What do you think?
Rate this book
Illuminating History: A Retrospective of Seven Decades
The brilliance of a master historian shines through this “elegant and engaging memoir” of a lifetime’s work (Richard Aldous, Wall Street Journal).
Over a remarkable career Bernard Bailyn has reshaped our understanding of the early American past. Inscribing his superb scholarship with passion and imagination honed by a commitment to rigor, Bailyn captures the particularity of the past and its broad significance in precise, elegant prose. His transformative work has ranged from a new reckoning with the ideology that powered the opposition to British authority in the American Revolution, to a sweeping account of the peopling of America, and the critical nurturing of a new field, the history of the Atlantic world.
Illuminating History is the most personal of Bailyn’s works. It is in part an intellectual memoir of the significant turns in an immensely productive and influential scholarly career. It is also alive with people whose actions touched the long arc of history. Among the dramatic human stories that command our a struggling Boston merchant tormented by the tensions between capitalist avarice and a constrictive Puritan piety; an ordinary shopkeeper who in a unique way feverishly condemned British authority as corrupt and unworthy of public confidence; a charismatic German Pietist who founded a cloister in the Pennsylvania wilderness famous for its strange theosophy, its spartan lifestyle, and its rich musical and artistic achievement. And the good townspeople of Petersham, whose response in 1780 to a draft Massachusetts constitution speaks directly to us through a moving insistence on individual freedoms in the face of an imposing central authority. Here is vivid history and an illuminating self-portrait from one of the most eminent historians of our time.
Over a remarkable career Bernard Bailyn has reshaped our understanding of the early American past. Inscribing his superb scholarship with passion and imagination honed by a commitment to rigor, Bailyn captures the particularity of the past and its broad significance in precise, elegant prose. His transformative work has ranged from a new reckoning with the ideology that powered the opposition to British authority in the American Revolution, to a sweeping account of the peopling of America, and the critical nurturing of a new field, the history of the Atlantic world.
Illuminating History is the most personal of Bailyn’s works. It is in part an intellectual memoir of the significant turns in an immensely productive and influential scholarly career. It is also alive with people whose actions touched the long arc of history. Among the dramatic human stories that command our a struggling Boston merchant tormented by the tensions between capitalist avarice and a constrictive Puritan piety; an ordinary shopkeeper who in a unique way feverishly condemned British authority as corrupt and unworthy of public confidence; a charismatic German Pietist who founded a cloister in the Pennsylvania wilderness famous for its strange theosophy, its spartan lifestyle, and its rich musical and artistic achievement. And the good townspeople of Petersham, whose response in 1780 to a draft Massachusetts constitution speaks directly to us through a moving insistence on individual freedoms in the face of an imposing central authority. Here is vivid history and an illuminating self-portrait from one of the most eminent historians of our time.
283 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 14, 2020
15 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
About the author
Bernard Bailyn
102 books128 followersBernard Bailyn is an American historian, author, and professor specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1953. Bailyn has won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice (in 1968 and 1987). In 1998 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 16, 2020
The Introduction was interesting, but the first two major chapters were not. Deeply uninteresting, for me. What appealed to me were his personal anecdotes, which were pretty cool -- he's been around for a long, long time. 98 years old, as of 2020! This review reports stuff I found interesting, and the rest, the majority of the book, that I skimmed, looking for more good stuff. This is not a book for a casual reader, even one (like me) who enjoys reading popular history. Much of the book I found confusing, pointless or both. In my multiple attempts to finish this short book, I did a lot of skimming. The gem is "The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr.", in Chapter 3.
Chapter 1 relates internal doctrinal disputes among mid-17th century New England Puritans. I mean, who cares? Chapter 2 involves the author attempting to work out the family structures for early New England settlers. He consulted English parish census records, and a rare surviving census of a north Austrian lordship in 1763. He relates disputes among academic historians on how to interpret this stuff. I got lost (again) on a second try. I wasn't interested enough to sort it out.
Chapter 3 turned out to be the first one to really catch my interest. After one anodyne section, he wrote about the remarkable archive of annotated newspapers collected by one Harbottle Dorr, a Boston merchant. Between 1765 and 1777, Dorr collected, annotated and indexed 3,280 pages of Boston newspapers, which have come down to the present day almost intact. Some of his marginal notes are remarkably pungent. Dorr's archives are at the Massachusetts Historical Society, who have put them online, with commentary: http://masshist.org/dorr/about This is wonderful stuff. The MHS collection, now complete, was started in 1798!
Second, in 1780 a draft constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was submitted to all the cities and towns for comments and amendments. 278 communities replied; their responses were preserved in the state archives, and Bailyn analyzes them in some depth. Some of the issues raised then, he writes, have not been resolved even 240 years later. Interesting reading.
Chapter 4 starts out very interesting, recounting Bailyn's efforts to identify early settlers to British North America even to individuals, with some success. But then he veers off into a long discussion of a very odd Utopian community that a German immigrant founded in early Colonial Pennsylvania. I got lost in the details, and quickly lost interest.
Chapter 5 should have been good, as he starts out examining trans-Atlantic trade patterns in the 17th century. But once again, the author gets lost in a welter of irrelevant details of academic conferences and seminars -- with occasional tidbits that I wish he'd followed up on: "Women's role in fostering the slave trade in Igboland of Nigeria." Wow -- tell us more! Alas, not to be. Another dud chapter.
The Epilogue is brief excerpts from various of his miscellaneous writings, mostly set in italics. I had trouble making sense of it. After awhile, I gave up. Fortunately, the Appendix has brief biographies of two notable Harvard historians. One, of Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976), was particularly interesting. Morison was an unconventional historian who spent much of his career at Harvard. In 1942, he convinced the US Navy to appoint him to write a history of United States naval operations in World War II, which was published in 15 volumes between 1947 and 1962. Also in 1942, Morison published his history of the late 15th and early 16th century Columbus voyages. His research included actually sailing to all the places that Columbus explored, work that he had begun in 1925 with research in the Spanish archives. He verified every reported landfall, and confirmed that Columbus was a skilled navigator. For me, this was the best part of Bailyn's book.
The author seems largely unable to summarize his work for a general audience (ie me). Which is a real pity, since he's done some interesting-sounding stuff. Oh, well. Maybe it will make more sense to historians specializing in American colonial history? There's enough good stuff that you may want to check out your library's copy and browse through it, after you read the more positive reviews. For me, 2.5 stars, rounded down for the lost opportunities. And my annoyance at spending way more time on the book than it was worth.
Here's the review that led me to try to read it, published in the WSJ:
A short retrospective, by a Harvard history professor-emeritus, in his 98th year! https://www.wsj.com/articles/illumina... (Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
In 1953, "Mr. Bailyn received his Ph.D. from Harvard. With the help of influential teachers, including Samuel Eliot Morison..., he quickly secured a teaching position at the university and never really left. ... His book is laced with personal reminiscence, told with a light touch and gentle humor. He was a bookish child growing up in Connecticut and then went to Williams College as an undergraduate. .... Then came the Signal Corps and military intelligence during World War II: “I had qualified in French, but they put me into the German program,” he writes in characteristic deadpan fashion. It was “a typical army kind of thing.” He entered graduate school at Harvard in 1946 on the GI Bill, finding the place “not only crowded but competitive.” When he turned up for his first meeting with Morison, he discovered him still dressed in his rear admiral’s naval uniform. No wonder everything “seemed to be out of kilter.”
Chapter 1 relates internal doctrinal disputes among mid-17th century New England Puritans. I mean, who cares? Chapter 2 involves the author attempting to work out the family structures for early New England settlers. He consulted English parish census records, and a rare surviving census of a north Austrian lordship in 1763. He relates disputes among academic historians on how to interpret this stuff. I got lost (again) on a second try. I wasn't interested enough to sort it out.
Chapter 3 turned out to be the first one to really catch my interest. After one anodyne section, he wrote about the remarkable archive of annotated newspapers collected by one Harbottle Dorr, a Boston merchant. Between 1765 and 1777, Dorr collected, annotated and indexed 3,280 pages of Boston newspapers, which have come down to the present day almost intact. Some of his marginal notes are remarkably pungent. Dorr's archives are at the Massachusetts Historical Society, who have put them online, with commentary: http://masshist.org/dorr/about This is wonderful stuff. The MHS collection, now complete, was started in 1798!
Second, in 1780 a draft constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was submitted to all the cities and towns for comments and amendments. 278 communities replied; their responses were preserved in the state archives, and Bailyn analyzes them in some depth. Some of the issues raised then, he writes, have not been resolved even 240 years later. Interesting reading.
Chapter 4 starts out very interesting, recounting Bailyn's efforts to identify early settlers to British North America even to individuals, with some success. But then he veers off into a long discussion of a very odd Utopian community that a German immigrant founded in early Colonial Pennsylvania. I got lost in the details, and quickly lost interest.
Chapter 5 should have been good, as he starts out examining trans-Atlantic trade patterns in the 17th century. But once again, the author gets lost in a welter of irrelevant details of academic conferences and seminars -- with occasional tidbits that I wish he'd followed up on: "Women's role in fostering the slave trade in Igboland of Nigeria." Wow -- tell us more! Alas, not to be. Another dud chapter.
The Epilogue is brief excerpts from various of his miscellaneous writings, mostly set in italics. I had trouble making sense of it. After awhile, I gave up. Fortunately, the Appendix has brief biographies of two notable Harvard historians. One, of Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976), was particularly interesting. Morison was an unconventional historian who spent much of his career at Harvard. In 1942, he convinced the US Navy to appoint him to write a history of United States naval operations in World War II, which was published in 15 volumes between 1947 and 1962. Also in 1942, Morison published his history of the late 15th and early 16th century Columbus voyages. His research included actually sailing to all the places that Columbus explored, work that he had begun in 1925 with research in the Spanish archives. He verified every reported landfall, and confirmed that Columbus was a skilled navigator. For me, this was the best part of Bailyn's book.
The author seems largely unable to summarize his work for a general audience (ie me). Which is a real pity, since he's done some interesting-sounding stuff. Oh, well. Maybe it will make more sense to historians specializing in American colonial history? There's enough good stuff that you may want to check out your library's copy and browse through it, after you read the more positive reviews. For me, 2.5 stars, rounded down for the lost opportunities. And my annoyance at spending way more time on the book than it was worth.
Here's the review that led me to try to read it, published in the WSJ:
A short retrospective, by a Harvard history professor-emeritus, in his 98th year! https://www.wsj.com/articles/illumina... (Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
In 1953, "Mr. Bailyn received his Ph.D. from Harvard. With the help of influential teachers, including Samuel Eliot Morison..., he quickly secured a teaching position at the university and never really left. ... His book is laced with personal reminiscence, told with a light touch and gentle humor. He was a bookish child growing up in Connecticut and then went to Williams College as an undergraduate. .... Then came the Signal Corps and military intelligence during World War II: “I had qualified in French, but they put me into the German program,” he writes in characteristic deadpan fashion. It was “a typical army kind of thing.” He entered graduate school at Harvard in 1946 on the GI Bill, finding the place “not only crowded but competitive.” When he turned up for his first meeting with Morison, he discovered him still dressed in his rear admiral’s naval uniform. No wonder everything “seemed to be out of kilter.”
May 19, 2020
There is a point in the later third of this haphazard intellectual memoir where Bernard Bailyn marvels at the breadth and depth of Fernand Braudel's knowledge. One cannot help but be astounded that someone like Bailyn would be gobsmacked by anyone else's erudition and intellect. This book is one of those where you realize that there are some people on this earth have forgotten more than you can ever know. In this book we find Bailyn, at 97, tossing out some random thoughts about some things he's learned and researched along the way. He kicks it off with an autobiographical essay that follows the model established Harvard professor, Samuel Eliot Morison, in downplaying his accomplishments. Then we get started on the things here and there that sometimes propelled and occasionally inspired Bailyn. One cannot help but be humbled by traipsing along with Bailyn as he touches on different topics. I will say this book may not be for everyone - I believe you really have to love history to enjoy. If you do love American History though you will be rewarded diving into this one. It is not a long book but you will not want to rush through it. It is one of those that you wish to savor every page.
August 16, 2020
Collections of essays are often the culmination of a career well-spent in academia. They can provide a sense of fulfillment and a culmination of a distinguished career. Illuminating History: A Retrospective of Seven Decades, (New York: WW Norton and Co., 2020, 274pgs, $28.95 US, $38.95, Can) by Bernard Bailyn, is just such a culmination. Bailyn, (who died a week previous to this review), was a historian first introduced to the American academic world and reading public with his The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (1955) and famously, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967). This brief collection of essays, written fully in the vein of those earlier works, is a welcome addition to the world of historical literature and professionalism. It would serve well as a graduate school seminar selection or an introduction to the world of Colonial America.
Illuminating History, $16.95 on Amazon, is a collection of essays dealing with a variety of themes related to Colonial America. There is an essay on Thomas Hutchinson, who Bailyn argues was misunderstood, as well as a German religious commune built in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. Bailyn also describes the work of historians and especially how important the work of supporting burgeoning historians should be to the academic world. It is this reviewers’ humble opinion that a majority of the academic institutions in the United States have forgotten that idea, and instead continue to isolate themselves through their unrealistic entrance requirements to their horrible treatment of most adjunct instructors. Historians should Illuminating History with an eye to improving their own practice and supporting the success of others.
Illuminating History is a fitting end to a wonderful career. There should not be an historian practicing in America today who is not familiar with Bailyn’s work. His work was narrative in nature but technical in style. The same interesting prose is present here as was present in 1955. I dedicate this review to Professor Bailyn’s memory, to his career, and his impact on generations of fellow practitioners. Read it with a sense of respect but also a sense of wonder.
Matt
Illuminating History, $16.95 on Amazon, is a collection of essays dealing with a variety of themes related to Colonial America. There is an essay on Thomas Hutchinson, who Bailyn argues was misunderstood, as well as a German religious commune built in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. Bailyn also describes the work of historians and especially how important the work of supporting burgeoning historians should be to the academic world. It is this reviewers’ humble opinion that a majority of the academic institutions in the United States have forgotten that idea, and instead continue to isolate themselves through their unrealistic entrance requirements to their horrible treatment of most adjunct instructors. Historians should Illuminating History with an eye to improving their own practice and supporting the success of others.
Illuminating History is a fitting end to a wonderful career. There should not be an historian practicing in America today who is not familiar with Bailyn’s work. His work was narrative in nature but technical in style. The same interesting prose is present here as was present in 1955. I dedicate this review to Professor Bailyn’s memory, to his career, and his impact on generations of fellow practitioners. Read it with a sense of respect but also a sense of wonder.
Matt
March 18, 2025
This book is pretty clearly slapped together - a mix of essays Bailyn wrote for other venues, reminisces, and excerpts. To me, the retrospective of the title was worth the price of admission. Over the course of 5 chapters, Bailyn traces the five projects which have defined his career by looking at key sources he found or initiatives he was a part of. The most interesting chapter historically speaking, is probably chapter 3, essentially an offshoot of Bailyn’s work on The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Chapters 1 and 4 are also interesting and introduced me to sources and personalities from early America with which I was unfamiliar. Chapters 2 and 5 however were a bit of a let down. While I liked walking through Bailyn’s career alongside him, he clearly had less of his own insights to share about early American education and social structure (chapter 2) and, ironically enough, Atlantic history (5). The final chapter on Atlantic history is essentially a list of presentations given at the Harvard Atlantic History seminar - clearly very important to Bailyn and central to his legacy, but not very interesting as reading.
Reading this is like listening to a brilliant older relative tell you stories from across their life - sometimes the things they’re telling you matter deeply to them but less so to you, but you appreciate the opportunity to hear the stories anyway.
Reading this is like listening to a brilliant older relative tell you stories from across their life - sometimes the things they’re telling you matter deeply to them but less so to you, but you appreciate the opportunity to hear the stories anyway.
February 22, 2023
Part history lesson, part memoir, this collection of essays by historian Bernard Bailyn provides a look at his studies over a long career and a glimpse of a career I can only envy. A lot. I was especially taken by his outlining the development of the field of Atlantic History - an area that he was instrumental in establishing. A common theme these days is the interconnectedness of, well, everything. Acceptance of that idea is relatively recent, but it is well established. So it is hard to imagine a time when historians did not connect the dots between four continents to develop a field that came to be known as Atlantic history. Those are just a few of the revealing essays in this book. Yes, sometimes he gets a bit academic, but there's nothing really wrong with that.
May 1, 2020
Terrific read. A brief glimpse into the seven decades of one of our preeminent historians. At times funny, informative, and always, genuine. Terrific read.
April 20, 2024
Appropriate for doctoral student study, but not very accessible or interesting for the average historian.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews