Weekend Book Review - Leap in the Dark

As we know history is written by the victors and later rewritten by the new victors. There has been a lot of rewriting going on since Ronald Reagan's victory almost 30 years ago. In addition we are for the most part given a sanitized version of history in elementary and secondary school. John Ferling, a Professor of History at the State University of West Georgia, tries to set the record straight in A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic. Ferling begins this narrative in the 1750's, long before the war, and ends it with the election of 1800.  


Some of the subjects covered:

• The American revolution was far from inevitable.
• Men like Samuel Adams were major players and drivers in the revolution although today Sam Adams is little more than a footnote and a beer and many others not even that.
• The importance of the behind the scenes activity of John Adams and his ideological conflicts with Thomas Jefferson.
• The US was not created as a Christian nation and that many of the founders were not Christian and in the case of Jefferson and others hostile towards Christianity.
• The Boson Tea Party was really a protest against corporate power not taxes.

John Ferling is both a brilliant historian and a very capable writer who has given us a very readable book. I highly recommend this this look at our history.

A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic
by John E. Ferling