While the notion of one general eighteenth-century revolutionary movement has been well received, it has also evoked much criticism and doubt. The doubt rests on an awareness of national differences. Many French scholars believe that in the conception of a "world revolution" the specific features of the French Revolution its peculiar causes and problems, its violence and its struggle, its exaltation and its qualities of fanatical commitment are minimized or lost. There are some in England who believe that in such a broad pattern the true character of England in the eighteenth century is distorted or misconceived.
In America the adverse criticism has been more muted, but the same considerations must obviously apply. The differences between America and Europe are evident, as are those between the American and French revolutions. It is hardly to be denied that the United States has long possessed a distinctive national character. The special peculiarity of American civilization has been the theme of much thoughtful review of our history, notably by such writers as Louis Hartz, Clinton Rossiter, and Daniel Boorstin. As Hartz puts it, American development has been characterized by the absence of the "feudal factor" without which European history cannot be understood. Or, in another of his phrases where Europe has been the land of the frustrated democrat, America has been the land of the frustrated aristocrat. The logic of such a position militates against the thesis of an Age of Democratic Revolution in which, in America, France, and elsewhere, similar causes had similar effects, similar problems led to similar attempts at solution, or similar people and similar social classes developed similar ideologies and ideals. There is much in the thinking of Hartz, Rossiter, or Boorstin with which one must agree. There must be some grounds for a conciliation of what appear to........
