Reviews for Finding Freedom: America's Distinctive Cultural Formation

The average rating for Finding Freedom: America's Distinctive Cultural Formation based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-09-17 00:00:00 Justin Watterson Basch's work hopes to explain how and why the United States obtained a legal structure and cultural climate to allow divorce on a large scale during the nineteenth century. She does this by structuring her work into three sections that roughly mirror the trajectory of divorce in American law and culture from approximately the end of the American Revolution to 1870. These sections also parse out three types of sources, law, judicial, and cultural (the printed word). She calls each section a "frame" to discuss how each was a "encircling of many old and familiar components" regarding divorce. [5] And while culture played a large role in the framing of divorce, it was ultimately the law that reformers (and politicians) kept returning to as the problem, in either that it made divorce too easy or too difficult to obtain. By envisioning marriage as more of a secular rather than a sacred contract, divorce became a possible (and needed, according to some) remedy to broken contracts. Marriage as a contract and the state's ability to regulate it also allowed divorces to serve as ways to allow divorced individuals to remarry--to have the ability to find new mates and reaffirm the necessity of marriage and the state's role in regulating it. What is surprising, and perhaps easier to gauge than marriage rates, is that more and more individuals agreed that the state should be the one to dissolve marriages over time, instead of them dissolving the bonds of marriage on their own. The first part, entitled "rules," is the most important, but also the most elusive. Here she begins with documenting how the American Revolution was in essence a divorce and set some of the legal framework for dissolving marriage, or a contract. Then in the first decade or two after independence, almost every state in the union (and its territories) implemented or reaffirmed divorce laws. Although they ranged in accessibility, New York limited divorce to grounds of adultery versus New England and Western states that had a long list of possible reasons and states shifted to allowing divorces in the courts rather than by legislatures, divorce became legally possible for much of the American population. The elusive part here is, in stark comparison to almost every other period of American history, there is an almost complete silence in primary sources on these laws. It certainly appears that there was little debate or pushback when legislatures enacted divorce laws. This, of course, changed by the 1840s-60s when religious and reform movements, both pro- and anti-divorce, produced a lot of print material over divorce laws and many states made revisions to those laws. The questions in this section are not over whether divorce should or should not be legal, but how, why, and when it should be. Basch's second section looks more closely at how the law affected (and was used by) divorce petitioners. She does this by looking at the ends of the spectrum, New York where proving adultery was the only possibility for a divorce and Indiana where there was a catch all phrase that allowed judges to grant divorces on any grounds not specified in the law. Indiana also had lax residency requirements, making it a "divorce mill" for the mid-19th century. The third section turns to print culture and how newspapers and pamphlets of celebrity divorces were popular products of the day and what they can tell us about the public's perceptions of divorce. Throughout the book, Basch is particularly interested in how divorce was gendered. In other words, how did the law, even though it was gender-neutral, affect men and women differently, how did print culture portray men and women differently, and how did men and women utilize the law in different ways. One cannot emphasize enough the power divorce could have regarding women's status under the law; it was one of the few (if not the only) time that she (was supposed to be) on an equal level in the eyes of the law/court. Additionally, because grounds for divorce often meant defining the fault of the husband in sexual terms (that he committed adultery or sexually abused her), it brought sexuality and the private lives of married couples into public like few other laws (a fact that often made divorce case pamphlets read like softcore pornography). Basch also notes how divorce law was less of a North/South division than an East/West one, something that has great meaning for understanding the spread of American law Westward and the Americanization of law. Basch's work stands out from other works on the history of divorce for two main reasons. First, her analysis of the cultural frameworks surrounding divorce (debates in legislatures and court rooms and in popular print) are more insightful and complex. This is not just a telling of what each side said, but a recognition that there were more than two sides and why one side (the anti-divorce) was able to dominate the discourse. Secondly, she spends much more time documenting and mulling over the key period in divorce, the couple decades right after the Revolution. For these reasons, as well as her accessible explanations of law, Basch's work is recommended for anyone interested in gender, women, sexuality, or legal history of the early American nation.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-01-28 00:00:00 Americo Castro A wonderful piece of writing bringing out the history of Magna Carta as well as highlighting its connectivity to the contemporary world. Linebaugh makes a strong argument for the resumption of commoning--a network of personal relationships to the land and the act of communally sharing said land to benefit all rather than the few. The author does a really nice job of pointing out Magna Carta in peoples' struggles around the world--struggles that demand essentially the same things: political freedom and freedom from want and fear. Loved it. As i read, struggles happening in our own community became highlighted in my mind as they relate to Magna Carta. Wonderful book.