The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800 (P.S.)

I stumbled upon this book while waiting for my tire installation at our local Costco and I'm glad I did. If you share a passion for this period Jay Winik brings a complete, world view to the times. He may not have the flair of Steven Ambrose or the captivating wonder of David McCullough yet his insight is keen. Reviewing the history as it played out in Russia, France, and a young United States he's provided an interlocking understanding of the world as it was prior to and through this tumultuous time. Although I've studied each story separately I'm enjoying anew the history while learning finite insights I didn't realize I had missed.

The Great Upheaval is nothing if not ambitious. In this author's very successful first book, April 1865, the topic was extremely focused both in timeline and subject matter. Not so in The Great Upheaval. Technically it covers the years 1788-1800 and a majority of the civilized world at that time, attempting to link events globally by what occurred locally. I didn't realize this was a point of contention among historians, i.e. The American and French Revolution. So in breadth, scope and length it dwarfs its predecessor - except in readability. I applaud the effort and I really wanted to like but this book but it was a challenge to finish.

The title is somewhat of a misnomer. The goal may have been to center on the years 1788-1800 but the text/topics slip(s) chronologically back and forth by years, decades and even centuries - including the building of Versailles and Louis XIV, the history of Islam and Peter the Great. Also the United States is not the focus here either - the narrative changes from America to France to Russia - and Turkey, Great Britain, Poland, Vienna - and more. Although this may sound fascinating, it comes across as willy-nilly, confusing and at times exasperating - with a lack of coherency to the transitions and narrative. Major characters' bios are introduced pages and sometimes chapters after they enter the story adding to the reader's confusion/frustration, particularly when the specific characters provide the thread between the geographic narratives. There is also no balance in coverage of historic events. The French Revolution is covered in minute detail as well as Catherine the Great's march to the Crimea. On the other hand America finding its identity as a new independent country is given short shrift.

Compounding the readability issue is the writing - which is ponderous, repetitive and at times painfully verbose - adjectives and adverbs abound - with nothing succinct. No one simply speaks - they mutter or exclaim or shriek or wail. Eyes flash, banquets are demolished and the blood - all the blood - drenching hills or soaking the ground or running through the streets. There are also a multitude of rhetorical questions throughout the book. Out of the ordinary? Yes. Necessarily bad? No. Frustrating? Well - you get the point.

Again I applaud the effort/attempt in writing an engaging book on a tumultuous period bringing events and historical figures to life for the "lay" reader. Unfortunately the author's attempt here in painting a dramatic picture accomplishes the exact opposite bogging down in both detail and overwrought descriptions to the exclusion of a coherent narrative.

The first and last parts of the book (CD in my case) were quite interesting, and touched on issues seldom viewed. However, this history of the beginning of the US spent too much (4 of the 9 CDs) on the details of the life of Louis XVI. While the travails of Ann Bolyn (hour by hour leading to her death) are interesting, it really did not fit with the title and subject.

The part of the French era that was interesting was a discussion the time spent by the founding fathers (Jefferson in particular) in France. Having said that, their role in US/France diplomacy and how exposed their were in a perilous world was only hinted at.

Finally, the machinations of Catherine the Great has interesting parallels to Putin and the Russia of today.

The premise is a good one, but it's not even not delivered on, it's like the author forgot about it, until he needed a sequeway into one of the parallel stories. Whole sections seem to end up left short of the altar, especially, for instance, the business about Russia under Catherine. Then the French Revolution is given a hugely inordinate amount of time and made into a strangely sentimental sendup that tries hard to create drama. Yet, somehow, it never really comes off. Read any William Manchester book and you will find it 10x more compelling than this, with 1/10th the wing flapping. Ultimately, the most disappointing part of this book is that it doesn't really answer the interesting riddle such an outing ought address: did this coordinated rising tide crest and flood the broader parts of the world, or did it succeed only to a limited degree in isolation, and elsewhere bring on a dark backlash?

I wanted and expected to like this book. Instead I find myself pondering if this is possibly the worst non-fiction book by a major publishing house that I've ever read. It's certainly the most disappointing.

To be fair, Jay Winik's thesis - how the events of the late 18th century formed the modern world - puts him in comparison to several truly great books. Schama's Citizens, Zamoyski's Holy Madness, Ellis' Founding Brothers, even Johnson' Birth of the Modern, to name a few. Comparison isn't the problem, however. Even Winik's often naive and insular take on events isn't the problem either. Not even the numerous factual errors are responsible. It's Winik's prose style that makes this book simultaneously grueling and appalling.

If someone told me that Winik wrote this book on a dare, something like, "I dare you to write a book that violates every tenet of Strunk and White's Elements of Style," I would find it completely believable. It's either that or a willful assault on the English language. At first Winik's overuse of adjectives and adverbs is annoying, then it's amusing in a twisted way and finally it makes The Great Upheaval the reading equivalent of the Bataan Death March. I am not exaggerating. I've never before encountered a writing style so awful on so many levels. Whether it's the passive voice ("books were written, universities established," "guns were silenced") or long lists of objects to describe a culture or place or the constant burdening of every single noun with an adjective and every verb with an adverb, Winik's prose is exhausting to read.

Then there's his habit of asking a rhetorical question to further a description. Once or twice might be fine, but Winik does this dozens upon dozens of times. The most hilarious instance being when follows up one of his rhetorical questions with "good question." Why wait for reviews when you can just heap praise on yourself? Winik's commitment to tautology - "brutally decapitated", "old shibboleths" - is almost as impressive as his apparent dislike of the simple, declarative verb "said." People exclaim, exhort, decry, declare, mutter, shriek, yelp, hiss, mutter, etc, usually with an oddly chosen adverb attached as when Kutuzov "tartly muttered 'God be with us!"

Take a moment and try to imagine how that last sentence might actually be spoken. Seriously, how does one mutter, tartly or not, anything in such a way as to warrant an exclamation point at the end? Many of Winik's sentences suffer from a similar lack of logic. King Stanislas of Poland is "inebriated by the winds of liberty". Potemkin "fondled their dreams". Russia and Catherine the Great bring out the Barbara Cartland in Winik. Every time the action shifts eastward Potemkin is wailing or flouncing, Pugachev's eyes flash and Catherine is storming around like Joan Crawford. It's campfest on the Dnieper even without Catherine wondering "What would Peter (the Great) do?" The events of the American and French Revolutions and the end of Catherine the Great's reign are all dramatic and compelling enough. They don't require an avalanche of overheated prose to make them appealing to the modern reader.

Even without the atrocious writing, the book would still be a failure. The number of factual errors in this book is unforgivable. This is popular history, not fiction. Winik's subtitle "American and the Birth of the Modern World" is never given life. Aside from proximity in time, what do these events all have to do with one another? Winik doesn't explain it. He does make a multitude of unsupported assertions, my favorite being that Catherine the Great has been overshadowed in history by Robespierre. Winik (over) describes 30 years' worth of events without illuminating or satisfactorily linking them.

If you're still wondering whether to buy this book, I urge you to use Amazon's Search Inside function to read a few pages first. Or just ask yourself if you want to read 720 pages of sentences like "As in the past it was enfeebled by mass strangulations, constricted by fickle palace ritual, and suffocated by Islamic religious fundamentalism ..." Over-stretched metaphors like that are morbidly impressive for only so long.

Admittedly I finished this book out of a refusal to be cowed by Winik's bad writing. That doesn't mean I have nothing to show for it. The Great Upheaval may be a total loss as history but it's a winner as a drinking game. Just load up on the alcohol of your choice, invite a few friends over and play along:

Adjective/adverb plus noun/verb = sip
Rhetorical question = drink
Overheated synonym for "said" = drink
Long list of nouns in lieu of substantive description = drink
Tenuous metaphor = drink
Factual error = drink
Simple declarative sentence = chug

You'll be blind drunk on the sips alone after 5 pages but maybe that's the best way to read this book.

This book is one of the most enjoyable books you'll read about events during the American revolutionary period. I found the interwoven stories associated with events in France and Russia to be riveting. For those (like me) that were aware of the happenings in France and Russia, but were ignorant to the impact on the American revolution (like me), you'll really enjoy The Great Upheaval. For a history book that often reads like a novel, this book is for you!

I rather agree with the positive reviewers and the negative ones, though I feel the positive very much outweighs the negative. The writing is generally lively and vivid, there is an abundance of fascinating detail, and many famous scenes are brought to life. This is a comprehensive but comprehensible overview of a major turning point in world history. The innovation of passing back and forth among the U.S., France, and Russia to show their mutual impact offers great insight: John Paul Jones commanding the navy of Catherine the Great! Genet, The imperial French ambassor to Catherine joining the French revolution to become the notorious French ambassdor to the U.S. who tried to unseat George Washington! Talleyrand fleeing France to take refuge in the U.S., only to return to France and turn against America (demanding, among other things, a $250,000 bribe, and threatening the lives of the American negotiators, who included John Marshall, the great chief justice). Tom Paine barely escaping the guillotine in Paris! Winik is also vivid in describing the truly vicious infighting among the Founders after the adoption of the Constitution. Vicious slander--what the papers said about Washington!--was the order of the day. The revered Thomas Jefferson (vice president to John Adams) didn't hesitate to call in the French ambassador and advise him to tell the government in France to ignore Pres. Adams's peace overtures. (Thomas Jefferson, that great American hypocrite, committed what today would be considered treason!) This is all great stuff (and there's a lot more) to read about and very well told. But the book is marred by poor word choice, obvious errors, typos, and at various times, a complete loss of focus. Still for a lively introduction to a maelstrom of a period, you won't find a better, more readable introduction.

Jay Winik is a colorful writer and makes turning pages easy. The historical accounts of 1788-1800 come to life through his depictions. The weakness in this book are the interjections of opinion (ie., the colonists PERCEIVED threat of tyranny from Britain) and biased fawning for autocrats (Catherine). He seems detached from the oppression of the masses and would probably be comfortable in a Versailles court living the "good life". Maybe he should take a cue from Howard Zinn on how to write passionate historical perspective from the people's point of view.

The Great Upheaval is a book that's not just a history book, but also a book that makes for great reading. The author pays equal emphais, I think, to rendering an accurate and detailed historical accounting of the last part of the 18th century as well as providing us with a memorable ride through history with his gripping portraits of the key players and critical happenings.

Once you read the book, you'll really understand the underpinnings of both the American and the French revolutions. You'll also, thanks to the meticulous reasearch of the author, get to intimately know people like Catherine the Great, Potemkin, Marie Antionette, Louis XVI, Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, the Ottoman kings, Lafayette, Robispierre.

The author describes numerous violent episodes and upheavals in vivid details that make the book seem more like a horror story at times. But such were the times indeed, and the writing matches the reality, I guess. anyone can clearly see the relatively peaceful nature of the American revolution compared to the liberation stuggle of people in other countries and come to understand what makes the American experience so unique.

All in all, you'll be more well grounded in history after reading this book. I strongly reccommend the book, both for history buffs as well as for people who like a well writeen book.

Winik does not prove his thesis that the American Revolution inspired the great upheavals of the end of the 18th Century or that George Washington inspired the world as the great man of the era. He completely ignores England, which had its own important revolution 100 years earlier and which had pioneered parliamentary democracy. Indeed, the American Revolution was itself inspired by the British example. If the world was looking for successful democratic models at the end of the 18th Century, the model was clearly Britain. In short, Winik is unpardonably American-centered in his viewpoint and fails to put the American experience in its proper context as an offshoot of the British experience.

As for Washington, Winik offers no empirical support for the idea that he was perceived as the great man of an age that included the likes of Napoleon, Voltaire, Pitt, and Burke. Clearly, Washington is iconic and is of critical importance for American history, but was he really a figure who the world embraced as the father of global liberalism? There's no empirical support for this, and I doubt that Washington translates that well. Even in this country he lacks the resonance of Lincoln and other important iconic figures.

At times Winik makes some sound and intriguing arguments. His contention that Louis XVI could have put off the revolution with some more decisive action is persuasive. His analysis of Catherine the Great as the great enlightened despot of the age, and his argument that she is ultimately a tragic figure given her later reactionary years, are also persuasive. His most effective argument is that leaders and countries were well aware of world events and responded and reacted to one another. A common historical error is to treat nations and eras with arbitrary isolation.

But, on the whole, Winik does not marshal data to make persuasive historical analysis and the book ends up being overly chatty, superficial, and anecdotal. Winik writes well and his portrayals of the leading figures of the time are entertaining. But this is not the tightly reasoned argument he provided us in "1865".

Although a little theatrical in the prelude, it immediately takes off and places you at the center of events in several locations. Well written, well researched but above all it is written like a bestseller novel. It is in total stylistic contrast to Tim Blanning's "The Pursuit of Glory", the European state of affairs taking place at around the same time.

The thesis of this book is that the world was as almost as tightly wired in 1800 as it is now, hence turmoil hit in America, France and Russia at roughly the same time. The preface states the case sufficiently enough, but the book does not succeed in connecting the events. The book is meandering, over-written, almost self-indulgent in its efforts to support this idea. It reminds me of the joke about the lawyer who argues louder when he has a weaker case.

Reading this book felt like simultanously reading three books covering the same turbulent times in three different countries. Chapters are alternately entitled America, Franc, Russia, etc. If that is not enough of a hop scotch effect, even within the chapters the book has digressions. A meditation on slavery for example, goes back to its ancient history, as does a section on the Ottoman Empire. A good editor (I'm available) could have easily taken this book down by 120-140 pages and greatly improved it.

In fairness, as individual set pieces, these digressions were often informative, but if you are a specialist in any of these periods you will likely find them pedestrian. This is a book that in style and tone is for the general reader, although it is hard to imagine a general reader would be interested in all three story lines.

Still, Winik is a very good narrative story teller and many individual set pieces, such as the Bourbons attempting to escape the mob during the French Revolution, or John Paul Jones' adventures on the high seas, are compelling reading.

It would have been a much stronger book if Winik had chosen to follow one or several characters who actually were on the scene in the revolutions discussed here, such as Thaddesu Kosciusko, the Polish patriot who took part in the Revolutions in America and France and led Polish resistance to a Russian invasion in the 1790s. I suspect the author did not take that course becasue he could not find enough such characters. But their absence disproves his thesis.

I would have given this excellently written book five stars if only there would have more maps! There are none of France, so it's impossible to follow visually the armies, Louis' flight, and the many towns, cities, and areas mentioned. Ditto for Russia and it's conflicts with the Ottomans, Poland, and Finland. Very frustrating!

Technology (as we should know by now) is morally neutral, and can be used for good or evil. Take for example, a word processing document template, which can be used to create multiple documents that follow the same outline and format. Winik certainly saved his template of historical narrative from his earlier classic "April 1865" and reused it here, but this time the finished document, attempting more, achieves less.

In the earlier book, Winik artfully used the confines of a very narrow time and place to expand on and at the same time focus broader threads of historical exposition and narrative. I rated that book as a five-star classic in my review (April 1865: The Month That Saved America).

This time, Winik has chosen a much broader range of time--the 1790s--and place--Russia, France, and America. With such a wide-angle lens, Winik attempts to regain focus by devoting each chapter to a different country, resulting alternately in the loss of integration he hopes to achieve and in repetition of ideas and phrases throughout the book.

Like a vacationer who attempts to capture the grandeur of a mountain range by capturing the whole range in a single snapshot, Winik is forced to pull so far back from his subject that the mountain range can be seen only in fuzzy outlines. Better, as he did in April 1865, to focus on a single peak in the great mountain range so that the detail can be traced and generalized to the whole; here, the narrative becomes too general and unfocused, and Winik is unable to tie the narrative together as he hoped.

The flaw is not in the template. Winik showed, that within the right scope with the right ideas behind it, he is a writer capable of producing a classic of historical narrative on this template, and has the ability to do so again in future works. But I found some indicators that Winik overreached his model and perhaps his expertise at this stage in his still-young career as a popular historian:

1. He lifted whole sentences, paragraphs, and pages from April 1865. While they may have applied to both, having read the two books back to back I felt somewhat cheated. The fault of Winik's is not a desire to defraud the user, but as we have already seen the selection of too broad of a scope too close to his original history.

2. Several times in the book, Winik attempts to emphasize the depth or veracity of his narrative with phrasing like "The crux of the matter, and it was the crux" as if an inveterate liar repeating his lie more loudly he may be able to convince the reader of the validity of his points. This is not because Winik's points are false, or counterintuitive, but rather is a side effect of the fact that his narrative template applied to such a broad scope leaves him with nothing but the broadest generalities in his toolkit. So far removed from his primary (and even secondary) sources, Winik must face the skeptical glare of the reader with nothing but his generalizations, and in the isolation of this harsh glare Winik uses this turn of phrase that clanks of the ear like a twice-told lie.

3. Failure to weave the threads back together and explain why it matters that Russia, France, and America went through the 1790s as they did, and how the events of the three countries intertwined. Again, the narrative is in such long focus that the fine-grained detail of the interactions can't be drawn out. Telling the account of this important decade in these three great nations in enough detail to show the interactions would entail many more pages than a popular historical narrative will support; consider, for example, "Citizen", Simon Schama's narrative of the French Revolution--referenced by Winik here--that runs 900+ pages on just one piece of Winik's narrative. A student of the French Revolution would be better served reading that source, and Winik isn't able to compellingly convince me that the reader is better served in "Upheaval."

Again, Winik is not at all a bad writer; he is a writer capable of producing a classic of historical narrative as he did in "April, 1865", and has the ability to do so again in future works. "The Great Upheaval" contains many of his deft turns of phrase, pithy biographical captures of important characters, and his dramatic sense of timing and narrative angles.

If you are new to the decade and the countries involved, and have limited time, Winik's book would be an acceptable starting point. Otherwise, reference the bibliographical notes for the sources Winik used, such as Schama's book on the French Revolution (See my review here: Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution).

Historian Jay Winik examines one of the tumultuous periods in western civilization. THE GREAT UPHEAVAL: AMERICA AND THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN WORLD, 1788-1800 is an intriguing historical narrative that almost reads like an epic novel with a cast of characters in world history. Despite what the title says, the United States is one of the focal points in the book, but is juxtaposed with established nations of the late eighteenth century, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire who were also experiencing their own major quandaries and transitions.

With the inspiration from colleagues and fellow historians that took six years in the making, Winik has written an enormous book with an immense amount of graphic detail that magnifies the importance of the individuals and topics that a western civilization textbook seldom extensively covers. One of the strengths of the book is that Winik examines American history with a global perspective and with exceptional emphasis on the leaders and their distinct traits of leadership, which was influenced by the Enlightenment; readers will read the significance of philosophers, such as Voltaire, Locke, and Montesquieu during this pivotal era. While America was establishing nationhood and alliance with France, Europe slowly transitioned to modernity, but not without yet another long struggle of strife that pitted and challenged Russia and its leader, Catherine the Great, with the long standing Ottoman Empire, and France with a contending revolution against the monarchical rule of King Louis XVI. In addition, Winik recognizes those Founding Fathers who usually appeared in the shadows of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, and places them in the forefront of this narrative, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton and Marquise de Lafayette, and how they greatly contributed to nation-building.

THE GREAT UPHEAVAL is a pure example of how history connects and reconnects events of the past during respective periods. This is a highly recommended book for history aficionados or students studying history who may want to see how American history parallels with European history. One may see it is indeed a collaborative effort that crosses disciplines and geographic borders.

This was a solid book with a very interesting thesis. It suffered from repetition and could have used a good editor. Some of the writing got lost in the weeds of details and tangential topics. However, the central thesis about the linkages of world leaders in the late 18th century and the examples and case studies provided to support that assertion were quite interesting and worth the read.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. Although it is technically a history book, the author's creative writing style makes it read more like a mystery or drama. You won't be able to put it down once you start.

This book is a great telling of the events following the American Revolution. One of the key issues here would be that it shows how, despite modern historical takes on the subject, the US presence on the world stage has been essential since the founding. It is a lesson the current crop of isolationists should take to heart, showing how events on this side of the globe affected the rest of the world as far back as the 18th Century.

Masterfully written and engaging. It kept me turning the pages with enthusiasm.

Well done.

As for one previous reviewer that pointed out typos, I didn't see any in my copy, which is a First Edition. Perhaps I just missed them.

It's unreadable. Jay Winik's The Great Upheaval is an encyclopedia of hackneyed phrases and misused modifiers. On page 39 alone, to take an ordinary example, we find: "tangled web"; "as fate would have it"; "far-reaching consequences"; "high hopes"; "rebuffed at every turn"; "crises abounded"; "supremely fickle"; "brazenly proposed" (the author loves the word brazen); "hurriedly told"; "soberly noted." On page 51 in a single sentence we are subjected to "heartbreaking loss", "brazen victory," "winter nightmare," "decisive liberation," and "hushed chambers." The book goes on and on like this, page after padded, exhausting page, as though Mr. Winik had made a mission of violating every guideline of Elements of Style.

And that's not all. Though the author seems to own a thesaurus, he is apparently unfamiliar with the dictionary. On page 12 we read, "But Moscow was hardly an itinerant backwater." What could he mean by this? There is only one conclusion to draw: Winik does not know what "itinerant" means. Wow. On page 63 he refers to the Constitutional Convention as one of the "boldest gambits in history." He does not know what a gambit is. On page 68 he calls the Constitution "deft rhetoric." One sometimes wonders whether English is Mr. Winik's native language.

Here is a passage that exemplifies The Great Upheaval's dreadfulness:

Not long after the ink was dry [on the Constitution], the English delegate Caleb
Whitfood was asked by a Frenchman what he thought of the new thirteen United
States; his reply is unforgettable. "Yes," he hissed through clenched teeth, "and
they will all speak English."

Obviously, the passage makes no sense. The author doesn't realize that and his editors (was this book edited at all?) didn't catch it or didn't care. The man's name was Whitford, not Whitfood - further evidence of no editing. And like so many sentences in the book, Winik's attempts to be colorful turn his "history" into fiction. Unless he has a source that witnessed Whitford hissing through clenched teeth (and none is cited), Winik has just made this up. He does this many times.

One more example, not just of bad writing but of historical ignorance. On page 68, writing again of the formation of the Constitution, he writes, "Throughout history, with bewildering rapidity, republics came and went . . . ." The generally accepted view is that republics have been rare throughout history, which is what made the American experiment so singular and interesting. Unless Winik has an idiosyncratic definition of republic, he invites the reader to conclude that he just does not know what he is talking about.

No one should read, and certainly no one should buy, this witless book, this stain on the craft of historical scholarship and writing.

The man who advises Presidents has crafted yet another, well-crafted tour de force. As one of his researchers, I am immensely proud of this final product. The structure and flow of his writing are superb. This book should be on every college American History reading list! Jay Winik remains among the very elite of historical writers.

Winik does an admirable job of covering a tumultuous 12 years, primarily in the US, France and Russia, and the monumental personalities who formed them. Rather than a history text that falls to listing names and dates, Winik brings the events to life, providing background and mini-biographies of the primary players, their strengths and foibles. That said, this is the first book I've read where at the conclusion, I looked for an acknowledgement of the editor. Where else to place the blame? The book is filled with sentences that don't make sense, breathless adjectives, and an overuse of the writer's crutch "arguably" (one page used the crutch three times). It's a good book, but for me would have been much better without the stylistic distractions.

I have reached the time of life when I can spend several hours of uninterrupted reading and also can sharpen some distant memories of college history. The Great Upheaval fills both requirements. The hours I spent with this book were treats. I would carry it to Starbucks for my morning coffee and put it aside late in the day when I was tired so I would not miss anything. As I neared the end of it over several weeks I slowed down so I would not finish it.

Now that I have completed this I can reflect upon its strengths. There are several that other reviewers have commented upon. I would like to add that interspersed in the narrative are wonderful short profiles of the leading players during the period. Catherine the Great, Hamilton and Louis XVI to name a few came alive.

The chapters on the French Revolution came alive. I thought this was the best writing in the whole book. It read like a thriller and I could not wait to see how it would end. I felt for Marie Antoinette who previously I felt was the perfect evil individual.

Lastly, the end notes were a wonderful source. As I begin to read more in this area I will continue to consult these notes as a guide for future study..

Thank you Mr. Winck

One of the great joys in life is to come across that rare book which you simply cannot put down, and once you're forced to, you can't wait to pick it back up again. The Great Upheaval is just such a book. What an absolute joy it was to read!
There are numerous reasons for this. First and foremost is the narrative style of author Jay Winik, which clips and clops energetically along like a horse-drawn carriage over cobblestones.
Second, Winik connects events in the U.S., Russia, and France during the period 1788 - 1800 in a highly original, scintillating way. He shows, for instance, how President George Washington's rather harsh, dictatorial reaction to the Whiskey Rebellion was prompted by the French Revolution. Washington was doing what Louis XVI had not done: responding with strength to rebellious citizens. Washington feared that showing weakness might lead to a much more wide-scale rebellion, such as had happened in France, which could mean the end of the young republic. I never viewed the Whiskey Rebellion in this light.
Third, though familiar with most of the recent writings on the period 1788-1800 in the U.S. (see Joseph J. Ellis, John Ferling, etc.), there was much I learned from Winik. For example, his description of how a bad tooth was removed (p. 449) left me feeling weak.
The Great Upheaval is one of the very best works of history to come along in the last several years, and I cannot recommend it too highly.

Though I am hardly an historian, I found this book to contain very little factual information of which I was not already aware. Nonetheless, the author's approach to the narrative -- the interweaving of events in three disparate nations -- did a better job of "tying it all together" than any other popular tome addressing the same era. Nonetheless, the potential reader should be warned:

THIS BOOK IS VERY, VERY HARD TO READ.

I say this not because the concepts are difficult to grasp, but because the author's grammar is atrocious and/or because his editor did a terrible job.

Early in my career, I learned that a writer should re-examine any sentence exceeding some thirty or so words in length, to determine whether the concept would be more "readable" if divided into a larger number of shorter sentences. Apparently, this is a lesson that the author and/or editor of "The Great Upheaval" never learned.

It would seem that Winik, in love with the comma, a quite utilitarian means of punctuation, has had little guidance, from whatever source, be it formal or informal, in the proper use of this helpful tool, and tends, in most instances, to use a multitude of commas, when, under most circumstances, his prose would be far more comprehensible, by either the general populace or the more educated and erudite reader, if the writer would simply use two, three or even four distinct sentences, even in situations where the use of a single, quite long, sentence is possible, but nonetheless cumbersome.

Yes, I wrote that monstrosity of a sentence intentionally. If you had no trouble decyphering it, you will truly enjoy "The Great Upheaval." Otherwise, your enjoyment may be less, because you will find thousands of similar sentences scattered throughout "The Great Upheaval." In fact, you will often find one in each paragraph on any given page.

As a result of the horrid sentence structure, I often found myself re-reading a sentence two or three times to grasp the information that Winik was attempting to convey. Despite this aggravation, I eventually enjoyed the book and give it four stars for the information conveyed and the unique presentation.

Winik's latest was I admit a pleasant revelation. When I saw the book and the time period covered I thought here is yet another book about the 1790s; Do we need another book on the first decade after the constitution? But that was just it. It is not a book just about America's Early Republican period, it is the history of America couched in the swirling, tumultuous worldwide events coeval with the founding years of America.
Winik provides an interwoven narrative of history from 1788-1800 between America, France and Russia. His main point is to tell an interconnected story because contrary to popular opinion from a population of internet junkies and satellite babies, the world of the 18th and early 19th centuries was connected more than we know. In all of this talk of connections, England is curiously left out and this approach might be fruitful for other nations as well (Spain?), but this would be way too much for one book and might well have killed the public history aspect of Winik's project. Who knows maybe that is Winik's next book, American, England and Spain. Despite some missing pieces, the pace and prose of the book are outstanding. With everything from a vivid and at times macabre retelling of the French Revolution (which is extremely helpful to those unfamiliar with the event) to the violent clashes of the czarina Catherine in Turkey, the book at times reads like fiction.
The presentation of the book also forces the reader to use higher cognitive functions in comparing and contrasting the events in America with those in other countries. The result is an illuminating look at otherwise well worn topics such as the Whiskey Rebellion, citizen Genet's visit and the transfer of power from Adams to Jefferson.
At one point in the book after discussing the French Revolution at some length, Winik returns to the American narrative and takes up the familiar Whiskey Rebellion. But instead of simply restating the usual Washington marched on the rebels because he wanted to demonstrate federal superiority, which no doubt was true, he frames the entire event in the context of what examples Washington would have had at his disposal for such action. Winik states that Washington not only wanted to make bare the federal arm but he had Louis XVI's dangerous precedent of wavering and weakness before him and as Winik states, Washington did not want to end up another Louis. I have never once thought in all my time reading and studying history to compare Louis and Washington together but it is extremely revealing.
From such vantage points as the French Revolution and Catherine's Russia fresh vistas and a new sense of frailty unfolds for well known American personalities and events that too often are treated as if mortals knew the script they were acting from and did everything according to a director just off stage. For those readers familiar with the Early Republic, The Great Upheaval will offer many surprises and to those who aren't as familiar with American history there is plenty to gain from such a read. Winik offers a slim ray of hope that trained historians can once again offer the public books that are both readable and reliable. Well done.

I am the sort of reader who appreciates a concise summary, and was pleased to find this towards the end of Jay Winik's long history: "Louis XVI had hesitated, the nation then chose violence, and that is what it got. In Russia, Catherine had used massive force against Pugachev but then abandoned all hopes of liberty. In America, Washington acted decisively, but with nuance, and the country got coalitions and politics." In a nutshell, those are the major conclusions to be drawn from this prolix, but powerful study of revolutions fought in the Western world, 1788-1800. I whole-heartedly support this approach. History never happens in a vacuum. If you want a picture of the whole inter-connected world in this formative period, The Great Upheaval is a must read. The author keeps cycling between America, France and Russia. He has a knack of balancing events on a lonley cusp. Sometimes you suspect that history could have unfolded differently had there been a steely gaze or a vigorous retort at several crucial moments. Quite a few men of the world were active in two or three of the arenas. Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Paine, John Paul Jones, Charles Talleyrand and Citizen Edmond Genet played roles in two or more countries.

The most significant thing I learned about early American politics was how greatly the French Revolution polarized opinion. Hamiltonians or Federalists thought the Jacobin purge dreadful. (Some were repulsed by the whimsical decapitations, but others found the class inversion just as gruesome.) Jeffersonians or Republicans found excuses for the slaughter. (Some cheered the spread of democracy, but others were happy to see the aristocrats suffer.) Young America was greatly abused by both the British and the French in this period, but only the Republicans clamored to take on the English again. And only the Federalists thought the upstart French should be taught a lesson. Wise Presidents Washington and Adams kept us out of both potential wars.

Some people may be put off by Winik's style. He favors long sentences with numerous sub-clauses. If you sip gin or burgundy while reading you will lose the nub of the thesis after the third glass. The occasional sentence, (read stone sober) is so convoluted you can only scratch your head. However, 99% of his prose is lively, sensible and deftly spread. This is one of the best history books I've read in some years.

I enjoyed the April 1865 book and this was another winner by Jay Winik. Great read, good history lessons and interesting. I have no problem with a few mistakes in the text...the story was worth the read. Highly recommened.

As a recreational history reader,Winik wrote the book that I have would like to have created myself.
It has been noted ,in some of the reviews, that a large number of details are not correct and that the sentence structure is difficult to handle- this is true.
However, I haven't found in any other books Winiks' ability to track these times in parallel. Most studies of these times don't deal with the overreaching "connections" among the Major Powers.
Winik does a great job with this.

A book to buy for one interested in the broad strokes of history, and the lives of quite compelling historical actors. Jay Winik is an enthusiastic teller of a grand political story, which roams from the infant United States across the Atlantic to France, Austria, Russia, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire. (Do not look for China, Japan, South America, India, or Africa in this book.)

While I do not understand why so many words were spilled to describe such incidents as the removal from the throne and death of the King and Queen of France, this is Mr. Winik's tale not mine.

After cutting away the wordy underbrush, his multi-country theme covering both key leaders and political theory is quite interesting and provides a good way for students of early American history to better understand why some things evolved as they did.

Though I am hardly an historian, I found this book to contain very little factual information of which I was not already aware. Nonetheless, the author's approach to the narrative -- the interweaving of events in three disparate nations -- did a better job of "tying it all together" than any other popular tome addressing the same era. Nonetheless, the potential reader should be warned:

THIS BOOK IS VERY, VERY HARD TO READ.

I say this not because the concepts are difficult to grasp, but because the author's grammar is atrocious and/or because his editor did a terrible job.

Early in my career, I learned that a writer should re-examine any sentence exceeding some thirty or so words in length, to determine whether the concept would be more "readable" if divided into a larger number of shorter sentences. Apparently, this is a lesson that the author and/or editor of "The Great Upheaval" never learned.

It would seem that Winik, in love with the comma, a quite utilitarian means of punctuation, has had little guidance, from whatever source, be it formal or informal, in the proper use of this helpful tool, and tends, in most instances, to use a multitude of commas, when, under most circumstances, his prose would be far more comprehensible, by either the general populace or the more educated and erudite reader, if the writer would simply use two, three or even four distinct sentences, even in situations where the use of a single, quite long, sentence is possible, but nonetheless cumbersome.

Yes, I wrote that monstrosity of a sentence intentionally. If you had no trouble decyphering it, you will truly enjoy "The Great Upheaval." Otherwise, your enjoyment may be less, because you will find thousands of similar sentences scattered throughout "The Great Upheaval." In fact, you will often find one in each paragraph on any given page.

As a result of the horrid sentence structure, I often found myself re-reading a sentence two or three times to grasp the information that Winik was attempting to convey. Despite this aggravation, I eventually enjoyed the book and give it four stars for the information conveyed and the unique presentation.

The 1790's were eventful years in which the structures of many countries underwent immense upheavals, and provide the framework for this voluminous tome in which three of them are highlighted: France, Russia and the fledgling United States. The former shared some experiences in developing into republics, while Russia under Catherine the Great became ever more autocratic, but the foundation for later revolt and rule by the people was made even there. Certainly the Western world would never be the same again. The author describes the events and individuals involved, in great and sometimes gory detail. He portraits the major figures, from George Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and Madison, to Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Lafayette and many others, with lively detail, and Napoleon also appears. It is surprising to which extent these American and French actors intermingle on the scene, and the author possesses enourmous knowledge of them and great ability in presenting it, often in new light. On the Russian front, not only Catherine is fascinatingly described but also Prince Potemkin, General Kunukov and the life of the Ottoman empire, one of her grand adversaries. Even in Russia, some of the American participants, such as John Paul Jones appear.

This is an eminently readable, indeed exciting account, which will entice many history buffs

Jay Winik's tale of the closing decade of the eighteenth century, is a masterly woven tapestry linking the great events and personages of the infant United States, the butcher shop that Paris became during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and the Russian Imperial Court under Catherine, The Great. Winik brings to familar events a global perspective giving them the dramatic thrust of a great novel. It stands with the works of Barbars Tuchman, and Doris Kearns Godwin as an essential work of modern historical writing.

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and thoroughly interesting. It included many short biographies of famous people of the day such as Ben Franklin, George Washington, Catherine the Great, Potemkin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Paul Jones, Robespierre, Louis IV and Louis the XVI, and even Marie Antoinette. I learned so much about history and geography while reading something as enjoyable as fiction. A great book!

Jay Winik is best known for his popular "April, 1865" dealing with the final chapter in the sanguinary American Civil War. In this new 600 page tome we see Winik taking a detailed look at the world of the 1790s.
Winik's asserts that the world in those distant days was intertwined and connected in ways we internet-tied moderns might not suppose. Ideas and persons traveled great distances. Little was done unheralded in distant corners. Event did have repercussion globally.Scholars and philosophers such as Voltaire, Rosseau; political theorists such as Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke had their works read and discussed from St. Petersburg to the farms and villages of America.
Winik examines the decade of the 1790s in three major nations: The United States, France and Russia. What we learn are:
1, In America the post-revolutionary age leads to the development of political partisanship. Alexander Hamilton, John Adams led the Federalists who were pro-British, pro-big business and supported a strong federal government. Their vision has become manifest in the modern behemoth of industry and wealth that is the United States in the 21st century. Thomas Jefferson led the Republicans favoring agrarian culture, states-rights and support of the French Revolution. We meet in the America sections such giants as George Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams getting good character sketches of these titans and their beliefs. Despite bitter politics and such revolts against the government as the Whiskey Rebellion America was emerging as a world beacon of democratic representative government. Winik makes clear that the fireball in the night "slavery" was a problem which was not resolved; left to linger until it resulted in the Civil War. The conflict between a strong national government and states-rights proponents was also left settled leading to the major conflict over this issue in the nineteenth century.
France was a land runniing with the blood of saints and sinners as the French Revolution destroyed the Bourbon dynasty, executed Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and overe 40.000 others in the horrific Reign of Terror.
We see such revolutionaries as Robspierre, Marat, Danton and the emergence of Napoleon Bonaparte. We see French society torn asunder. These sections are the saddest as we contemplate a revolution turned into tyrrany and repression. The French Revolution was a harbinger of such brutal regimes as those led by Stalin, Hilter and Mao in the twentieth century.
In Russia the redoubtable Catherine the Great destroyed Polish freedom; reigned Mother Russia as an enlighted despot and made passionate love to Potemkin and countless other favorites. She seized the Crimea and fought with fury against the Islamic Ottoman's who ruled Turkey with intrigue, murder and fear. Catherine is a fascinating woman well examined by Winik.
The book is written in a very readable, accessible style which is geared at the educated general populace. Winik has made some mistakes; the books is riddled with typos; it is well illustrated including good maps.
Among his many errors are:
a. He says Robert E. Lee was two years old in 1800 when he was not even born until 1807!
b. Position is used instead of postillon! What an egregious error to let slip by a coypeditor!
c. He confuses Anthony Trollope (not born until 1815) with his mother Frances Trollope who wrote a British bestseller on her journey to America.
The book offers little that is new to the historian but does make for enjoyable reading and learning. Jay Winik is one of our best popular historians moving into that class inhabited by the likes of David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Joseph Ellis and Robert Dallek.

I wanted to like this book. I really did. It's a fascinating approach to a pivotal period in history. The author's treatment of the major players is well done and often insightful. What I can't forgive is the sheer number of mistakes. After a while, I lost count. Here's a sampling:
1. In the introduction and again in the epilogue, Winik states Alexander I of Russia became czar at age 24 on the murder of his father Paul I in March 1801. Yet on pages 438 and 440, he has Alexander being 15 at Catherine the Great's death in November 1796, which would make Alexander the first czar to age nine years in just over four. Actually, Alexander was five weeks short of his 19th birthday when Catherine died, and 23 when he became czar.
2. On page 6, Winik has Louis XIII of France dying in 1642 instead of the correct year, 1643.
3. On page 135, Winik says Louis XVI was orphaned at age 10, when he was actually 11 when his father died, and 12 at his mother's death. Also, on page 137, he has Louis being 16 when he married Marie Antoinette, when he was several months short of his 16th birthday.
4. On page 202, he has Grigory Potemkin distinguishing himself at the battle of Cesme. This is unlikely, as Cesme was a naval battle, and Potemkin was in the army.
5. John Paul Jones was born John Paul, not Paul Jones, Jr as Winik states on pg. 209. Also Jones died in 1792, not 1794 (pg 215).
6. Mikhail Kutuzov's eye costing wound occured in 1774 during Catherine's first Turkish war, not in 1788 during her second (pg. 219).
7. Selim III became sultan of the Ottoman empire at 27, not 18 (pg. 223).
8. Twice, on pg. 263 and 319, it's stated Catherine the Great was pushing 60, when in fact she was already 60.
9. On pg. 382, Marie Antoinette's age is given as 38, when she died just over two weeks shy of that age.
10. Alexander Hamilton's wife's name was Elizabeth Schuyler, not Jane Schyler as listed on pg. 478. Actually, considering how often he cites Ron Chernow's (excellent) biography of Hamilton in his notes, you think Winik would get this right.
11. On pg. 507, John Adams' year of birth is given as 1738. I'll chalk this up to a typo, as the correct year (1735) is given on pg. 21.
12. On pg. 558, Robert E. Lee is said to be two in early 1800. Lee wasn't born until 1807.
13. The Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact was signed in 1939, not 1941 (pg. 567).
I know there's a few i missed, but I think you get the gist of things.

The Great Upheaval is an interesting overview of a crucial period, but it offers nothing new in either concept or research. I find the author's florid prose and not infrequent misuse of words quite annoying. This disappointing book would have benefited from skilled editing.

This is a history of the last 12 years of the 18th century, which, according to historian Jay Winik, was a period which set the world firmly on the path of human rights, human equality, freedom, and representative government. Beginning in fits and starts with the American Revolution, it the moves east to France, and finally to Poland, which at the time was under Russian control. Of the three, the American Revolution was the most successful; the French Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the ancien regime and lasted for about a decade, but was eventually put down by Napoleon; and the liberal experiment in Poland was suppressed before it even got started by Catherine the Great.

We have long been aware of the kinship between the French and American Revolutions; both were born of Enlightenment ideas put into practice. Many of the main players - Jefferson, Lafayette, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin - participated on both sides of the Atlantic. What is new and novel about this work is that Winik shows how these two revolutions were more interconnected than previously thought, and how they were connected with the events in Poland and points east. The world that Winik describes is one in which people and ideas "freely crossed and recrossed borders." The beginnings of globalization, one might say.

In 1789 the American Constitution was ratified, although contentious at the time, it remains our founding and governing document to this day. It was a success by anyone's standards. As these events were unfolding, the European continent was looking on with bated breath. They were waiting to see if the masses would rise up and demand their rights as citizens. The French, during this same year, were storming the Bastille. This affair turned out to be much more bloody than its American counterpart. Americans had the good fortune of being able to start with a clean slate on a new continent. They also had very good leadership from some outstanding individuals such as George Washington. The French had none of the above. They were bogged down with a long history of strife and violence. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, written by Lafayette and Jefferson, was an admirable document and it guided the revolutionary struggle for almost a decade. But with Napoleon's coup d'etat its ideals, along with the Revolution, fell by the wayside.

The next ripple of the revolutionary wave moving eastward is in Poland. Being under Russia's control, it was anxious to break free and establish a republic of its own. The leader of this revolt was Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a hero of the American Revolution. Kosciuszko thought he could finesse a peaceful American-style transformation of Poland. Catherine the Great, purportedly an enlightened monarch, saw things differently. She fretted a bloody French-style upheaval would take place, given that the circumstances in Poland were similar to those in France. She decided to crush the Polish revolt and take that country as well as Russia in an autocrtic direction. Russia remain backward and oppressed until the its violent revolution of 1917.

This is a very long book (695 pages) and there are long sections that have no obvious connection to the theme of revolutions. For example, there is a lengthy account of Russia's war with the Ottoman Empire. It is interesting if one is studying imperial conquests, but not relevant to the subject at hand. Nevertheless, this is an interesting work that suggests how interconnected the world was even before our globalized era.

This is an interesting book and informative, but the author often employs words without carefully thinking about what those words mean, and his copyeditor--likely a young person recently and therefore poorly educated--in places apparently changed an unfamiliar but correct word to a familiar, incorrect word, such as turning "perquisites" into "prerequisites" and "postilion" into "position." I thus find the book a bit challenging to read, as it is full of words that give the wrong nuance or flat out the wrong meaning, and I have to slow down to interpret. Idea-wise, it is thoughtful and worthwhile.

The Great Upheaval, America and the Birth of the Modern World 1788-1800, takes the reader on an fast-paced, fasinating journey. Then as now, the world was a dangerous place. Winik skillfully details how the turbulent 1790s impact today's world.

Washington and our fragile new Republic faced revolution at home during the Shays's and Whiskey Rebellions, while the bloody French revolution guillotined Louis XVI and slaughtered tens of thousands in the "Terror." As these events unfolded, Russia's "enlightened" Catherine The Great abandoned reforms, reverting to totalitarianism, and Russia plunged into darkness. Winik illustrates how these and other world leaders watched each other and reacted to shape world events.

The Islamic Ottoman Empire's first modern Holy War against Western powers and Napolean's ill-fated march on the Middle East, both fought in the 1790s, are instructive for today. The heroism of people like John Paul Jones, Lafayette, Tom Paine and Thaddeus Kosciuszko, who all fought in both America and Europe, show how amazingly interconnected the world of the 1790's really was.

Readers also learn Catherine the Great refused George III's request for 20,000 Russian soldiers and Cossacks to fight the upstart Americans. Had Catherine agreed, these fierce fighters could have altered history.

The Great Upheaval is a true masterpiece - and enjoyable!

An interesting and insigtful sweeping review of the pivotal years of not only American but human history, starting with the late 1600s and culmination with the American Civil War. (Despite the subtitle 1788-1800, the book has much greater scope). This tome should be on the shelf of every student of history, serious or otherwise.

Don't concern yourself with any supposed grammatical errors or stylistic issues. This is a gripping world history, exploring the remarkable relationships between the 18th Century's greatest nations and their leaders. It presents thought provoking ideas for readers who know nothing about world history and for those who think they do.

The Great Upheaval. Another Winik winner - this one should be mandatory reading for all Military Academy Students. Also, I firmly believe that this notable portrayal of two significant and historical personalities be in the library of m