The American Revolution was all about big ideas of liberty, freedom, and equality. Right?
Maybe not.
My book Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America makes the case that the American Revolution was based largely on false premises and misperception. It describes how the revolutionary generation tried to understand the world, and how they fought false news at every turn.
The book provides a prehistory, in a lot of ways, to our present social media-driven “post-truth” era defined by a mountain of so-called “fake news.” Disinformation may be news to some, but it’s not new. In fact, it’s an essential part of the story of how the American nation came into being.
It’s a good book! You should order it.
Awards
Winner of the 2021-22 Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize.
The Research Society for American Periodicals awards the 2021-22 Book Prize to Jordan E. Taylor for Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America. Taylor’s book is a fascinating history and description of foreign news in 18th century newspapers in the North American British colonies and new Republic. Misinformation Nation makes a compelling case for the significance of foreign news by tracing the circulation of information transnationally and illustrating the significance of geographical, political, and textual forces on North Americans’ periodical reading practices. Grappling with an expansive archive, Taylor offers new ways to interpret the sociopolitical context of the American revolutionary era through newspapers and, more generally, with a method to analyze the sociopolitical impact of periodicals beyond this time and place.
Runner-up, 2022 Journal of the American Revolution Book-of-the-Year Award.
Jordan E. Taylor’s meticulously researched book Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America closely examines the print media of the late eighteenth century, how reliable it was, and how it was used to form people’s opinions about the American Revolution and the society it created. People reacted to news that was misunderstood, leading to uninformed overreactions. But they were desperate for more news, so newspapers did their best to print any news that they could get their hands on, even if was false. Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America is an excellent study of the Fourth Estate and how it tried to get it right, or at least get it published.
Blurbs
Sophia Rosenfeld, author of Democracy and Truth: A Short History:
At a moment when we are consumed with the effects of misinformation and disinformation on our own political life, along comes Misinformation Nation to remind us that there is nothing new under the sun. Jordan Taylor lays out in great detail how and why faulty news, especially from overseas, fueled American politics from the start. This is vital history for today.
Joseph M. Adelman, author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789:
Jordan Taylor forces scholars to reconsider long-held assumptions about the American Revolution through his innovative analysis of how Americans grappled with the problem of information arriving from abroad at a dizzying pace and with uncertain veracity. We will be reckoning with Misinformation Nation for years to come.
Benjamin L. Carp, author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America:
A fearless navigator across the seas of information, Jordan Taylor provides fresh and fascinating insights about the perilous and uncertain world of the late eighteenth century. Today’s readers will recognize themselves immediately in early Americans’ struggle to process the news. A thoughtful, compelling, and essential work of history.
Reviews
Review by Carl Keyes, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Summer 2024.
“Taylor convincingly demonstrates that arguments over the politics of truth have roots that go back to the era of the American Revolution and the founding of the nation. Misinformation Nation is timely, but its usefulness is not limited to the current moment.”
Helena Yoo Roth review, Journal of the Early Republic, Fall 2024.
“With an eye for detail and a flair for narrative, Jordan E. Taylor explores how foreign news spread throughout colonial America and the early United States.”
Review by Catherine O’Donnell, Journal of American History, March 2024.
“His productively anachronistic use ofterms such as media furthers this hot-wiring of past to present, and his blessedly lively prose—People do things! There’s even humor!—makes familiar landscapes once again intriguing.”
Review by Katlyn Marie Carter, Society for US Intellectual History, Feb. 4, 2024.
“Throughout this thought-provoking and engaging book, Taylor examines how people got information, what they did with it, and why the circulation of more information often led to polarized, volatile, and even revolutionary politics.”
Review by Christopher Walton H-Early America, May 26, 2023.
“Misinformation Nation makes us grapple with an entirely new dimension of the Revolution and early republic, while providing an engaging narrative with clear similarities to present struggles.”
Review by Emily Sneff, Contingent Magazine, Mar. 19, 2023.
“Misinformation Nation is the sort of memorable rhyme that might seem better-suited to a Schoolhouse Rock tune than a scholarly monograph, but as Jordan Taylor argues, misinformation was so pervasive at the founding of the United States that it might well deserve an educational song.”
Review by Don Hagist, Journal of the American Revolution, Jan. 27, 2023.
“Misinformation Nation is thorough yet accessible, detailed yet readable, comprehensive yet well-paced. Most of all it is thought provoking.”
Review by Barbara Spindel, Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 29, 2022.
“In Taylor’s telling, our democracy has not only survived misinformation but was practically built on it. It’s a notion that would be comforting if it weren’t so troubling.”
Table of Contents
Introduction: “any thing but the age of Reason”
Ch. 1: Foreign Advices and False Friends: The Mediation Revolution in British America
Ch. 2: Taxation with Misrepresentation: Fears of Deception in the Anglo-American Imperial Crisis
Ch. 3: The Lying Gazettes: News from London in Revolutionary Politics
Ch. 4: An Ocean of News: Independence, War, and Atlantic Information Exchange
Ch. 5: The Genius of Information: Scripting an Age of Revolutions
Ch. 6: The American Constellation: Dreams of a Continental Revolution
Ch. 7: Bentalou’s Wager: The French Revolution and the Birth of American Partisanship
Ch. 8: Unmaking the Revolutionary Caribbean: Race, Commerce, and Communication in the Early Republic
Ch. 9: The Fruits of Revolution: False News and the Eclipse of the Federalists
Epilogue: Tanguy’s Faithful Mirror
Appendix: A Note on Data Sources
Jordan E. Taylor 