Joanne Freeman Book Review Essay

Total Length: 960 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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formation of America as a nation produced dozens of historical examinations with the intent to attempt to capture the spirit of America's founding fathers. Joanne Freeman produced a work within this vein taking a unique interpretation of an oversaturated subject. Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic offers a surprising fresh viewpoint on the interactions of America's founding fathers. In addition, Freeman also explores how these interactions aided in shaping the political setting. The book examines the role of honor within the early republic. How that idea fueled the choices made by the men that shaped that era. "This link between honor and politics, the personal and the political, gave early national political combat its passion and its sting, for it bound together a politician's personal character with his political principles and actions." (Freeman, p.261) By endeavoring to grasp the real intentions behind numerous founding fathers actions Joanne sought to flush out an accurate portrait of the founding fathers behind the myths.

The historical and background setting is split into Freeman's five distinct chapters analyzing a different facet of the part of honor within the early republic. Freeman starts her investigation with the close study of the diary of Pennsylvania's Senator, William Maclay.
It focused more on the interpersonal relationships established and how they influenced the legislature. Freeman records "his diary contains immediate reactions to unfolding events, capturing the emotion and contingency of the moment as only a personal testimonial can. It offers a window on the realities of being a national politician on a shaky and unstructured stage." (p.18) In order to increase his rapport among his constituents, he offered a view of the drama few witnessed in early nationwide politics as well as the role he desired to play in it. This was an excellent example early on of the kind of setting Freeman wished to pursue.

Historian Joanne Freeman undertakes decided to write such a portrayal of the early republic from the multifaceted lens of social reputation in order to invite the reader to understand things from a different perspective. Freeman acquaints the reader with the establishing generation via a social institution as bizarre and frequently unfamiliar to the contemporary American as slavery would be "honor." Freeman chooses to examine the social guidelines that ruled the founders themselves. Freeman separates and profiles not Hamilton or Burr, but the inner mechanisms of the existing….....

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"Joanne Freeman Book Review" (2015, September 24) Retrieved June 17, 2025, from
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