Bill Kauffman

This is a life of Luther Martin, one of the most eloquent opponents of the Constitution, whose criticisms within the convention and later outside it during the ratification process made one of the strongest cases against it. Usually, historians have seen him as being on the "wrong side" of history, but Kauffman, as a modern libertarian decentralist, feels Martin was basically right. Personally, as a statist, I do not agree philosophically with Martin or Kauffman, but I think there is no show more doubt that (as Kauffman repeatedly insists) the Federalist Founding Fathers were as human and fallible as their opponents (if not more so) and Martin had a right to make his case and point to the rather dubious methods used to rush through ratification. Kauffman does not pretend Martin was always right, especially in later life when his notorious drinking caught with him, but he does cover not only the constitutional debate but also Martin's significant role as a successful defense attorney for Samuel Chase (Federalist judge impeached by the Jeffersonians) and Aaron Burr (who later repaid Martin's help by taking Martin in during his senile poverty-stricken old age.) show less

Ain't My America is a fascinating and valuable book; it will remain on my shelf. One can often tell when a book held my attention by (if I own it) the frequency of underlining in it. Well, the amount of ink I expended on this book is enormous; there is a word, a sentence or an entire paragraph underlined at least once, usually much more, on every page. Some pages are a mess of smeared ink.

I have probably never encountered an author who shows off his extensive vocabulary this much. The late show more William F. Buckley looks like Beavis in comparison. I'm not sure what to make of this, though. On one hand, if you have an extensive vocabulary, why wouldn't you use it; on the other hand, I know too many jerks already who use archaic words just to show off how smart they think they are.

Kauffman is obnoxious in a way much more obvious than that. He's smug, snide and insulting in commenting on the thinkers or politicians he deems militaristic; it makes him come off as self-righteous and self-assured. The passive-aggressive rebelliousness (not anger) simmers beneath every line. At some point I thought and even wrote in a margin, "What is this jerk's problem?" I know what it is: besides being a pacifist and strong localist, Kauffman has anarchist or anarcho-libertarian sympathies that I can't relate to. One figures that out more from reading about him and observing his book titles than reading what he says in Ain't My America; the book has nothing to do with anarcho-libertarian political ideas. It doesn't necessarily make his views look good, and makes me more hesitant to read his other books. show less

Quite an engaging book about uniquely American cultural and political figures and the values of independence, localism and personalism. I disagree with Kauffman on quite a few particulars, but I enjoyed the book. He comes across as curmudgeonly and madly in love with America -- not in a large scale nationalist imperialist way, but in a profoundly moving attachment to place kind of way. He looks at some incredibly fascinating figures, never neglecting their less-than-flattering show more characteristics, but also not rejecting their legacy simply because of their lack of "perfection," ideological, moral or otherwise. show less

I've been familiar with Bill Kauffman's columns for some years now in The American Conservative magazine (and he's in large part the reason I read the magazine in the first place), but his AmCon writing is somewhat spotty to me. I loved, for example, his cover-story interview with George McGovern several years ago ("Come Home, America: Why the Democrats Need a New George McGovern, and Why the Republicans Could Use One Too"), but some of his regionalism (his baseball stuff and that sort of show more thing) is just a little too, well, regional for me. :-)

This is the first of his books that I've read, and my feelings about it mirror his columns. I particularly loved the chapters on Dorothy Day and Carolyn Chute (as to Chute, I have a particular interest in Maine regional writing), and I very much liked the chapter on Eugene McCarthy and Pat Moynihan, but some of the others were take-it-or-leave-it for me, hence the three stars. That's probably, though, to be expected of a book like this, which is more a collection of essays than a serially progressing work. Some chapters you'll like, some you won't, and YMMV. show less