Anglophilia: Deference, Devotion, and Antebellum America. By Elisa Tamarkin. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, July 2008. Cloth: ISBN 978-0-226-78944-6 $35.00. 384 pages.
Review by Brian Cowlishaw, Northeastern State University, Oklahoma

Elisa Tamarkin’s Anglophilia is in every respect a model of scholarship. The book’s argument is original, persuasive, engaging, and frequently comic; the scholarship, Herculean (after 324 pages of regular text appear 60 pages of notes, none of them superfluous); the prose, both erudite and readable. If there is a flaw to be found, it is that the argument at times seems repetitive. Arguably, though, that is not actually a flaw, for to persuade readers of the accuracy of her counterintuitive argument, Tamarkin must repeat and emphasize her interpretations a certain amount.Anglophilia’s ingenious—and utterly persuasive—argument is that antebellum Americans formed a sense of national and individual identity by means of deference and devotion to all things British (or, at least, “British”). Whereas late-eighteenth-century Americans felt forced to define themselves by means of perceived differences from Brits, by mid-nineteenth century, a few generations later, that compulsion had largely dissipated.Each of Tamarkin’s four chapters examines a different aspect or manifestation of the process of American identity-formation through reverence for Britishness. Chapter One, “Monarch-Love; or, How the Prince of Wales Saved the Union,” shows how public displays of adoration for British royalty helped Americans feel American. In particular, the chapter parses American newspaper and magazine coverage of Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838, and more so, responses to Prince Albert’s weeks-long visit to America virtually on the eve of the Civil War. Amazingly, “on November 3, 1860, South Carolina had committed to secede if Lincoln won, other states planned to follow, Lincoln’s winning was assured, Wall Street was in a panic, and the Prince of Wales was on the cover of Harper’s for the fifth time in six weeks” (5). Facing imminent internecine war, Americans sought a sense of unity in British royalty: all Americans, of all classes, colors, and occupations, could join in finding Albert (and Victoria) inexhaustibly fascinating. Brits, compelled by duty to obey and venerate royalty, allegedly found it difficult to do so. Americans, free to bestow love as they chose, loved royalty precisely because they did not have to.Chapter Two, “Imperial Nostalgia: American Elegies for British Empire,” examines nineteenth-century histories, documents, and archives of the Revolutionary War that, perhaps contrary to expectation, show deep admiration for the British, the “enemy.” Pro-British accounts trickled out into the public gradually through the nineteenth century, as cultural pressure to demonize the redcoats receded. With such materials increasingly available, Americans tended more to wax nostalgic about the British, even about the Revolutionary War. In American popular imagination, the conflict came to resemble a friendly sports rivalry with an especially civilized opponent, more than a war. Some Americans even expressed the regret that there had been a war, and that the revolutionaries had won it; would British rule not have proved better, they argued, than the heathenish lawlessness that led to the Civil War?Chapter Three, “Freedom and Deference: Society, Antislavery, and Black Intellectualism,” makes the surprising—but, again, very persuasive—claim that the Abolitionist movement in America defined itself in significant part through Anglophilia. In practical terms, the British offered a model in having abolished slavery nearly fifty years before America finally did. But more subtly and surprisingly, both white and black Abolitionists modeled themselves after “English English” (178)—after what they perceived to be essentially English characteristics such as cultural refinement, intellectual freedom, love of literature, rich historical tradition, and racial tolerance. Black Americans, especially, found that in England they were free from having to discuss Abolition all the time, and were treated fairly and kindly. There, they could indulge all their best, most civilized impulses; they could be as refined as they wished, without the violence, hindrances, and prejudices they constantly experienced in America.Chapter Four, “The Anglophile Academy,” makes the less surprising claim that American universities, Harvard most of all, modeled themselves explicitly after English models. Although this may not be shocking news, Tamarkin brings a wealth of fascinating, telling details to bear in showing how the process worked. For example, she reports that one prominent professor in particular, James Russell Lowell, actually taught and required his students to speak with an English accent. “Harvard Indifference,” or the affectation of chronic boredom, excessive alcohol consumption, a tendency to play practical jokes on classmates, and aversion to (at least publicly) applying oneself to academic effort—in short, the time-honored, still-endemic undergraduate attitude—actually has Anglophilic roots, Tamarkin argues. Professors and students then and now prefer to imagine the university as a special place where deeper—read: “English”—things such as literature, art, and Great Ideas matter more than petty political questions and laborious striving. As in England, American imagination has it, the university offers a unique space to slow down, escape the hectic, striving “real world,” and think profoundly; “Harvard Indifference” is the carefully cultivated proper attitude in which to do so.Throughout the book, Tamarkin reproduces numerous, varied art works to make her ingenious case. There are magazine covers, cartoons, oil paintings, playing cards, and advertisements, among other artifacts. Her archival research is impressive, revealing, and intriguing.Anglophilia will appeal powerfully to several groups of scholars. Americanists, especially those studying the antebellum years, will appreciate its voluminous original scholarship. Victorianists will appreciate this detailed account of American views of their subject. And really, anyone who has ever wondered, for instance, why Americans still gawk so lovingly at Buckingham Palace, and pine so sadly for Diana, “the People’s Princess,” will admire this compelling work of scholarship.