Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
Britain and the American Dream (1740–1776)
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Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
Narrated by:
John Lee
Buy Now for £16.99
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Narrated by:
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John Lee
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By:
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Peter Moore
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Bestselling historian Peter Moore traces how Enlightenment ideas were exported from Britain and put into practice in America - where they became the most successful export of all time, the American Dream
'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' is the best-known phrase from the Declaration of Independence, one of the most important documents of the eighteenth century and the whole Enlightenment Age. Written by Thomas Jefferson, it is frequently evoked today as a shorthand for that idea we call the 'American Dream'. But this is a line with a surprising history. Rather than being uniquely American, the vision it encapsulates - of a free and happy world - owes a great deal to British thinkers too.
Centred on the life of Benjamin Franklin, featuring figures like the cultural giant Samuel Johnson, the ground-breaking historian Catharine Macaulay, the firebrand politician John Wilkes and revolutionary activist Thomas Paine, this book looks at the generation that preceded the Declaration in 1776. It takes us back to a vital moment in the foundation of the West, a time full of intent, confidence and ideas. It tells a whole new story about the birth of the United States of America - and some of the key principles by which we live to this very day.
'A trove of gripping...characters. Wonderfully absorbing and stimulating' SARAH BAKEWELL, author of AT THE EXISTENTIALIST CAFE
©2023 Peter Moore (P)2023 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews
[An] absorbing book... Moore has a keen eye for the sort of eloquent detail that enlivens biography, and he expertly evokes Franklin's transformation from proud artisan to member of a new American elite. He's particularly good on the quirkiness of Franklin's early adulthood . . . Moore [is] a crisp writer and adept at narrative sweep (Henry Hitchings)
[An] engaging and thoroughly reader-friendly book... [Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness] is about how a crazed, paranoid kind of political rhetoric was spread from the England of Wilkes to the America of Franklin and Paine, making rebellion possible. This part of the story is not just convincing but, to a modern reader, positively chilling (Noel Malcolm)
In his engaging narrative history Peter Moore argues that Jefferson's celebrated words provide the key to understanding... a vibrant, enlightened Anglo-American culture of the eighteenth century (T.H. Breen)
A timely reminder that the origins of the three big ideas in the American Dream lay mainly in Great Britain, with a lively account of the principal actors and episodes in the developing drama, and Benjamin Franklin in the starring role: a great read
With deft insights and in clear prose, Moore restores the cosmopolitan origins of an American Revolution meant to liberate human potential. In this eloquent book, that revolution becomes more global and enduring and less parochial and limited
Building on the pioneering work of Bernard Bailyn and John Brewer, Peter Moore offers a gripping account of the way in which British pamphlet wars of the 1760s fuelled American debates about independence. Mixing famous Founders with lesser known figures, especially Franklin's long-time friend the Tory printer and publisher William Strahan, Moore's book brings out the hidden roots of the Declaration of Independence
Rollicking... The book's compulsive readability is a tribute to Moore's skill at cracking open the pre-revolutionary period and reanimating the contingencies that eventually drove the settlers to embrace independence. Can be read as a refutation of originalism, or the contention that we should still live in a world governed by the putative beliefs of the Founding Fathers
History is best written by the losers. In Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Peter Moore... shows how Britain exported its highest ideals to the Americans who rejected it (Dominic Green)
Moore offers a rich and immersive intellectual history of the American Revolution... This is a pleasure
Like Jenny Uglow's The Lunar Men and Leo Damrosch's The Club, Moore's vibrant group biography brings to life the intellectual and political currents, in Britain and Colonial America, that gave rise to the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,"... An energetic and meticulously researched history
Through absorbing and detail-packed narrative and description, Moore recreates the cordiality between Britain and the Colonies in the early years right up to the fraught hostilities and the Declaration of Independence. To do this he weaves together a network of influential thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic, focussing predominantly on key players. Benjamin Franklin and his illegitimate son William who became Governor of New Jersey, Samuel Johnson, John Wilkes, Thomas Paine, Catharine Macaulay and William Strachan , are some of those realised through lively contemporary sources
Moore is particularly adept at the entertaining detail which fleshes out the narrative and keeps the whole rollicking along. For example, a mere sentence on the later life of Catharine Macaulay who had been lauded for her History of England is an insight into contemporary mores. By y the time she reached America much later having married as a widow a socially inferior man 20 years her junior, she was ostracised.
Moore has certainly succeeded in recreating the ferment of this age. The whole is jam-packed with vibrant biography and intellectual history. Particularly effective is his treatment of Samuel Johnson with his sympathy for indigenous peoples and fervent anti-slavery views, along with the history of his relationship with Francis Barber , his adopted Jamaican slave boy . The early years of Benjamin Franklin and his revolutionary work with electricity are neatly detailed , whilst his close friendship with William Strachan ,‘the King’s printer’, and the acrimonious split between them over Independence is surprisingly moving.
The narrator John Lee was an unfortunate choice. He has read a great number of titles for Audible, but significantly almost all are a totally different genre from this serious historical work. Lee’s idiosyncratic intonation is infuriating. Perhaps in an effort to sound dramatic, he stresses inappropriate parts of sentences in a bizarre lilt . In addition I found totally misguided his attempts to give a Scottish accent to such as Strachan and Boswell and snatches of an American accent to certain others . I wonder too why a narrator with short A’s (Frans for France etc) but with no other sign of a regional accent was chosen to read this book when his narrating style fits no aspect of the text.
Densely packed and rewarding
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Unexpected surprise
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Thoroughly enjoyable
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