A sophisticated analysis of sources that have long confused historians. Offering a thoughtful window onto the world of early American men, it demonstrates that sympathy and affection were important qualities for the founding fathers.
John Gilbert McCurdy New England Quarterly Path-breaking... Godbeer has staked out bold ground with this book. Some early Americanists will surely scoff at the notion ... Read morethat sentimentality was relevant even in the macho arena of state formation, just as historians of sexuality will freeze at the inference that there is no sexual attraction or intimacy between these men. That one book could successfully intervene with both the oldest historiographical and the newest theoretical question is no small feat, but rather one for which Godbeer deserves the appreciation and admiration of his fellow historians. Journal of the Early Republic His beautifully crafted book breaks important new ground by connecting the ideal of sympathetic fraternal love to the reconceptualization of politics and political community in revolutionary America.
Anne S. Lombard American Historical Review Godbeer follows his earlier studies of sexuality in early America with this impressively erudite study of male friendship, as expressed in letters, journals, and other literary forms, from the Puritan days to the early republic of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries.
George E. Haggerty Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Godbeer's evocative narrative format allows the reader to enter a lost world of sentiment and even physical affection between men. Godbeer complicates, as others have before him, the modern binaries of sexuality, but he also argues that male friendship provides a new way of seeing familiar faces and analyzing familiar events of colonial British North American history in the eighteenth century.
Lisa Wilson Journal of American History I know of no other work that conveys so articulately and plangently the crucial role that male love played in the Revolutionary period.
David Greven College Literature Godbeer compels readers to rethink early American gender roles and to look beyond the modern tendency to see sex in all verbal and physical expressions of love.
Christine E. Sears Eighteenth-Century Studies A welcome addition to the literature on the formation of the United States. Through rigorous research, creative use of sources, and deep engagement with the work of scholars before him, The Overflowing of Friendship is a thoughtful and new look at the relationships between men of a certain class, race, time, and place.
David A. Reichard H-Law, H-Net Reviews Godbeer stakes out a judiciously considered position at some length, emphasizing the very different ways early modern individuals understood sexuality and the possibilities of physical yet nonerotic love... An extremely readable work.
Anne G. Myles Common-Place Show Less