The fate of revolution in three nations rules 'Great Upheaval'

The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World; 1788-1800, By Jay Winik, Harper, 659 pp., illustrated, $29.95

In the 12 years between 1788 and 1800, one revolution occurred, a second was put down, and a third was solidified.

These three events - in, respectively, France, Poland, and the United States - and their role in creating the world of two centuries yet to come, are the subject of "The Great Upheaval," an authoritative study by the historian Jay Winik.

It is an ambitious subject, and Winik, a senior scholar at the University of Maryland, deserves credit for laying it out with an eye for both the grand sweep and the telling details.

The world of the late 18th century, Winik writes, was "far more interconnected than we realize." Political figures and military leaders, intellectuals and rebels, "all freely crossed and recrossed borders," supporting foreign causes "with great relish" - think Jefferson and Lafayette, John Paul Jones (naval hero of the American Revolution and later, commander of Russia's Baltic fleet) and Thaddeus Kosciuszko (émigré volunteer in the American Revolution and leader of Poland's failed revolution).

Winik's accounts of the institutionalizing of the American Revolution - the ratification of the Constitution and the orderly (if fractious) transfer of political power - and of the convulsive terror of the French Revolution are comprehensive, if perhaps overly drawn out.

The third leg of Winik's essay - the revolution in Poland - fits into the author's grand scheme in a counterrevolutionary fashion.

Poland was under Russian control, but in 1790 adopted a republican-style constitution and ordered Russian troops out of the country. Russia's ruler, Catherine the Great, responded by invading Poland in 1792. Kosciuszko took command of the Polish army and won a series of victories. He became, writes Winik, "the hope of freedom-loving Poles and revolutionaries everywhere."

Polish success was short-lived and after its army was bottled up in Warsaw, the uprising collapsed, and Catherine, Winik writes, "coolly wiped Poland off the face of the map," partitioning it with Prussia and Austria.

The fruits of Winik's research are to be found not only in his explication of grand themes, but in the myriad factoids of his account.

One particularly intriguing one - cited here because it also raises some issues about the book as a whole - is that "as a tribute to his enormous contribution" to the success of the American Revolution, the birthday of Louis XVI "was a national holiday in America."

This is mentioned no less than three times but without giving a date - it was probably Aug. 23 - or any indication by what action it was made a holiday, or how widely it was observed.

Clearly, some sharper editing would have helped, not only with details such as that curious holiday, but also with the hefty chunks of potted history and biography which too often bring Winik's account to a stuttering halt.

But among the strengths worth noting is a rather significant subtext to Winik's narrative, American exceptionalism.

There are hints throughout the book, and toward the end, as Winik is pulling his themes and threads together, appears this charming passage: "So as a harsh, darkening curtain was about to descend upon Napoleonic Europe, in the soft twilight that precedes the gentlest point of dusk, the new American capital was preparing for the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson the next morning. First, night fell. One by one the stars arrived in the sky like a thousand distant windows lighting up. It was March 3, 1801."

And just beyond Winik's focus, but within the time-frame of his "Great Upheaval" there was a fourth revolution gearing up, one arguably of even greater impact in shaping the modern world - the Industrial Revolution.

Michael Kenney is a freelance writer who lives in Cambridge.