Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution against Patriarchal Authority 1750-1800

by Jay Fliegelman

The author traces a constellation of intimately related ideas - about the nature of parental authority and filial rights, of moral obligation of Scripture, of the growth of the mind and the nature of historical progress - from their most important English and continental expressions in a variety of literary and theological texts, to their transmission, reception and application in Revolutionary America and in the early national period of American culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Tim Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on American literature of the mid to late 18th century.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I opened Fliegelman’s book with a cynic’s attitude, one that has no doubt been soured by the political landscape of the past few years. For some time now, basing opinion upon high school history lessons confined to the very political and generic historical approaches that the author criticizes, the cynic in me has viewed the American Revolution as merely a power grab with enormous economic gains cloaked in a pseudo-idealist language meant to distract from the real motives of early American colonists, or in a word: greed. After all, George Bush invaded Iraq to free its peoples from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, right? What Prodigals & pilgrims reveals is the truly exciting heterodoxy that was infiltrating not only political thought, but seemingly every single aspect of human thought regarding the human condition. I imagine the world during that period as a brain, and all the various thinkers as firing synapses, and that image renders the Hegelian notion of the universe achieving consciousness through human thought not so ridiculous as it normally seems to me. My only quibble regards the definition of “patriarchal.” How could this revolution be against patriarchal authority when it seemed to be predominantly about fathers? From my understanding of Fliegelman’s argument, what changed in this revolution was the type of father that became the ideal. Despite talking of “parents,” and aside from a handful of tokens regarding women, the predominant debates and examples concern men or fathers and their children. Patriarchal authority was alive and well in this newly-formed country run by white, land-owning males. Perhaps inserting the word “tyrannical” into the title would offend me less, as in “tyrannical patriarchal authority.” Otherwise, I would recommend this as a text well worth reading.