The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 [Paperback]

This concise literary history of the American Enlightenment captures the varied and conflicting voices of religious and political conviction in the decades when the new nation was formed. Robert Fergusons trenchant interpretation yields new understanding of this pivotal period for American culture.[A] learned, highly intelligent study of American revolutionary writing& Fergusons chapters on the intellectual and social sources of the revolution, on how the rhetoric of revolutionary writing works now and worked then, politically, and on aspects of the American enlightenment, are masterful: original, challenging, immensely informative.[The] chapter on Religious Voices is a tour de force of intelligence and conviction& In his concluding chapter [we] hear the voices of Native and African Americans& Fergusons narrative [is] engrossing.The best interpretation of the American Enlightenment since that of Henry F. May& [It] should be required reading for anyone concerned with eighteenth-century American thought.Robert Ferguson seeks an understanding of the American Revolution through a survey of the eras literature. He examines the use of formal elements and generic combinations in public documents, and political and religious writings, and conveys the impact such writings had. Here, the Revolution is the greatest literary achievement of the eighteenth-century America& The literature which motivated the public (from the British and Americans, loyalists and patriots, secular and the religious) undergoes a close reading and analysis.Fergusons study is arguably the most stimulating treatment of the period in a generation, a work replete with often stunning examples of how the Founding Fathers did two interrelated things, one practical and the other cultural. The first was to forge artificial unities amidst a contentious, far-flung populance&[and the] second was to use the spoken discourse, written texts, and public actions in which [its] aesthetic was embodied to advanlós