Andrew Schocket
IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
SCHOCKET BOOK DISSECTS VIEWS ON AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Over the last 200-plus years, the founders of the American Revolution have attained iconic status. But, like most icons, what they and the Revolution are
used to symbolize depends perhaps more on who is vaunting them than on any objective reality.
In his new book, "Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution," Dr. Andrew Schocket, history and director of BGSU's American
Culture Studies Program, looks at the ways in which the founders have been put to use by politicians and the judiciary, schools, the media and popular
culture to promote, even unconsciously, their particular agendas. The Revolution has become a "battleground for debating what the nation is about and who
belongs to it," Schocket said.
His examination of citations of the founders over the last 15 years has led him to categorize users into two camps: the "essentialists," or those who see
the "founding myth as unchanging, true and knowable," as Kirkus Review described them, and the "organicists," or those who view the Revolution through the
lens of the present and see the Revolution as an unfolding development.
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Dr. Tyrone Hayes