Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution

by Andrew M. Schocket

Explores how politicians, screenwriters, activists, biographers, jurists, museum professionals, and reenactors portray the American Revolution.

The American Revolution is all around us. It is pictured as big as billboards and as small as postage stamps, evoked in political campaigns and car advertising campaigns, relived in museums and revised in computer games. As the nation’s founding moment, the American Revolution serves as a source of powerful founding myths, and remains the most accessible and most contested event in US more than any other, it stands as a proxy for how Americans perceive the nation’s aspirations. Americans’ increased fascination with the Revolution over the past
two decades represents more than interest in the past. It’s also a site to work out the present, and the future. What
are we using the Revolution to debate?

In Fighting over the Founders , Andrew M. Schocket explores how politicians, screenwriters, activists, biographers, jurists, museum professionals, and reenactors portray the American Revolution. Identifying competing “essentialist” and “organicist” interpretations of the American Revolution, Schocket shows how today’s memories of the American Revolution reveal Americans' conflicted ideas about class, about race, and about gender―as well as the nature of history itself. Fighting over the Founders plumbs our views of the past and the present, and illuminates our ideas of what United States means to its citizens in the new millennium.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, American Revolution

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 16, 2015

About the author

Andrew M. Schocket is Director of American Culture Studies and Associate Professor of History and American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University (OH). He is the author of Founding Corporate Power in Early National Philadelphia.

Reviews

[Mike Clinton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I assigned this book in a course that introduces (gen ed) college students to historical thinking and linked it to the take-home final exam essay as a way to induce them to read it. The book has considerable value as an exercise in prompting non-specialists to notice in a critical way how often they encounter references to the American Revolution--and, by extension, other narrative references to the past--and the ideological claims they make and insinuate. My regard for this book seems to be higher than many critics here on Goodreads and among the professional reviews the book received, which I collected, presented, and also assigned to students. Most fix on the essentialist/organicist axis that Schocket introduces to analyze the ideological approaches that frame discussions about the American Revolution; however, Schocket himself acknowledges its limits and discusses various alternatives he considered but laid aside and applies the concepts as overlapping fields rather than rigid dichotomies, an appropriate way to deal with any hermeneutic.

[victor harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting analysis of the different interpretations of American Revolution and how those views are used to bolster current political stances and rhetoric. Schocket breaks the historiography into two basic camps. There is the "essentialist" which hails the Founders as godly, infallible types of a monolithic mindset who composed the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as scriptural documents that are absolute and not subject to any flexibility. This is the view of much of the Supreme Court and many conservatives as they recite the mantra of " original intent." This view also tends to reduce women and minorities to spectators and props for the almost exclusively white male Founders.

In the opposite camp is the " organicist" view, which sees greater latitude in interpreting the documents and Founders as America strives " to form a more perfect union." They also adhere to a more multi-cultural mindset and show a diversity of opinion within the colonial milieu.
The breakdown and presentation of the respective viewpoints is done very well as the author shows how court decisions, films, and literature on the Founders tends to slant toward one position or the other. It could have used some editing with the ungainly paragraphs and the section on museums and historical sites was a little esoteric. Nevertheless, still worth reading as how the Founders are viewed still informs much of the current cultural and political debate.

[Eugene A. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pop history. Just a comparison or essentialism and originalism. Weak historiography displaying the authors personal bias. The book does not live up to its title.

[Dan Graser · Rating 3 out of 5]

This survey of contemporary interpretations of the American Revolution would make a good introductory text for a survey course, however, ultimately lacks the depth and specificity needed for more advanced study and will hold little interest for those already somewhat familiar with the subject.

Framed around essentialist and organicist philosophies on the founders' intent, Schocket discusses in very cursory form how these versions of our nation's founding have worked their way into movies, TV, museums and historical reenactments, and various high-profile books of history and biography. This last area could have been greatly expanded as he spends just enough time to take a few swipes at familiar authors, but decides not to engage with these works in any great detail

Our endless fascination with this time and the people associated with it always makes for interesting reading, hence the popularity of the aforementioned genre of books. It remains unfortunate that every election cycle we have to be bludgeoned over the head as to who the true successor to this tradition is and receive a hopelessly distorted picture of the actual history surrounding this time and these individuals. This is an area I wish received much more attention in this work. Oddly enough, Schocket spends most of his time with museums and reenactment societies, only taking a passing interest in the politics around the issue and the huge number of best-selling works of biography and history with some emphasis on David McCullough's popular John Adams book (later turned into an HBO series).

Perhaps recommended to those teaching a course on Revolutionary America, however, lacks the detail necessary to hold the attention of avid readers in this area.

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Fighting Over the Founders, Schocket engages in an impressive amount of research in his attempt to write a definitive source exploring the depths to which the American Revolution continues to permeate American society. He evaluates not only contemporary opinion of the Founding generation, but also records the ways in which they have been celebrated or criticized in American memory.
The resulting monograph is apportioned into five chapters, with each focusing on a distinct medium of interpretation: political speeches, historians and “Founders Chic,” museums and historical sites, and television and film. The fifth chapter focuses more on the act of re-creation within the context of legal studies, political movements, and historical reenactments of the war itself. In these chapters, Schocket boils down interpretations of the Revolution into two opposing groups- “organicists” and “essentialists”- and it is this categorization which guides the totality of his work.
According to Schocket’s definition, essentialists are, at their core, conservative. essentialists view the Revolution as a divinely inspired event, “a legacy from which straying would be treason and result in the nation’s ruin.” Ultimately, they view the principles of the Founders as constant in an ever-changing world, with only one correct understanding. Schocket argues that a majority of politicians, authors, museums, reenactors, etc. convey essentialist sentiments, whether they mean to or not.

[Aaron Urbanski · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accessible interpretation of how the American Revolution appears in political discourse, academic writing, and popular culture during roughly the first decade of the 2000s. Schocket's analysis of how politicians access the American Revolution is strengthened by his use of online tools to mine for words and phrases found in campaign speeches. Hard data in the writings of scholars is always a plus. But there are pitfalls to writing about historical memory. It is difficult to pin down "why" an event is remembered across the geography of a place like the United States. Additionally, personal views on politics and culture rarely allow a book like this to avoid bias. Schocket is open about these difficulties. Overall, this book demonstrates there are scientific approaches to discussing something rather unscientific like historical memory.

Five stars here if the notes and suggestions for further reading are arranged more effectively!

[Nrosenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puts into words what you’ve always known, but been unable to say yourself! I found this book to be incredibly helpful in articulating how I feel about politics and the use of our country’s founding in so many narratives.

[David Lucander · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really well-written book, the author deserves credit for using "Scrabble" words and not coming off as pretentious. Unlike most books I enjoy, this one does not even have footnotes (there's a bib. essay). This is one of the better of the "memory" style books, right on par with Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory as a work of cultural studies and history but this is written in a very accessible, sometimes first person, voice. NYU Press has put out some fine books lately, and this might be the best of them.

[Jennifer Eckel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. I will never visit another historical site or watch a movie on the Revolution without evaluating the writer's approach. Hopefully it will appeal to us who are neither total Essentialists, or absolute Organicists. I do believe in the founders as heroes, though very imperfect ones. I also believe that the story constantly emerges and there is a story for everyone to tell. I have Revolutionary ancestors, even a Minuteman or two in my tree. I hope someday someone will tell their stories, and include the families and women they left behind..

[Zach Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My recap for National Journal: http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazi...

[Alec Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good survey of the current interpretations, depictions and uses of the American Revolution, the founding fathers, and the constitution.

[Loretta Gaffney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thin on the Tea Party, but a very insightful take on the politics of history.

[Naum · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that probably would be better served to be served up as a paper.