Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS Charles McLean Andrews. A Study in American Historical Writing, By A. S. EISENSTADT. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956. xx, 273 p. Frontispiece, bibliography, index. $5.00.) Charles McLean Andrews not only won the deep affection of his students and the unstinted respect of his colleagues during his lifetime, but such public tributes as his election to the presidency of the American Historical Association in 1925 and Professor Lawrence H. Gipson's excellent review article in this Magazine on the first appearance of The Colonial Period in 1935. During the year following Andrews' death in 1943, the late Professor Neillie Neilson wrote an informal and moving eloge for the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin^ and Professor Labaree published in the William and Mary Quarterly in 1944 a note on Andrews prefacing a bibliography of his works. A definitive and critical biography has yet to appear. In publishing this dissertation, subtitled "A Study in American Historical Writing," the Columbia University Press has been perhaps more benevolent than judi- cious. In spite of considerable and industrious research in both printed and manuscript material, aided by the generous help of Mrs. Andrews and of her husband's former students and friends, the author has not in fact produced anything likely to be of much value to those interested in "the historiographic legacy" of the various schools of colonial history in which Mr. Andrews studied and taught. Mr. Eisenstadt briefly discusses Andrews' early formative years in what is perhaps the best part of the volume. He proceeds to Andrews' contribution—"the purely substantive elements of his system"—to early American history, the application in his later years and work of principles acquired earlier, and finally the relation of Andrews to others of his school and the "growing obsolescence" of his work "in the context of changing history and a changing history of history." Mr. Eisenstadt is industrious and has cov- ered much ground. This review will be directed not toward a denial of his talents, but toward a criticism of an approach which, if not obsolete, is not demonstrably helpful in the understanding of the work of our colleagues past and present. Mr. Eisenstadt is, of course, right in supposing that each age writes history with different presuppositions, or prejudices, and different prob- lems in mind. He would also be right were he to claim that the study of historiography in our time has often led to an increased appreciation of the value of studying the great historians for their reflection of the intellectual temper of their own periods. But to conclude, as he suggests in the last 199 2OO BOOK REVIEWS April paragraph of his introduction (p. xiv) and seems to confirm in the opening paragraph of his conclusion (p. 220), that truth is exclusively dependent on who does the finding is surely a gross and unwarranted extension of rela- tivism. He admits that if history be "social thinking" this viewpoint con- demns "all our monumental works" to become "colossal wrecks, stones standing in the desert, their epoch stamped on lifeless things" (p. xiv). Mr. Eisenstadt is much too sensible when he forgets this kind of nonsense to believe all its implications. Do we now read the works of Livy, Machia- velli, Clarendon and Ranke, for example, only for the sake of discovering their personalities and reflections of the ideologies of their period? Professor Andrews' work had limitations. He has been criticized for a lack of interest in society, in class conflicts and tensions, in racial admix- tures, in immigration in general, in wage rates, and in the distribution of wealth. This seems fair enough. It is, however, unjust to dismiss his preoc- cupation with English origins, policies, and administrative bodies as another example of Anglophilia. This reviewer is sensitive to Britannia-plating. Andrews had not undergone the process. He was not, as some of his genera- tion admittedly were, sentimental about Anglo-Saxon ties, and he could be shrewdly critical of his English contemporaries, however generous were his praises of a Maitland. Nor did he neglect American repositories for the English Public Record Office. He managed to compass an Atlantic area of research. His Guide is indispensable to students. His Colonial Period will long afford the best political account of his chosen field. His interest in economic and business history still bears its fruit among the historians of today. His concern with the West Indian islands and with other far-flung outposts of empire has inspired many a study useful to American and British scholars alike. There will be many more cosmopolitan and more sociological histories of the American colonies. Historians, according to their taste and the prevailing fashion, will find new areas to explore. But good conscientious historical work, even without the literary genius of a Plutarch or a Gibbon to popularize it, has other values than Mr. Eisenstadt would admit in his more theoretical passages, and will continue to be useful for a long time to come. The contribution of historians like that of other human beings is at once more complex in its nature and yet simpler in its values than this sort of analysis allows. Bryn Mawr College CAROLINE ROBBINS Arms and Armor in Colonial America^ I526-1783. By HAROLD L. PETERSON. (Harrisburg, Pa.: The Stackpole Company, 1956. [xiv], 350 p. Illustra- tions, appendix, bibliography, index. $12.50.) At last we have all in one place a discussion of ordnance materiel used in what is now the continental United States by white men before 1783. Books I957 BOOK REVIEWS 2OI have been published by the dozens on other phases of colonial life; the means of existence in the New World—arms, both offensive and defensive— have been slighted. Probably no other subject was as important to the people themselves, but some otherwise well-qualified students of the period have known little and cared less about it- Mr. Peterson has produced a concise and authoritative survey of more than two and a half centuries of military materiel. He has deliberately not discussed artillery. Perhaps no similar period before World War II in Western military history shows so much change. The Spaniards who went into New Mexico had as their principal projectile weapon the crossbow; they relied on armor to protect them and their extremely important horses while they used their edged weapons for decisive action. The principal battles of the Revolution were determined by musket- and bayonet-armed infantry in very much the same way that the great nineteenth-century battles were won and lost. Mr. Peterson chose to divide his period into two parts. His emphasis from the first to the second changes slightly. The first period is from 1526 through 1688, and includes a discussion of Spanish arms and armor along with the better known British, French, Dutch and Swedish weapons. The second period is from 1689 through the end of the Revolution, and deals very thor- oughly with British and American arms as well as treating French and German weapons in some detail, particularly those used in the actual fighting here between 1775 and 1783. In each period, Mr. Peterson devotes chapters to firearms, ammunition and equipment, edged weapons, and armor. This book is intensely readable; the author writes clearly and concisely. The unfolding of the story of colonial arms holds one's interest page after page. However, it's also authoritative. The author's scholarship is beyond question; perhaps no one knows so much about the written sources which survive as he does. In addition, Mr. Peterson has the unique advantages of his position with the National Park Service. As its Chief Historian, he has conducted personally some archeological exploration of important historical sites and has had firsthand access to all other finds. He has been the fore- most consultant in arms of his period for years, and has had countless surviving specimens in his hands for examination. Mr. Peterson has profited immeasurably by all his opportunities. In this book he draws freely on his great knowledge and intensive study, without sacrificing the story to me- chanical and historical minutiae. It would be impossible for a treatment of as large and diverse a subject to be susceptible to one interpretation only in all its details. Sometimes primary sources say one thing and surviving weapons another. A wide choice of interpretation is left to the serious student. Even those who disagree with Mr. Peterson in some of his conclusions, however, cannot help but be im- pressed by his knowledge and thoroughness. 2O2 BOOK REVIEWS April The controversial points are few. Some will disagree with the author in connection with Queen Ann's association with the Brown Bess Musket and socket bayonets. Mr. Peterson has followed what has been written in Eng- land rather than the evidence of surviving pieces. The career of Patrick Ferguson and the rather remarkable breech-loading rifle which he perfected could have been treated differently. Mr. Peterson has perhaps overempha- sized the actual use of polearms in the Revolution by the American side. There are many fascinating facts and passages. There is much that is new to most readers. One of the most interesting sections of the book is the discussion of the use of armor in Virginia in the very early days. The image of a deerskin-clad rifleman comes to mind when many of us think of colonial Virginia. This was partially true in the middle eighteenth century; however, in the early seventeenth century, armor had its place. The sword was of extreme importance even for infantry until about 1760; it continued to be the most important single weapon of the cavalry throughout the Revolution.

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