Conscience as a Historical Force is the first true analysis of the life and thought of the radically democratic eighteenth-century backcountry figure of Herman Husband (1724–1795) and his heavily metaphorical political and religious writings during the “Age of Revolution.”
This book addresses the influence of religion in the American revolutionary period and locates the events of Herman Husband’s life in the broader Atlantic context of the social, economic, and political transition from feudalism to capitalism. Husband’s metaphorical reading of the Bible reveals the timeless nature of his message and its relevance today. Other studies of Herman Husband fail in this regard even though, this book argues, this is the most valuable lesson of his life. The debate over the importance of religion in the American Revolution has neglected its connection with both the English radicals of the seventeenth century and continental religious radicals dating back further still. Essentially, the “antinomian” movement, where individuals refused to acknowledge any power greater than that of their own conscience, was Atlantic in scope and dates to the origins of Christianity itself.
With a chronological approach, this study is of great use to students and scholars interested in the politics and religion of eighteenth-century America.
Table of Contents:
Introduction Part 1: Agrarianism, Capitalism, Antinomianism 1. The Early Modern Context 2. The Making of an Eighteenth-Century Antinomian 3. The Desperation of Accumulation 4. Regulating the Narrative Part 2: The Book of Herman 5. Tuscape Death 6. Return of "The Beast" 7. The End of the World. Conclusion
About the Author :
Douglas S. Harvey teaches at Fort Hays State University, the United States, as well as community colleges in the Kansas City area. His first book was The Theatre of Empire: Frontier Performances in America (2010). He has also published numerous articles on environmental and cultural history of the American frontier.
Review :
“This labor of love by Douglas Harvey vividly brings to life Herman Husband, one of the eighteenth century's most radical figures. Here is a powerful portrait of a visionary leader of insurgent commoners and a creative political thinker whose ideas have never, until now, been fully appreciated.”
Marcus Rediker, author of The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist (2017)
“Douglas Harvey's thoroughgoing exploration of Herman Husband's astonishing spiritual and political vision and thought gives us not only the first such study ever published but also the most original and thought-provoking of Husband biographies. Those who already know the great American prophet of the Alleghenies will learn much; those who don't can have no more compelling guide to one of the most fascinating figures of the U.S. founding period. A definitive accomplishment in the field.”
William Hogeland, Independent Scholar, author of Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West (2017)
“A powerful and evocative account of the life, times and writings of Herman Husband, antinomian, philosophe, and farmer, who lived over the decades of the American Revolution. Harvey’s skillful intertwining of the larger contexts of Indigenous dispossession, capitalist extraction, and elite political betrayal, stretching across time (since the Glorious Revolution) and space (from England to the America), takes the reader on a wild journey through the backcountry cultures and mentalities of a rural colonial America of which we have heard little, and need to know more. Here, as in other supposed margins, global transitions from feudal to capitalist modes of production forged liberationist ideologies and agrarian ways of life and thought that exerted the power of refusal on the Beast (settler-colonial extraction) and forged alternative possibilities for human and other-than-human life. An eye-opener that should be required reading for anyone seeking to grasp the role of everyday life in the construction of conscience in the Age of Revolutions.”
Kathleen Wilson, SUNY-Stony Brook, USA, author of Strolling Players of Empire: Theatre and Performances of Power in the British Imperial Provinces, 1656-1833 (2022)
“Writing of commoners' lives and popular revolt with an indispensable "from below" perspective requires careful attention to ideas and metaphors said to come from on high. Douglas Harvey takes such care in this inventive book, adroitly placing his subject's ideas and actions in changing material and political circumstances.”
David Roediger, University of Kansas, USA, author of The Sinking Middle Class: A Political History (2020)
