''The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution'' is a 1967

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had ma ...

-winning book of history by

Bernard Bailyn Bernard Bailyn (September 10, 1922 – August 7, 2020) was an American historian, author, and academic specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1953. Bailyn won the Pulitzer Pri ...

. It is considered one of the most influential studies of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

published during the 20th century.

Background

In 1952,

, then a graduate student in history under

Samuel Eliot Morison Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and tau ...

and

Oscar Handlin Oscar Handlin (1915–2011) was an American historian. As a professor of history at Harvard University for over 50 years, he directed 80 PhD dissertations and helped promote social and ethnic history, virtually inventing the field of immigration ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, began receiving financial and career support from the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History. In 1956, critically inspired by

George Bancroft George Bancroft (October 3, 1800 – January 17, 1891) was an American historian, statesman and Democratic politician who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state of Massachusetts and at the national and internati ...

, Bailyn challenged the dichotomy between "national self-awareness" and the study of history. A year later, Bailyn presented a paper on "Politics and Social Structure in Virginia," for a Williamsburg symposium sponsored by the

Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (OI) is an independent research organization located in Williamsburg, Virginia, sponsored by William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg. Founded in 1943, the OI supports the scholars and s ...

. The paper evaluated seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century alterations in emigration, settlement, intermarriage, as well as "social and political structures in Virginia" that contributed to "the origins of a new political system." He expounded these contentions in ''The Origins of American Politics'' (1967-68). At the end of his life, Bailyn disclosed that he had "wrote out" an array of possible approaches to history, "

republican government Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represen ...

," and

popular sovereignty in the United States Popular sovereignty is a doctrine rooted in the belief that each citizen has sovereignty over themselves. Citizens may unite and offer to delegate a portion of their sovereign powers and duties to those who wish to serve as officers of the state, ...

"and buried one of them in a small book on the history of education published in 1960." According to Bailyn, colonial and U.S. education had nourished a "distrust of authority." In 1960-62, he also reviewed the Jefferson Papers and Adams Papers, offering conclusions that framed arguments in ''The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.'' In the expanded 1961-62 version of Bernard Bailyn's 1960 conference paper, "Political Experience and Enlightenment Ideas in Eighteenth-Century America," the oft-cited first footnote contained a multitude of studies that contributed to the article and ''Ideological Origins'', including those by

Forrest McDonald Forrest McDonald, Jr. (January 7, 1927 – January 19, 2016) was an American historian who wrote extensively on the early national period of the United States, republicanism, and the presidency, but he is possibly best known for his polemic on the ...

Caroline Robbins Caroline Robbins or Caroline Herben (18 August 1903 – 8 February 1999) was a British historian who was a professor at Bryn Mawr College. Life Robbins was born in Middlesex in 1903.J. R. Pole, ‘Robbins , Caroline (1903–1999)’, ''Oxford D ...

, Edmund Morgan,

Perry Miller Perry Gilbert Eddy Miller (February 25, 1905 – December 9, 1963) was an American intellectual historian and a co-founder of the field of American Studies. Miller specialized in the history of early America, and took an active role in a revis ...

, and

J. G. A. Pocock John Greville Agard Pocock (; born 7 March 1924) is a historian of political thought from New Zealand. He is especially known for his studies of republicanism in the early modern period (mostly in Europe, Britain, and America), his work on ...

. Pocock later authored '' The Machiavellian Moment''. Bailyn cited Franz Neumann for

Montesquieu Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the principa ...

in ''Ideological Origins''. Neumann's "Anxiety and Politics" (1955) in turn proved pivotal to historian

Richard Hofstadter Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916October 24, 1970) was an American historian and public intellectual of the mid-20th century. Hofstadter was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. Rejecting his earlier histor ...

's conception of the "paranoid style." Likewise, Bailyn did not discuss

Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...

until his 2006 assessment of "perfectionist ideas" found in "

Two Concepts of Liberty "Two Concepts of Liberty" was the inaugural lecture delivered by the liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin before the University of Oxford on 31 October 1958. It was subsequently published as a 57-page pamphlet by Oxford at the Clarendon Press. It a ...

." In 1994, Bailyn cast ''Ideological Origins'' as an inquiry into "the meanings and uses of words." Two years before his death, Bailyn "confessed" that "Mark Bloch, whose main writings—which so often turn on conceptual and etymological transitions—I had studied with great concentration...For Bloch, slow interior shifts in the meaning of words explained or reflected large social transformations," core tenets of

political linguistics Political linguistics is the study of the relations between language and politics. Language is used as a means to form a state and is enacted in various ways that help achieve political objectives. Language allows for people in a very large number t ...

and

linguistic determinism Linguistic determinism is the concept that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies that people's native languages wil ...

. In 1998, Bailyn delivered lectures for the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

and for the

White House Millennium Council The White House Millennium Council was an American organization established by Executive Order 13072 in 1998 by President Bill Clinton as part of the then-upcoming celebrations of the start of the year 2000. The council's theme was "Honor the Pa ...

on significations in visual cultures and built environments, maintaining and updating his interpretation of the

. This elaboration and expansion became the basis for his approach to myriad facets of

Neoclassicism Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative arts, decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. ...

in the preface for the fiftieth anniversary edition of ''Ideological Origins''.

Synopsis

In 1965,

published a renowned introduction, "The Transforming Radicalism of the American Revolution," to the first volume of the January 1965 ''Pamphlets of the American Revolution'', a series of documents of the Revolutionary era which he edited for the John Harvard Library. Two years later, Bailyn published a revised and expanded version of this introduction, entitling it ''The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution''. Bailyn argued that "the 'progressive' historians of the early twentieth century" dismissed "the Revolutionary leaders' professed fears of 'slavery' and of conspiratorial designs as what by then had come to be known as propaganda...in order to accomplish predetermined ends--Independence and in many cases personal advancement." Bailyn distinguished "political liberty" in pamphlets collected by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon from the " 'personal security, personal liberty, and private property' " rooted in a "state of nature." In contrast, "political liberty...was the capacity to exercise 'natural rights' within limits set not by the mere will or desire of men in power but by non-arbitrary law—law enacted by legislatures." But British "laws, grants, and charters... marked out the minimum not the maximum boundaries of right." His "colonists" transitioned from the initial goal of "political liberty" and "personal security, personal liberty, and private property" to a "theory of politics" that conceived of "liberty, then, as the exercise, within the boundaries of the law, of natural rights whose essences were minimally stated in English law and custom." The "colonists" interpreted and appropriated ideas in tracts by Country Party pundits on "left" and "right" sides of the eighteenth-century "opposition spectrum," from Tory writer

Viscount Bolingbroke Viscount Bolingbroke is a current title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1712 for Henry St John. He was simultaneously made Baron St John, of Lydiard Tregoze in the County of Wilts. Since 1751, the titles are merged with the titles of ...

to Walpole Whig Thomas Gordon, both counterintuitively described as the "'left' opposition." As a result, "these libertarian tracts, emerging first in the form of denunciations of standing armies in the reign of William III, left an indelible imprint... Fear of standing armies followed directly from the colonists' understanding of power." The "colonists" instead venerated " assemblages,"

peacetime Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

"militias," and

Minutemen Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Mi ...

. By the same token, Bailyn continued, "the colonists" praised "the spread of freehold tenure" as much as they did a medieval notion of "political liberty based on a landholding system." Bailyn further examined the meanings of "power" in the pamphlets of the

. " 'Power' to them," Bailyn maintained, was "ultimately force, compulsion" with a 'sado-masochistic flavor'... its necessary victim, was liberty." This "liberty" was the concern "only of the governed," not "governors." He cited the writings of

Kenneth Minogue Kenneth Robert Minogue (September 11, 1930 – June 28, 2013), also known as Ken Minogue, was an Australian academic and political theorist. Long residing in the United Kingdom, Minogue was a prominent part of the intellectual life of British ...

and, in the footnotes, argued that the "sexual character of the imagery is made quite explicit in passages of the libertarian literature." Likewise, the antithesis of "corruption" in the British constitutional monarchy was the "virtue" found in British North America—"isolation, institutional simplicity, primitiveness of manners, multiplicity of religions, weakness in the authority of the state." An offshoot of "power" was "sovereignty," the pamphlet meanings of which Bailyn held as "the question of the nature and location of the ultimate power in the state...Who, or what body, was to hold such powers?" According to Bailyn, this question, along with inquiries into "internal" and "external sovereignty," spurred incessant debates. Bailyn concluded with "the belief that ' ''imperium in imperio'' ' overeignty-within-sovereigntywas a solecism and the assumption that the 'sovereignty of the people' and the sovereignty of an organ of government were of the same order of things would remain to haunt the efforts of those who would struggle to build a stable system of federal government."

''The Origins of American Politics''

In 2021, historian Mark Peterson argued that "the separate publication of ''The Origins of American Politics''...distanced tsarguments from ''Ideological Origins'', when ideally they might have been a single book." In three Charles K. Clover lectures on "social and economic history" delivered at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Provide ...

in 1967, later published as ''The Origins of American Politics'', Bailyn held that, as victorious merchants and

landed gentry The landed gentry, or the ''gentry'', is a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. While distinct from, and socially below, the British peerage, th ...

from Connecticut to South Carolina began to jockey for eighteenth-century legislative office, they simultaneously attempted to eliminate governors (and their councils) who distinguished "social and economic leadership" by provincials from "political leadership" by royal and proprietorial magistrates. The stage was thus set for "socio-political" notions to enter this maelstrom as "libertarian doctrines," derived from Country Party tracts published in England by "coffeehouse pamphleteers and journalists." In the 1998 "Politics and the Creative Imagination," Bailyn expanded his source base and analytical categories, including visual significations, from ''The Origins of American Politics''.

1992 ''Postscript''

The postscript to a 1992 edition of ''Ideological Origins'', which alone became the subject of a number of retrospectives, explored notional "interests" underpinning the Constitutional ratification debates as empowered "fulfillment" of "the ideology of the American Revolution." Yet, according to historian

Gordon S. Wood Gordon Stewart Wood (born November 27, 1933) is an American historian and professor at Brown University. He is a recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for '' The Radicalism of the American Revolution'' (1992). His book ''The Creation o ...

, Bailyn's praise for the unity of "liberty and power," a particular ontological unity of "liberty" with a "remarkably formidable federal government," while consistent with his 1967 contentions, lacked critical evaluation. Wood repeated his dissertation observation that this specific unity as "fulfillment" was "certainly what the supporters of the Constitution, the Federalists, wanted everyone to believe."

Antifederalists Anti-Federalism was a late-18th century political movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confe ...

, in contrast, attempted to sustain "liberty and ederal governingpower" as perpetually oppositional. In Wood's opinion, Bailyn's "interpretation of the federal government" as "fulfillment" also underestimated the social impact of the Constitutional reconfiguration of "property" and "money" as "interests." In the early Republic, the notion of "middling people" pursuing their own elastic "interests," which came to encompass the material and non-material, spurred civic activism inaugurated by the framers. "Interests" resulted in a revival of state-issued paper currency and settlement after 1815 as well. Historians such as Alan Taylor, while not completely engaging with Bailyn's undermining of dichotomies in the 1967 edition, did study the transformative potential of notional "interests." Wood, however, believed that present-day readers yearned for more studies on this transformation as potentially enlightening. Conversely, Taylor narrated the transformation only as a "dark and sordid" affair of

settler colonialism Settler colonialism is a structure that perpetuates the elimination of Indigenous people and cultures to replace them with a settler society. Some, but not all, scholars argue that settler colonialism is inherently genocidal. It may be enacte ...

and

chattel slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. Moreover, many of these same historians, in commentaries on ''Ideological Origins'', claimed that Bailyn's concentration on pamphlets was "limited" and "elitist." Wood pointed to comments and evidence in "The Transforming Radicalism of the American Revolution" that Bailyn intended for his interpretation to expand beyond pamphlet readers.

Reception

Julian P. Boyd Julian Parks Boyd, (1903–28 May 1980), was an American professor who was Professor of history at Princeton University. He served as president of the American Historical Association in 1964. For his efforts in preserving the site of the Battle ...

and

Harold Syrett Harold Coffin Syrett (October 22, 1913 – July 29, 1984) was an American historian. He served as the executive editor of ''The Papers of Alexander Hamilton'' and as the fourth president of Brooklyn College. Biography Syrett was born on Presiden ...

, who were, respectively, the general editor of ''The Thomas Jefferson Papers'' and the general editor of ''The Alexander Hamilton Papers'', as well as military historian Louis Morton, comprised the 1967-68 Jury for the

Pulitzer Prize for History The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...

. Bailyn had reviewed "Boyd's Jefferson" seven years prior to the publication of ''Ideological Origins''. The three men unanimously recommended the book as the winner of that award to the Pulitzer Advisory Board. This Board subsequently awarded the book the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for History. In 1968, literati Z.F. Fink, whose publications during World War II germinated research by

in '' The Machiavellian Moment'' and

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

in ''

On Revolution ''On Revolution'' is a 1963 book by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt presents a comparison of two of the main revolutions of the eighteenth century, the American and French Revolutions. History Twelve years after the publication of h ...

'', critiqued ''Ideological Origins'' for not addressing "Continental republicans" and republican thought harkening back to

Renaissance humanism Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teach ...

. Fink argued that the study of history had become "more specialized, more limited in scope, and specific detail in quantities on small matters has grown to proportions hardly dreamed of half a century ago." Yet, as evinced by Bailyn's "synoptic" study, "the view has had to be narrowed and the process has gone on to the point where...it is next to impossible for the mastery of all relevant material." Fink conceded that Bailyn had "demonstrated with far more detail than anyone else and with more applications a relevance" to "English constitutional thought" and the

than previous scholars. But Fink distinguished " republican thought" from Bailyn's "opposition thought" and arguments for its particular relevance. "Most emphatically," Fink declaimed, "it is not true that the author has realized his aim of tracing ackthe eighteenth-century complex of political ideas with which he deals." Fink further observed that "it is not correct to suggest either that this book elaborates a new and compelling interpretation of the American Revolution or that it brings wholly new evidence for the revival of what Professor Bailyn refers to as his 'rather old-fashioned view that the American Revolution was...not primarily a controversy between social groups undertaken to force changes in the organization of the society or the economy.' " In a 2018 retrospective of ''Ideological Origins'', historian

argued that the reception of the book should be considered its own historiographical subfield. Wood cited reviews and comments by Robert Parkinson,

T. H. Breen Timothy H. Breen (born September 5, 1942 in Ohio) is currently the William Smith Mason Professor of American History Emeritus at Northwestern University and a James Marsh Professor at Large at the University of Vermont. He is the founding direc ...

, David Waldstreicher, Michael Zuckerman,

Daniel K. Richter Daniel Karl Richter (born October 15, 1954) is an American historian specializing in early American history, especially colonial North America and Native American history before 1800. He is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of Americ ...

, and Patrick Griffin that, in his assessment, demonstrated a limited comprehension. These scholars never acknowledged Bailyn's challenge to a "dichotomy raised by the Progressive historians of the 1920s and 30s, interests versus ideas, economics versus ideology." Historians who had deemed "limited government" in landholding and trade as latent in ''Ideological Origins'', instead of manifest, were misled. As a consequence, "the placing of Bailyn’s supposed idealist or neo-Whig interpretation in opposition to a materialist-realist or neo-Progressive one reinforces what I believe is a false dichotomy between ideas and interests that has plagued the historical profession for generations." Wood clarified that Bailyn "was merely saying that the severe social and economic causes of the sort that lay behind other revolutions could never by themselves persuasively account for the American Revolution." Bailyn could also at once affirm that the book emerged from " 'a deeply tlanticcontextualist approach to history,' " and that the book "in itself will meet the needs of the present." This collapsed the dichotomy between history as pasts and history as an instrument of present "popular hunger"" for " 'heroic' " validation of our "nation's origins." Wood demurred that "perhaps American history-writing has always been unusually instrumental," as

and

Jack Pole Jack Richon Pole, FBA, FRHistS (14 March 1922 – 30 January 2010) was a British historian of the United States. After holding posts at University College, London and the University of Cambridge, he was Rhodes Professor of American History and In ...

(and Bailyn) had asserted about

and additional historians. But present-day approaches to race, class, and gender were more overt and blatant than such twentieth-century scholarship. According to Wood, Bailyn's reaction to the protracted reception of ''Ideological Origins'' was partially to blame for the confusion. Wood admitted that "so objectionable has Bailyn found the interpretations of the neo-Progressive historians that he has tended to dismiss evidence of any significant social conflict in the years following the ''Declaration of Independence''. " Bailyn's framework for ''Ideological Origins'', averred Wood, partially conformed with Bailyn's interpretation of

Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades. ...

's "Ideology as a Cultural System" (1964): "

ormal In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä, the fictional univ ...

discourse became powerful when it became ideology." In 1966, Wood had explored Bailyn's "conspiracy" thesis, arguing for "the ideas, sthe rhetoric of the Americans" by considering that "Revolutionaries" believed their own "rhetoric" as "always psychologically true." Wood evaluated

Carl L. Becker Carl Lotus Becker (September 7, 1873 – April 10, 1945) was an American historian of the Age of Enlightenment in America and Europe. Life He was born in Waterloo, Iowa. He enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in 1893 as an undergraduate, an ...

as never grasping this insight, especially in Becker's writings on propaganda and a dichotomous understanding of "free trade" ideas versus empowered civil liberties. In the 2018 retrospective, Wood rephrased this thesis as "the ideas, the meanings, available to them." Edmund S. Morgan and

Cold War liberal Cold War liberal is a term that was used in the United States during the Cold War, which began after the end of World War II. The term was used to describe liberal politicians and labor union leaders who supported democracy and equality. They sup ...

consensus historians had rendered the Revolution as "simply a colonial rebellion designed to preserve democracy" against

neomercantilism Neomercantilism (also spelt as neo-mercantilism) is a policy regime that encourages exports, discourages imports, controls capital movement, and centralizes currency decisions in the hands of a central government. The objective of neomercantili ...

and aristocratic strains of "private property." Bailyn could instead "concede all of the economic problems and social aspirations, all the hidden selfish interests motivating the patriots...and still legitimately maintain that it was the colonists’ belief in a conspiracy against liberty that in the end propelled them into Revolution." In 2021, historian Mark Peterson contended that the background for ''Ideological Origins'' shaped Bailyn's principal contribution to historiography--"taking ideas seriously." This emphasis, rather than "grandiloquent theoretical statements," demonstrated Bailyn's belief that "language and rhetoric are not the only forms through which human beings express their thinking or convey their ideas," even if ideas initially derived from Bailyn's notion of "formal discourse." Peterson concluded that "the underlying premises about property and liberty of these eighteenth-century arguments lie at the heart of our altered condition of life." Historian Craig Yirush previously noted that Bailyn, in a pre- Belshamite manner, described "the authors of ''Cato’s Letters'' (a text which, thanks to Bailyn, became central to the republican/liberalism debate) nd_Daniel_T._Rodgers'_background_for_''The_Radicalism_of_the_American_Revolution.html" ;"title="Daniel_T._Rodgers.html" ;"title="nd Daniel T. Rodgers">nd Daniel T. Rodgers' background for ''The Radicalism of the American Revolution">Daniel_T._Rodgers.html" ;"title="nd Daniel T. Rodgers">nd Daniel T. Rodgers' background for ''The Radicalism of the American Revolution''], as 'spokesmen for extreme libertarianism,' a term that recurs frequently in the book" as a linguistic paleonym. In 2022, ''The New England Quarterly'' dedicated an entire issue to the legacy of Bernard Bailyn. In addition to Peterson's previously published ''Notes'', select essays featured brief forays into the constellation of methodologies, prose, and interpretations at play in ''Ideological Origins''. Historian John Putnam Demos, for instance, offered a summary of Bailyn's response to one of the most common questions elicited by ''Ideological Origins'': " '“How widely did this ideology extend?' " In his ''Illuminating History'', Bailyn examined a Boston shopkeeper's 1500-page newspaper cache from the American Revolution, which contained lively annotations "much in line with Bailyn’s ''Origins'' argument." Bailyn also scrutinized sermons and articles by a country preacher in Connecticut as well as myriad township commentaries on the 1777 Massachusetts state constitution, all to demonstrate the "deep 'penetration' of the leaders’ ideology." Demos added that "ideology shaped the cognitive framework of Revolutionary participation, while emotion supplied its passionate, propulsive energy. Admittedly, this is not exactly what Bailyn himself says. But no matter, it’s there—abundantly so—in his presentation of the documents themselves." Demos subsequently evaluated Bailyn's studies on Atlantic migratory patterns and their entanglement with Johann Conrad Beissel's compositional frameworks---the basis of

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

and sonic spirituality in the

Ephrata Cloister The Ephrata Cloister or Ephrata Community was a religious community, established in 1732 by Johann Conrad Beissel at Ephrata, in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The grounds of the community are now owned by the Commonwealth of P ...

until its Revolutionary decline.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, The 1967 non-fiction books American history books History books about the American Revolution Works about the history of political thought 20th-century history books Harvard University Press books Pulitzer Prize for History-winning works