Revolutionary leaders believed that economies moved through successive historical phases from primitive simplicity to a mass manufacturing system. By the final stage,societv had become decadent, citizens had lost their independence and virtu;, politics had become corrupt, and the civilization was on the verge ofcollapse, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Logan featured among those Revolutionary Americans who feared such a future for their new republic. At the other end of the ideological spectrum stood "moderns,'' such as Alexander Hamilton and Robert Morris, who welcomed the change. In between were moderates, most notably James Madison, who knew that economic change was inevitable, but who sought policies to forestall the inevitable social decline. This is an exciting line of argument, but not without its difficulties. The emphasis on ideology occasionally seems overdrawn and McCoy focuses upon a few leaders, so we do not penetrate very far into American society to see how widespread this ideological perception might have been. And how much control could such leaders exert over a decentralized, dispersed, young country? Residents of the Champlain Valley and New England, for example. defied regulations and developed a profitable, persistent and illegal trade with the British provinces from 1783forward. How did the personal interests and experience of the spokesmen for the alternative directions of a republican political economy interweave with the books they read or their reflective idealism? As Aleine Austin shows in her study of Matthew Lyon, local needs and personal ambitions took precedence at agrass-roots level.Despite McCoy's persuasive prose, one wonders through it...

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