This is a volatile reinterpretation of nineteenth-century
liberalism in the Anglo-American Community (England, America and
Canada). Kelley, a historian at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, presents the "Liberal-Democratic" stance as essentially
anti-Establishment espoused by "outsiders" who called for a
pluralistic world community. Beginning with the intellectual
inheritance, he offers a radicalized Adam Smith as the central
theoretician; reclaims Edmund Burke from the conservatives,
labeling him the "prophet of the Liberals" in England; and-assigns
Jefferson a comparable role among Democrats in America. Gladstone's
career is the book's touchstone, though there is heavy emphasis on
Tilden and Cleveland and, to a lesser degree, on Canadians George
Brown and Alexander Mackenzie. Kelley does demonstrate a strong
plausibility for his thesis that men and ideas crossed the Atlantic
with equal frequency and that there are some parallel strands on
both continents, but, he is careful not to overstate the case.
Though there is enough background for the general reader, Kelley's
book will appeal mainly to historians - some of whom may take
issue. (Kirkus Reviews)
This pioneering work is the basic and largely unmatched study of
the single transatlantic community of thought shared by nineteenth
century British and Canadian Liberals and American Democrats. The
result of more than tens years of comparative research, "The
Transatlantic Persuasion" explores the roots of those ideas hat
comprise a coherent Liberal-Democratic worldview: ideas about
society, human relations, the economy, equality, liberty, the
ethnocultural dimension of life, the proper role and nature of
government, and the world community. In Britain, Canada, and the
United States, Liberal-Democrats saw themselves as battlers against
social evils caused by corrupt, self-seeking aristocracies. This
was true whether their power was based on business wealth, land, or
vested religious privilege; and in all three countries they
developed practically identical public policy agendas. Widely
praised for its graceful narrative style, its intriguing political
and cultural analysis, and its sensitive feeling for the nuances of
personality and the human condition, "The Transatlantic Persuasion"
finds that cultural forces such as ethnicity, religion, and style
of life have played an astonishingly central role in politics.
Kelley sees a similar confrontation within each of the three
countries between the core culture, including the Establishment and
its institutions, and the outgroups, the culturally, socially, and
often economically peripheral peoples. In Britain, for example, the
Tories (Conservatives) were the aggressively dominant English, who
look down on such minorities as the Scots and the Irish. These
outgroups gathered within Gladstone's Liberal party, and from this
base fought for equal status and treatment against prejudices.
Similar patterns in Canada and the United States led to Kelley to
conclude that these cultural facts of life were as important and
powerful in public life as those that were purely economic in
nature. Greeted with praise on its original publication in the
general media as well as in major scholarly journals, "The
Transatlantic Persuasion" performs history's highest office: It
explains the present by placing it in the deep perspective of time,
thus demonstrating how the past prefigures and shapes current
events.
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