"Why We Still Need Paul Merrill Spurlin’s The French Enlightenment in America"

Spurlin makes statements that would cause any Turnerite’s jaw to drop. “American culture, until well into the nineteenth century,” he writes, “was derivative.” As this declaration makes clear, Spurlin could be both provocative and a little cheeky on occasion. In reality, he knew all too well that the American Enlightenment, the ideas in the minds of George Washington, John Adams, or Thomas Jefferson, the experiment that was the Revolution, and the ensuing nation stemmed also from the unique world those Americans inhabited.