The title of this collection is misleading. It should read: “Disillusion and Disappointments in the Postrevolutionary Atlantic World, 1790–1828.” This is indeed “the time of Jefferson and Miranda,” but the central theme of the collection is disillusion or unfulfilled dreams of three revolutionary movements—French, North American, and South American—with the Haitian Revolution hovering in the background. These are not synthetic or interpretive essays of the “Atlantic Revolution” à la Robert R. Palmer or Jacques Godechot. Instead, most of the essays are discrete narrative accounts—political biography based on personal correspondence, diplomatic history based on diplomatic dispatches and military tactics, and regional socioeconomic history based largely on secondary sources. Despite the heroic efforts of the editors, the essays do not adhere closely to the central theme of disillusion; each essay must be appreciated on its own merits.
Four of the essays treat political biography. Louis André Pichon, the French consul in Philadelphia...
