Perspective

Authors Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz are both professors of history. Appropriately, then, they have carefully researched the events and people associated with the Kingdom of Matthias, as evidenced by a copious amount of footnotes in which they cite a variety of sources.

The authors freely acknowledge that there are inconsistencies in the historical record. Particularly, the text by William Leete Stone is biased towards Benjamin and Ann Folger, and hostile to Matthias. The Stone text also mentions nothing about the sexual promiscuity angle of the scandal. Johnson and Wilentz have a mission to be as comprehensive and objective as possible, and so, unlike Stone, they piece together the intriguing sexual politics of the Kingdom for scrutiny. When there are conflicting accounts, the authors confront them head-on, trying to discern what actually occurred.

Johnson and Wilentz are also interested in discovering what connection Matthews has to the...