Although this book is about men, like the best new works on masculinity Citizen Bachelors repeatedly brings its subject into conversation with women's history.
* William and Mary Quarterly *
Many single men in eighteenth-century England and America faced heavy, discriminatory taxation, but rather than obliterating 'the solitary state,' such policies served instead to politicize bachelors and to draw them fully to the brink of citizenship. In Citizen Bachelors, John Gilbert McCurdy writes the history of this remarkable development. His narrative is convincing, elegant, and often astonishing. He explores both the lived experiences of single men and the social construction of bachelorhood as a gendered identity.... McCurdy's narrative... makes a vital contribution to the study of early American manhood and masculinity.... Written in clear, uncluttered prose and offering rich rewards for scholars of gender, sexuality, the family, and the law, Citizen Bachelors should be singled out for careful reading.
-- Benjamin Irvin * H-SHEAR *
McCurdy succeeds brilliantly in showing how the legal standing of 'bachelors' changed over the course of the colonial and revolutionary eras.... Drawing enlightening comparisons between New England, the Chesapeake, and Pennsylvania, he is able to show how laws across the colonies were moving in a similar direction... [as they] collectively began to carve a space for adult single men in society. McCurdy also unearths some fascinating snapshots of the subjective experience of bachelorhood.
-- Rodney Hessinger * Men and Masculinities *
MCurdy has produced a valuable volume in this careful and highly readable inventory of early American bachelors and their cultural representations. When combined with the many related works on sexuality in this period, the book helps us understand a world long neglected and misrepresented. It is vital that we appreciate how different colonial society's cultural and sexual norms were from our own; the bachelor we recognize today was not known in early colonial North America. With this useful study, however, we can begin to see how this familiar figure first came into existence.
-- David D. Doyle * New England Quarterly *
Extensively researched and lucidly written.... An illuminating and substantial work which should be of interest to historians of gender relations in early modern England, colonial British America, and the early American republic.
* The English Historical Review *
McCurdy has done a marvelous job of highlighting the newborn independence of early American bachelors.
* American Historical Review *
A very fine book.
* The Journal of American History *
A thoughtful, intriguing, and valuable contribution to our understanding of early American social, cultural, and political life.
* Pennsylvania History *
McCurdy's detailed and well-researched book offers an alternate perspective on the late-colonial and Revolutionary eras of American history. Forward-thinking in terms of its subject matter, this book is a must read for historians of American gender, especially those specializing in masculinity studies.
* History: Reviews of New Books *
