Review: Freedom Just Around the Corner

Walter McDougall begins his history of American history from 1585 to 1828 by citing several American literary works which demonstrate how Americans seem naturally to be hustlers. Interestingly enough, he points out, this is not a bad thing. Using a variety of sources, mainly summarizing existing works, McDougall paints an interesting and often entertaining history of early American history. From offering explanations to why different regions held different political theories and motivations to refuting claims by earlier historians regarding ‘accepted’ explanations of events and actors, Freedom Just Around the Corner offers a unique view of the rise of American freedom.

From the beginning, asserts McDougall, America was designed (one assumes subconsciously) to favor the hustler. As he points out at the beginning of the book, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Americans are no different than other human beings, they simply “have enjoyed more opportunity to pursue their ambitions, by foul means or fair, than any other people in history” (p 5). It is evident in language, literature, politics, and economy. What makes Americans different is “that they are freer than other peoples to pursue happiness and yet are no happier for it” (p 16).

Immigration into the British colonies of the New World would shape the future of American politics and life in general, with several groups settling several distinct areas within the colonies.  The Germans, centralized in Pennsylvania, would lend a huge hand in the agricultural and technological development of the emerging nation.  “Draft horses, great wagons, frontier rifles, new farming techniques, and a road: thanks to the Germans, pioneers in the middle colonies now had all they needed” (p142).

From Britain would come four different groups to settle four different regions, each bringing their own ideas of liberty to the colonies.  To New England came mostly puritan families, bringing with them their unique thoughts on liberty.  “Public or collective liberty from outside coercion,” “liberties as privileges,” “Christian liberty,” and “freedom from deprivation.” (p 146).  The Quakers settled the DelawareValley, importing their beliefs on the freedom of worship (or freedom not to, for that matter), and “denied the right of any to impose their beliefs on others.”  (p 148).  Into Virginia came a mass of indentured servants with their own unique, and paradoxical view of liberty.  Freedom “meant not to be dominated by others – which is slavery – and thus to exert authority over others, be it a wife, children, or servants.  Finally came the Scots-Irish who settled the frontiers.  They held that liberty was personal freedom, and were “infused with a pure libertarian spirit.” (p 154).

McDougall asserts that the founders developed the system of government to embrace human nature, not constrain it.  They would “fashion government so as to encourage individual greed for money, power, and prestige under sturdy legal procedures that do not dictate what people should strive for, but only how they must play the game” (p 285).  This is where the idea of the hustler as a positive force in American life comes through in McDougall’s writing.  The reason the constitution was to be successful was because it “embraced human nature in all its sordidness and, in potential at least, transformed private egos into public goods” (p 304).

To those who downgrade the impact of the significance of the Revolution and rise of American Democracy, “because real democracy, social leveling, and female emancipation did not triumph after 1776” (p 311), McDougall reminds us that “The only accurate method to judge the magnitude of historical change is to examine the context in which it occurred without reference to what one wishes had happened or what did happen later” (p 311). But, things did begin to improve for both women and blacks, though they would not be fully realized for quite some time.

McDougall’s is a very well written, informative work. He takes an interesting, and as Gordon Wood noted on the cover, unusual look at the rise of freedom in America. His writing is full of clever metaphors which help make the book more entertaining, and thus more accessible. For example, “The United States had no navy and a smaller army than a rich English boy’s toy soldier collection” (p 354). McDougall’s assertion that hustling is part of American identity stands up to the evidence as he puts it forth, despite the negative connotation to the word. It is hard to believe though, that the founders consciously decided to create a country built around the ideals of hustling.