Are we all Americans?

The life of ideas in November 2009 organized a debate around David Armitage’s book, The Declaration of Independence. A Global Historyrecently translated to the Atalante editions. On this occasion, two Americanists, Denis Lacorne (Ceri-Sciences Po) and Romain Huret (Lyon 2-IUF) discussed the main theses of this work.

David Armitage is a professor of history of political ideas at Harvard, specialist in imperial and Atlantic history. In 2000, he published a book that was a date in the field of imperial history, entitled The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge University Press). He co -edit the collection “ Ideas in Context From Cambridge University Press.

We publish below:

• The presentation by David Armitage of his book (video)

• An review of the book by Romain Huret

• Denis Lacorne’s comments on the book (video)

You can also download this presentation in MP3 audio format:

The initiative of the Atalante editions is happy. The translation of David Armitage’s work, The Declaration of Independence. A Global History (2007), makes a stimulating work accessible to a French audience. The quality and precision of the translation, even in the compilations of declarations of independence which accompany the work in the appendix, strengthen the pleasure of reading. However, by opening David Armitage’s book, the French reader risks being somewhat taken aback, less by the strangeness of the title chosen by the French publisher (which Barack Obama comes here ?), than by the nature of the subject. Eminent specialist in the British Empire of XVI^e At XVIII^e A centuries, professor in the prestigious Harvard University, David Armitage ventures on risky terrains that he knows less: American history first, contemporary history, then, and the history of international relations finally. Its argument is simple: the statement of independence of the United States has served as an intellectual matrix and symbolic reference for all independence worldwide since the end of XVIII^e century. Contrary to what the American conservatives of the start of the XXI^e A century, drawing strongly from the times of the young Republic to establish their adventurous foreign policy, the declaration of independence does not give birth to an American exceptionalism, but rather to a universal idea, which is slowly spread throughout the world. The novelty of the text, explains armitage to us, lies less in its evocation of the rights of individuals, but rather in the affirmation of a sovereign state ; Reducing text to its national dimension would be a misinterpretation because it announces a universal principle: the existence of sovereign states. In this way, Armitage brings its stone to a contemporary debate on the place of the United States in the world, considering such a completely saving presentist approach.

With meticulousness, arming dissects the writing of this founding text. The practical conditions of its development demonstrate that American editors have drawn from a set of global references ; The adoption of the text by the elites of other countries is therefore easily explained. Consequently, considers arming, the writing of a story global of the declaration of independence is essential. With modesty, he sets a few guidelines and invites his historical colleagues to expand research. As the author recognizes quite, the third part relating to the dissemination process is undeniably the weakest of the work because it is promptly advanced, without taking into account the diversity of reality, national experiences and resistance . But criticizing the speed, even brutality, of generalizations, the lack of attention paid to the local singularity of the countries mentioned or the weakness of the theoretical apparatus used to evoke international relations, appears excessive because armitage has anticipated these difficulties. The book is not an exhaustive sum, but an incisive test whose hypotheses must be confirmed or invalidated in the future.

A political reading of the declaration of independence

Fully respectful of the honesty of the author’s intellectual approach, it is therefore elsewhere that we want to open the debate: first of all, on the sleight of hand operated by armitage when it neglects the evocation of Individual rights which give all their meaning to the declaration of independence, then, on the lack of attention to the social and political conditions of dissemination of the text in the world and, finally, around the properly American dimension of the text studied. First, the restrictive reading of the declaration of independence is problematic: is it possible to dissociate to this point from the parts of the text and to assert that the essential lies in the proclamation of a sovereign state ? Such a proclamation has little meaning without the recognition of the individual rights of citizens and the creation of an American nation with singular ideals. If the Americans have “ forget The political and territorial dimension of their declaration is that their interest was legitimately elsewhere: in the claim of citizen equality and the recognition of a nation with its own myths.

By maintaining itself in a voluntarily political reading in the narrowest sense of the term, David Armitage is part of a debate specific to the specialists of the young American Republic, very anxious to reflect on the national identity of the first Americans. This focus on the identity dimension masks, according to him, the real political challenges of time and the revolutionary nature of the new American state. By neglecting the identity and national elements, Armitage offers an ethereal reading of the early days of the American nation. Even if the two men differentiate themselves around the importance of the national question, the arbitration approach recognizes its debt to a historian of the young Republic, Peter Ongu, whose concept of “ Freedom Empire However, used to define the nationalist project of Thomas Jefferson. In the mind of the onuf, this idea of ​​an empire of freedom which will extend in the lands of the American West which border the young Republic is theorized by Thomas Jefferson, the editor (and it is not a coincidence) of the declaration of independence. This empire has nothing to do with the revolutionary wars of France in the 1790s: freedom is proposed to local populations, which remain free to consent to this new political order. If Peter Onuf’s book has aroused some tightness within the profession, rightly recalling that American freedom was sometimes imposed in these western lands by less idealistic means, that of armitage risks causing similar questions , especially since it removes all nationalist and identity reflection. The text is imbued with a certain form of naivety, of idealism will say some, around cultural diplomacy and more or less active forms, of diffusion of American ideals. As David Armitage itself recalls, it is essentially the day after the first and the Second World War that the evocation of memory and the political value of the text appeared in texts published by international organizations. That Czechoslovakia or Kosovo (in the 1920s for the first country or the 1990s for the second) are inspired by American ideals will not surprise any historian of international relations in the XX^e century.

The uses of an American place of memory

When reading the work, and its claim of a global history, the reader paradoxically poses the question of a strictly American story of this founding text. It is not a question of writing a story of its genesis and its immediate dissemination, already written, and well written. Rather, it is the appropriation of the declaration by social groups and the modes of use of this founding text which would deserve to be analyzed. As David Armitage evokes it without developing it, groups, often minority like the African Americans, have not forgotten the strictly political dimension contained in the declaration ; Others conversely forgot it. In both cases, it would have been interesting to understand the methods of building this place of American memory. The historian Michael Kammen rightly noted that the founding texts have been the subject of fluctuating political instrumentalizations.

This memorial look should be linked to a second research track on the political and intellectual conditions for the dissemination of the declaration. If the administration of Woodrow Wilson takes this founding text in its luggage when it goes to Europe, it is probably not trivial. The role of this cultural diplomacy would have made it possible to anchor in an institutional reality this story which remains far too often far from the realities from below. Recent work on the interaction of the national and the international throughout the XX^e century would also have given narrative and theoretical thickness to demonstration. Mary Dudziak thus brilliantly demonstrated that the Movement for Civil Rights had part of her success in fear, widespread within American elites, that segregation be used in the context of Cold War by the Soviets, too happy to put the ‘Accent to the American paradox, promising happiness and offering segregation. The Declaration of Independence, as armiting also emphasizes, is one of the texts that the State Department endeavors to disseminate in the world in the 1950s, even if the Communists have the gap of denouncing the gap Between ideal and reality.

Thus, by reading the armitage book, another book has paradoxically appeared: an American history of the declaration of independence, history rooted locally, and concerned about the outside world. The paradox is rich in lessons: by abandoning the complexity and national dynamics of the United States, Armitage fails to convince its reader. But this is undoubtedly the main contribution of this stimulating essay: he calls for subsequent and crossed research between historians.

You can also download this intervention in MP3 audio format: