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Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom: Revolution and Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 975.52302092
EAN: 9780195189087
ISBN: 0195189086
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: September 29, 2005
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editorial Review:
Landon Carter, a Virginia planter, left behind one of the most revealing of all American diaries. In this astonishingly rich biography, Isaac mines this remarkable document--and many other sources--to reconstruct Carter's interior world as it plunged into revolution.
The aging patriarch, though a fierce supporter of American liberty, was deeply troubled by the rebellion and its threat to established order. His diary, originally a record of plantation business, began to fill with angry stories of revolt in his own little kingdom. Carter writes at white heat, his words sputtering from his pen as he documents the terrible rupture that the Revolution meant to him. Indeed, Carter felt in his heart that he was chronicling a world in decline, the passing of the order that his revered father had bequeathed to him. Not only had Landon's king betrayed his subjects, but Landon's own household betrayed him: his son showed insolent defiance, his daughter Judith eloped with a forbidden suitor, all of his slaves conspired constantly, and eight of them made an armed exodus to freedom. The seismic upheaval he helped to start had crumbled the foundations of Carter's own home.
In Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom Rhys Isaac unfolds not only the life, but also the mental world of our countrymen in a long-distant time. Moreover, in this presentation of Landon Carter's passionate narratives, the diarist becomes an arresting new character in the world's literature, a figure of Shakespearean proportions, the Lear of his own tragic kingdom. This long-awaited work will be seen both as a major contribution to Revolution history and a triumph of the art of biography.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Insightful
I read this book while on vacation at Colonial Williamsburg, Virgina. It would be hard to imagine a better atmosphere in which to consider it.
The focus of the book is the conflicting world views of the patriarch, Landon Carter (whose plantation is in the Williamsburg area), his slaves, and his son. The book illuminates the cognitive disconnects and churning dissatisfactions that plagued Carter, his heirs, and their plantation slaves because of rigid social separation, institutionalized ... Read More
Rating: - Wonderfully researched and written but poorly edited.
Mr. Isaac's book is an excellent idea and almost perfectly executed. Far from being a "psycho-babble" book, Mr. Isaac explores in a powerful fashion the life of a man in such a way that we very much get to know him. Carter is a man who we have all met, known, or even lived with at one time or another.
The only thing that I disagreed with was the ordering of the book's treatment of Landon Carter. I would have appreciated a more chronological presentation. Still, I understand why Mr. Isaac wrote ... Read More
Rating:  - Speculative psychology in the guise of history
The author draws profound implications from diary passages which seldom appear to support those implications. The attempted parallel between Carter's plantation life and the revolution is labored, particularly the "father" analogy. Although one takes the point early in the book that King George and Landon Carter are both "fathers," this point is incessantly repeated, to the point of irritation. There is little hard evidence given for the proposition that King George, who was about 24 years old, was viewed ... Read More
Rating: - An Intimate Glimpse of Colonial Virginia
By editing and contextualizing the voluminous diary of Landon Carter, Rhys Isaac has made a significant contribution to the social history of early Virginia and colonial America. By placing excerpts from Carter's diary within a larger framework of colonial society, readers can gain a more thorough understanding of the changing mores of mid 17th century Virginia. Carter emerges as a flesh and blood person throughout the book, though rarely sympathetic when seen through the eyes of 21st century readers. Of particular ... Read More
Rating:  - More than the title suggests
This book isn't as popular as it should be because the title makes it seem something of a dry academic tome and, let's face it, Landon Carter doesn't have the popular name recognition of Alexander Hamilton (i.e. Chernow), George Washington (i.e. Ellis) or Benjamin Franklin (i.e. Wood).
The star of the show in this case is Carter himself rather than the author. Dr. Isaac does a wonderful job of framing and interpreting Carter's diary to make a coherent analysis of the profound social changes which occurred ... Read More
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