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Published Jun 2023
592 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
A spirited group biography that explores the origins of the most iconic words in American history, and the remarkable transatlantic context from which they emerged.
The most famous phrase in American history once looked quite different. "The preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness" was how Thomas Jefferson put it in the first draft of the Declaration, before the first ampersand was scratched out, along with "the preservation of." In a statement as pithy—and contested—as this, a small deletion matters. And indeed, that final, iconizing revision was the last in a long chain of revisions stretching across the Atlantic and back. The precise contours of these three rights have never been pinned down—and yet in making these words into rights, Jefferson reified the hopes (and debates) not only of a group of rebel-statesmen but also of an earlier generation of British thinkers who could barely imagine a country like the United States of America.
Peter Moore's Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness tells the true story of what may be the most successful import in US history: the "American dream." Centered on the friendship between Benjamin Franklin and the British publisher William Strahan, and featuring figures including the cultural giant Samuel Johnson, the ground-breaking historian Catharine Macaulay, the firebrand politician John Wilkes, and revolutionary activist Thomas Paine, this book looks at the generation that preceded the Declaration in 1776. Everyone, it seemed, had "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" on their minds; Moore shows why, and reveals how these still-nascent ideals made their way across an ocean and started a revolution.
"A rich and immersive intellectual history ... Moore's fluid prose is infused with the 'boisterous' excitement of the era, when 'people knew they were living at a loaded moment in history.' This is a pleasure." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Like Jenny Uglow's The Lunar Men and Leo Damrosch's The Club, Moore's vibrant group biography brings to life the intellectual and political currents, in Britain and Colonial America, that gave rise to the phrase 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' ... An energetic and meticulously researched history." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The vivid descriptions of people, modes of communication, and social life are fascinating and give this well-researched history the readability of fiction." ―Booklist (starred review)
"With flair and insight, Peter Moore takes one of the most famous and deceptively simple lines in history―a line that founded a nation and changed the world. He digs into it to unearth a wealth of unexpected influences and connections, a trove of gripping stories, and a vibrant company of characters. A wonderfully absorbing and stimulating book." ―Sarah Bakewell, NBCC Award–winning author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Café
"In Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Peter Moore reveals a rich trans-Atlantic network of thinkers and writers pursuing new ideas of freedom in an age of revolution. With deft insights and in clear prose, Moore restores the cosmopolitan origins of an American Revolution meant to liberate human potential. In this eloquent book, that revolution becomes more global and enduring and less parochial and limited." ―Alan Taylor, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804
This information about Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Peter Moore grew up in Staffordshire in the 1980/90s, then travelled north to study as an undergraduate at Collingwood College in Durham. After university he spent three years in Madrid before he returned to start an MA in non-fiction writing at City, University of London in 2008.
Moore teaches creative writing at the University of London and the University of Oxford. He is the author of Damn His Blood and The Weather Experiment, which was named one of the New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2015 and adapted for a BBC4 documentary series. He lives in London.
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