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kevin_shepherd 's review for:
While no author is completely free of bias, Alf Mapp's leanings are unapologetically clear. In most cases, his conclusions are supported by valid but carefully selected snippets of correspondence, journals and speeches. In other instances, his essay on Benjamin Franklin for example, the database is more vague.
I also found it oddly convenient that the author elected to include rather obscure statesmen like Haym Salomon and Charles Carroll and ignored the likes of Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen.
On the influence of the King James version of the bible, Mapp writes, "The modern translations are not so dauntingly minatory as the one with which [George Washington] was familiar. But if he had not been accustomed to reading the King James version, his own prose would have lacked the grandeur that it sometimes attained when echoing that great masterpiece." ~ hmmm...
All that being said, Mapp's conclusions aren't necessarily wrong. There are, after all, over two centuries between the colonial revolution and the author's publication. In many cases the only evidence of religious conviction (or lack there-of) is circumstantial, and Mapp does a good job of putting all his ducks in a row. Still, there are several relevant quotes that didn't make the cut that could have given some of the essays more balance.
I also found it oddly convenient that the author elected to include rather obscure statesmen like Haym Salomon and Charles Carroll and ignored the likes of Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen.
On the influence of the King James version of the bible, Mapp writes, "The modern translations are not so dauntingly minatory as the one with which [George Washington] was familiar. But if he had not been accustomed to reading the King James version, his own prose would have lacked the grandeur that it sometimes attained when echoing that great masterpiece." ~ hmmm...
All that being said, Mapp's conclusions aren't necessarily wrong. There are, after all, over two centuries between the colonial revolution and the author's publication. In many cases the only evidence of religious conviction (or lack there-of) is circumstantial, and Mapp does a good job of putting all his ducks in a row. Still, there are several relevant quotes that didn't make the cut that could have given some of the essays more balance.