Book Reviews 227

The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary . By Michael A. McDonnell. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Acknowledgments, introduction, maps, notes, index. Pp. xviii, 544. $45.00.)

In his study of Revolutionary Virginia, Michael McDonnell argues that the efforts of Patriot leaders to recruit Virginians to serve in the militia and Continental army exacerbated class and racial tensions within Virginia society. McDonnell concludes that conflicting economic interests of white Virginians, coupled with their shared fears of slave uprisings, crippled mobilization efforts. Social conflict over military service also led to a new political order in which common Virginians gained greater control over local political institutions. McDonnell's investigation of county court records, war office and executive records, and militia petitions reveals that small farmers, white laborers, and "ordinary Virginians" had different reasons than Patriot leaders for fighting, and that they resisted recruitment if the terms of service were too burdensome or unfair. While provincial elites saw war as a means to solidify their power within society, common Virginians took up arms only when British invasions threatened their communities or military service proved economically beneficial to them. Patriot leaders who repeatedly attempted to call out the militia and regulars to repel British attacks and deter slaves from rebelling or joining the British often met with limited success. Middling and lower-class Virginians used petitions, evasion, and forceful resistance to challenge the authority of provincial leaders as well as local officials in charge of enforcing recruit ment. Rather than confronting recalcitrant recruits, local authorities often refused to uphold the laws or punish those who refused service. The power of provincial elites thus was further diminished as local authorities forged closer political ties with common Virginians. McDonnell points out that the legacies of the Revolutionary War varied for the different groups who participated in it. For the most part, the military service provided few benefits to poor whites and black Virginians, whereas middling Virginians experienced the greatest gains. By the end of the war, ordinary Virginians used both their military service and wartime strategies of resistance to assert their political power and oppose attempts by state and national leaders to reform the militia and implement postwar taxes and collection of debts. While some provincial elites in the state government willingly accepted the new political order and its emphasis on local politics, others believed that popular politics hindered the formation of an orderly government and a strong national union. These concerns led some gentlemen leaders to reevaluate their earlier ideas regarding republican government and begin organizing support for a new national Constitution. In his analysis of wartime mobilization in Virginia, Michael McDonnell appears to have left no county record or military petition unturned. His extensive footnotes are a testament to his painstaking research of both local and provincial records. Examination of these sources leaves little doubt that Virginians indeed were a "society at war" both during and after the Revolutionary War, and that much of this tension reflected the

VOLUME LXXXV • NUMBER 2 • APRIL 2008

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competing social and economic interests of leaders and their constituents. Nevertheless, McDonnell's emphasis on class differences downplays other factors that may have influenced Virginians' reluctance to serve. Cultural as well as economic ties to Great Britain may have caused some Virginians to pursue neutrality and attempt to avoid military service. Along the same lines, personal and familial ties to local communities and the state also may have been just as important as class differences in determining how Virginians initially approached the war and mobilization. While McDonnell does note that these ties affected middling and lower class Virginians' response to military service, he still sees their decisions driven primarily by class differences rather than kinship or community bonds. Aside from these minor criticisms, Michael McDonnell's book provides new insights into Virginia society and its response to wartime mobilization. For scholars of the and graduate students, this work provides a wealth of information on Revolutionary Virginia and sets a high standard in historical research.

Christine Styrna Devine

University of Mary Washington

Irons in the Fire: The Business History of the Tay loe Family and Virginia's Gentry, 1700-1860. By Laura Croghan Kamoie. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007. Acknowledgments, introduction, map, illustrations, tables and figures, epilogue, appendixes, notes, index. Pp. x, 222. $35.00.)

Laura Croghan Kamoie describes five generations of Virginia planters as dynamic entrepreneurs who employed a wide range of effective business strategies. In her words, the Tayloes "made rational economic choices," "committed early to a spirit of entrepreneurship," and treated their plantations as laboratories, where they could experiment in "highly integrated sites of constant movement and exchange" (pp. 1-2). Neither these phrases nor the general framing of Kamoie's argument should surprise readers who have paid attention to scholarship on the economic world of colonial plantations in recent years. Irons in the Fire does more than make the rather general main point that Virginia planters could be entrepreneurial, however. Kamoie offers an important contribution to the economic history of plantation colonies by providing one of the most detailed case studies of planters' economic activities during this period. She also ties the story of the Tayloes to the experiences of other Virginia planter families and to important developments in the broader economic history of early America.

While Irons in the Fire discusses five generations of Tayloes, it focuses on the business strategies of three men, John Tayloe I (1687-1747), John Tayloe II (1721-1779), and John Tayloe III (1771-1828). Much of the book's narrative describes the expansion, diversification, and impressive success of the Tayloe family estate under their direction. Where other scholars have pointed to the movement away from tobacco cultivation as a sign of Virginia's economic decline, Kamoie sees it as an incentive for the Tayloes to

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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