G. J. Barker-Benfield
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226037431
- eISBN:
- 9780226037448
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226037448.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
During the many years that they were separated by the perils of the American Revolution, John and Abigail Adams exchanged hundreds of letters. Writing to each other of public events and private ...
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During the many years that they were separated by the perils of the American Revolution, John and Abigail Adams exchanged hundreds of letters. Writing to each other of public events and private feelings, loyalty and love, revolution and parenting, they wove a tapestry of correspondence that has become a cherished part of American history and literature. With Abigail and John Adams, this book mines those familiar letters to a new purpose: teasing out the ways in which they reflected—and helped transform—a language of sensibility, inherited from Britain but, amid the revolutionary fervor, becoming Americanized. Sensibility—a heightened moral consciousness of feeling, rooted in the theories of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Adam Smith, and including a “moral sense” akin to the physical senses—threads throughout these letters. As the book makes clear, sensibility was the fertile, humanizing ground on which the Adamses not only founded their marriage, but also the “abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity” they and their contemporaries hoped to plant at the heart of the new nation. Bringing together their correspondence with a wealth of fascinating detail about life and thought, courtship and sex, gender and parenting, and class and politics in the revolutionary generation and beyond, the book draws a portrait of a marriage endangered by separation, yet surviving by the same ideas and idealism that drove the revolution itself.Less
During the many years that they were separated by the perils of the American Revolution, John and Abigail Adams exchanged hundreds of letters. Writing to each other of public events and private feelings, loyalty and love, revolution and parenting, they wove a tapestry of correspondence that has become a cherished part of American history and literature. With Abigail and John Adams, this book mines those familiar letters to a new purpose: teasing out the ways in which they reflected—and helped transform—a language of sensibility, inherited from Britain but, amid the revolutionary fervor, becoming Americanized. Sensibility—a heightened moral consciousness of feeling, rooted in the theories of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Adam Smith, and including a “moral sense” akin to the physical senses—threads throughout these letters. As the book makes clear, sensibility was the fertile, humanizing ground on which the Adamses not only founded their marriage, but also the “abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity” they and their contemporaries hoped to plant at the heart of the new nation. Bringing together their correspondence with a wealth of fascinating detail about life and thought, courtship and sex, gender and parenting, and class and politics in the revolutionary generation and beyond, the book draws a portrait of a marriage endangered by separation, yet surviving by the same ideas and idealism that drove the revolution itself.
David A. Hollinger
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691158426
- eISBN:
- 9781400845996
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691158426.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
The role of liberalized, ecumenical Protestantism in American history has too often been obscured by the more flamboyant and orthodox versions of the faith that oppose evolution, embrace narrow ...
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The role of liberalized, ecumenical Protestantism in American history has too often been obscured by the more flamboyant and orthodox versions of the faith that oppose evolution, embrace narrow conceptions of family values, and continue to insist that the United States should be understood as a Christian nation. This book examines how liberal Protestant thinkers struggled to embrace modernity, even at the cost of yielding much of the symbolic capital of Christianity to more conservative, evangelical communities of faith. If religion is not simply a private concern, but a potential basis for public policy and a national culture, does this mean that religious ideas can be subject to the same kind of robust public debate normally given to ideas about race, gender, and the economy? Or is there something special about religious ideas that invite a suspension of critical discussion? These essays, collected here for the first time, demonstrate that the critical discussion of religious ideas has been central to the process by which Protestantism has been liberalized throughout the history of the United States, and shed light on the complex relationship between religion and politics in contemporary American life. The book brings together in one volume the author's most influential writings on ecumenical Protestantism. It features an informative general introduction as well as concise introductions to each essay.Less
The role of liberalized, ecumenical Protestantism in American history has too often been obscured by the more flamboyant and orthodox versions of the faith that oppose evolution, embrace narrow conceptions of family values, and continue to insist that the United States should be understood as a Christian nation. This book examines how liberal Protestant thinkers struggled to embrace modernity, even at the cost of yielding much of the symbolic capital of Christianity to more conservative, evangelical communities of faith. If religion is not simply a private concern, but a potential basis for public policy and a national culture, does this mean that religious ideas can be subject to the same kind of robust public debate normally given to ideas about race, gender, and the economy? Or is there something special about religious ideas that invite a suspension of critical discussion? These essays, collected here for the first time, demonstrate that the critical discussion of religious ideas has been central to the process by which Protestantism has been liberalized throughout the history of the United States, and shed light on the complex relationship between religion and politics in contemporary American life. The book brings together in one volume the author's most influential writings on ecumenical Protestantism. It features an informative general introduction as well as concise introductions to each essay.
Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195093810
- eISBN:
- 9780199854127
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195093810.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
When Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office for the presidency in 1801, America had just passed through twelve critical years, dominated by some of the towering figures of our history and by the ...
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When Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office for the presidency in 1801, America had just passed through twelve critical years, dominated by some of the towering figures of our history and by the challenge of having to do everything for the first time. George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, and Jefferson himself each had a share in shaping that remarkable era. This book provides an analytical survey of this extraordinary period. Ranging over the widest variety of concerns—political, cultural, economic, diplomatic, and military—it provides a sweeping historical account of the problems the new nation faced as well as the particular individuals who tried to solve them. As it moves through the Federalist era, the book draws character sketches not only of the great figures—Washington and Jefferson, Talleyrand and Napoleon Bonaparte—but also of lesser ones, such as George Hammond, Britain's frustrated minister to the United States, James McHenry, Adams's hapless Secretary of War, the pre-Chief Justice version of John Marshall, and others.Less
When Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office for the presidency in 1801, America had just passed through twelve critical years, dominated by some of the towering figures of our history and by the challenge of having to do everything for the first time. George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, and Jefferson himself each had a share in shaping that remarkable era. This book provides an analytical survey of this extraordinary period. Ranging over the widest variety of concerns—political, cultural, economic, diplomatic, and military—it provides a sweeping historical account of the problems the new nation faced as well as the particular individuals who tried to solve them. As it moves through the Federalist era, the book draws character sketches not only of the great figures—Washington and Jefferson, Talleyrand and Napoleon Bonaparte—but also of lesser ones, such as George Hammond, Britain's frustrated minister to the United States, James McHenry, Adams's hapless Secretary of War, the pre-Chief Justice version of John Marshall, and others.
R. R. Palmer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161280
- eISBN:
- 9781400850228
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161280.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
For the Western world, the period from 1760 to 1800 was the great revolutionary era in which the outlines of the modern democratic state came into being. Here for the first time in one volume is the ...
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For the Western world, the period from 1760 to 1800 was the great revolutionary era in which the outlines of the modern democratic state came into being. Here for the first time in one volume is the author's account of this incendiary age. The book argues that the American, French, and Polish revolutions—and the movements for political change in Britain, Ireland, Holland, and elsewhere—were manifestations of similar political ideas, needs, and conflicts. The book traces the clash between an older form of society, marked by legalized social rank and hereditary or self-perpetuating elites, and a new form of society that placed a greater value on social mobility and legal equality. Featuring a new foreword, the book introduces a new generation of readers to this enduring work of political history.Less
For the Western world, the period from 1760 to 1800 was the great revolutionary era in which the outlines of the modern democratic state came into being. Here for the first time in one volume is the author's account of this incendiary age. The book argues that the American, French, and Polish revolutions—and the movements for political change in Britain, Ireland, Holland, and elsewhere—were manifestations of similar political ideas, needs, and conflicts. The book traces the clash between an older form of society, marked by legalized social rank and hereditary or self-perpetuating elites, and a new form of society that placed a greater value on social mobility and legal equality. Featuring a new foreword, the book introduces a new generation of readers to this enduring work of political history.
Kwasi Konadu
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195390643
- eISBN:
- 9780199775736
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390643.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Since the Herskovits‐Frazier debate of the 1940s, African diasporic research in the Americas has been marked not only by an uninterrupted focus on West Africa but also by an equally incessant neglect ...
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Since the Herskovits‐Frazier debate of the 1940s, African diasporic research in the Americas has been marked not only by an uninterrupted focus on West Africa but also by an equally incessant neglect of the Akan. Accounting for 10 percent of the total number of African captives who embarked for the Americas, the Akan diaspora not only shaped and brought into sharp relief the diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom but also complicated these themes in that the displaced Akan created their own social orders based on foundational cultural understandings. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Akan never constituted a majority among other Africans in the Americas, yet their leadership skills in warfare and political organization, medicinal knowledge of plant use and spiritual practice, and composite culture as archived in the musical traditions, language, and patterns of African diasporic life far surpassed what their actual numbers would suggest. The book argues that a composite culture calibrated between the Gold Coast (Ghana) littoral and the forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. That argument calls attention to the historic formation of Akan culture in West Africa and its reach into the Americas, where the Akan experience in the former British, Danish, and Dutch colonies is explored. There, those early experiences foreground the contemporary movement of diasporic Africans and the Akan people between Ghana and North America. Indeed, the Akan experience provides for a better understanding of how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still becoming.Less
Since the Herskovits‐Frazier debate of the 1940s, African diasporic research in the Americas has been marked not only by an uninterrupted focus on West Africa but also by an equally incessant neglect of the Akan. Accounting for 10 percent of the total number of African captives who embarked for the Americas, the Akan diaspora not only shaped and brought into sharp relief the diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom but also complicated these themes in that the displaced Akan created their own social orders based on foundational cultural understandings. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Akan never constituted a majority among other Africans in the Americas, yet their leadership skills in warfare and political organization, medicinal knowledge of plant use and spiritual practice, and composite culture as archived in the musical traditions, language, and patterns of African diasporic life far surpassed what their actual numbers would suggest. The book argues that a composite culture calibrated between the Gold Coast (Ghana) littoral and the forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. That argument calls attention to the historic formation of Akan culture in West Africa and its reach into the Americas, where the Akan experience in the former British, Danish, and Dutch colonies is explored. There, those early experiences foreground the contemporary movement of diasporic Africans and the Akan people between Ghana and North America. Indeed, the Akan experience provides for a better understanding of how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still becoming.
William S. Belko (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813035253
- eISBN:
- 9780813039121
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813035253.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Conventional history narratives tell us that in the early years of the Republic, the United States fought three wars against the Seminole Indians and two against the Creeks. However, this book argues ...
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Conventional history narratives tell us that in the early years of the Republic, the United States fought three wars against the Seminole Indians and two against the Creeks. However, this book argues that we would do better to view these events as moments of heightened military aggression punctuating a much longer period of conflict in the Gulf Coast region. Featuring chapters on topics ranging from international diplomacy to Seminole military strategy, the volume urges us to reconsider the reasons for and impact of early U.S. territorial expansion. It highlights the actions and motivations of Indians and African Americans during the period and establishes the groundwork for research that is more balanced and looks beyond the hopes and dreams of whites.Less
Conventional history narratives tell us that in the early years of the Republic, the United States fought three wars against the Seminole Indians and two against the Creeks. However, this book argues that we would do better to view these events as moments of heightened military aggression punctuating a much longer period of conflict in the Gulf Coast region. Featuring chapters on topics ranging from international diplomacy to Seminole military strategy, the volume urges us to reconsider the reasons for and impact of early U.S. territorial expansion. It highlights the actions and motivations of Indians and African Americans during the period and establishes the groundwork for research that is more balanced and looks beyond the hopes and dreams of whites.
Kathleen D. McCarthy
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226561981
- eISBN:
- 9780226561998
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226561998.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Since the dawn of the republic, faith in social equality, religious freedom, and the right to engage in civic activism have constituted the national creed of the United States. This book traces the ...
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Since the dawn of the republic, faith in social equality, religious freedom, and the right to engage in civic activism have constituted the national creed of the United States. This book traces the evolution of these ideals, exploring the impact of philanthropy and volunteerism on America from 1700 to 1865. What results is a vital reevaluation of public life during the pivotal decades leading up to the Civil War. The market revolution, participatory democracy, and voluntary associations have all been closely linked since the birth of the United States. This book explores the relationships among these three institutions, showing how charities and reform associations forged partnerships with government, provided important safety valves for popular discontent, and sparked much-needed economic development. The book also demonstrates how the idea of philanthropy became crucially wedded to social activism during the Jacksonian era. It explores how acts of volunteerism and charity became involved with the abolitionist movement, educational patronage, the struggle against racism, and female social justice campaigns. What resulted, it contends, were heated political battles over the extent to which women and African Americans would occupy the public stage.Less
Since the dawn of the republic, faith in social equality, religious freedom, and the right to engage in civic activism have constituted the national creed of the United States. This book traces the evolution of these ideals, exploring the impact of philanthropy and volunteerism on America from 1700 to 1865. What results is a vital reevaluation of public life during the pivotal decades leading up to the Civil War. The market revolution, participatory democracy, and voluntary associations have all been closely linked since the birth of the United States. This book explores the relationships among these three institutions, showing how charities and reform associations forged partnerships with government, provided important safety valves for popular discontent, and sparked much-needed economic development. The book also demonstrates how the idea of philanthropy became crucially wedded to social activism during the Jacksonian era. It explores how acts of volunteerism and charity became involved with the abolitionist movement, educational patronage, the struggle against racism, and female social justice campaigns. What resulted, it contends, were heated political battles over the extent to which women and African Americans would occupy the public stage.
James Sidbury
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195320107
- eISBN:
- 9780199789009
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195320107.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
The first slaves imported to America did not see themselves as “African” but rather as Temne, Igbo, or Yoruban. This book reveals how an African identity emerged in the late 18th-century Atlantic ...
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The first slaves imported to America did not see themselves as “African” but rather as Temne, Igbo, or Yoruban. This book reveals how an African identity emerged in the late 18th-century Atlantic world, tracing the development of “African” from a degrading term connoting savage people, to a word that was a source of pride and unity for the diverse victims of the Atlantic slave trade. The book first examines the work of black writers — such as Ignatius Sancho in England and Phillis Wheatley in America — who created a narrative of African identity that took its meaning from the diaspora, a narrative that began with enslavement and the experience of the Middle Passage, allowing people of various ethnic backgrounds to become “African” by virtue of sharing the oppression of slavery. It looks at political activists who worked within the emerging antislavery moment in England and North America in the 1780s and 1790s; it describes the rise of the African church movement in various cities — most notably, the establishment of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as an independent denomination — and the efforts of wealthy sea captain Paul Cuffe to initiate a black-controlled emigration movement that would forge ties between Sierra Leone and blacks in North America; and it examines in detail the efforts of blacks to emigrate to Africa, founding Sierra Leone and Liberia.Less
The first slaves imported to America did not see themselves as “African” but rather as Temne, Igbo, or Yoruban. This book reveals how an African identity emerged in the late 18th-century Atlantic world, tracing the development of “African” from a degrading term connoting savage people, to a word that was a source of pride and unity for the diverse victims of the Atlantic slave trade. The book first examines the work of black writers — such as Ignatius Sancho in England and Phillis Wheatley in America — who created a narrative of African identity that took its meaning from the diaspora, a narrative that began with enslavement and the experience of the Middle Passage, allowing people of various ethnic backgrounds to become “African” by virtue of sharing the oppression of slavery. It looks at political activists who worked within the emerging antislavery moment in England and North America in the 1780s and 1790s; it describes the rise of the African church movement in various cities — most notably, the establishment of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as an independent denomination — and the efforts of wealthy sea captain Paul Cuffe to initiate a black-controlled emigration movement that would forge ties between Sierra Leone and blacks in North America; and it examines in detail the efforts of blacks to emigrate to Africa, founding Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Edwin S. Gaustad
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195305357
- eISBN:
- 9780199850662
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305357.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
The tenth and youngest son of a poor Boston soapmaker, Benjamin Franklin would rise to become, in Thomas Jefferson's words, “the greatest man and ornament of his age”. This book offers a portrait of ...
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The tenth and youngest son of a poor Boston soapmaker, Benjamin Franklin would rise to become, in Thomas Jefferson's words, “the greatest man and ornament of his age”. This book offers a portrait of this towering colonial figure, illuminating Franklin's character and personality. Here is truly one of the most extraordinary lives imaginable, a man who, with only two years of formal education, became a printer, publisher, postmaster, philosopher, world-class scientist and inventor, statesman, musician, and abolitionist. The book presents a chronological account of all these accomplishments, delightfully spiced with quotations from Franklin's own extensive writings. The book describes how the hardworking Franklin became at age twenty-four the most successful printer in Pennsylvania and how by forty-two, with the help of Poor Richard's Almanack, he had amassed enough wealth to retire from business. The book then follows Franklin's next brilliant career, as an inventor and scientist, examining his pioneering work on electricity and his inventions of the Franklin Stove, the lightning rod, and bifocals, as well as his mapping of the Gulf Stream, a major contribution to navigation. Lastly, the book covers Franklin's role as America's leading statesman, ranging from his years in England before the Revolutionary War to his time in France thereafter, highlighting his many contributions to the cause of liberty. Along the way, the book sheds light on Franklin's personal life, including his troubled relationship with his illegitimate son William, who remained a Loyalist during the Revolution, and Franklin's thoughts on such topics as religion and morality.Less
The tenth and youngest son of a poor Boston soapmaker, Benjamin Franklin would rise to become, in Thomas Jefferson's words, “the greatest man and ornament of his age”. This book offers a portrait of this towering colonial figure, illuminating Franklin's character and personality. Here is truly one of the most extraordinary lives imaginable, a man who, with only two years of formal education, became a printer, publisher, postmaster, philosopher, world-class scientist and inventor, statesman, musician, and abolitionist. The book presents a chronological account of all these accomplishments, delightfully spiced with quotations from Franklin's own extensive writings. The book describes how the hardworking Franklin became at age twenty-four the most successful printer in Pennsylvania and how by forty-two, with the help of Poor Richard's Almanack, he had amassed enough wealth to retire from business. The book then follows Franklin's next brilliant career, as an inventor and scientist, examining his pioneering work on electricity and his inventions of the Franklin Stove, the lightning rod, and bifocals, as well as his mapping of the Gulf Stream, a major contribution to navigation. Lastly, the book covers Franklin's role as America's leading statesman, ranging from his years in England before the Revolutionary War to his time in France thereafter, highlighting his many contributions to the cause of liberty. Along the way, the book sheds light on Franklin's personal life, including his troubled relationship with his illegitimate son William, who remained a Loyalist during the Revolution, and Franklin's thoughts on such topics as religion and morality.
Alan Houston
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300124477
- eISBN:
- 9780300152395
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300124477.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This book explores Benjamin Franklin's social and political thought. Although Franklin is often considered “the first American,” his intellectual world was cosmopolitan. An active participant in ...
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This book explores Benjamin Franklin's social and political thought. Although Franklin is often considered “the first American,” his intellectual world was cosmopolitan. An active participant in eighteenth-century Atlantic debates over the modern commercial republic, he combined abstract analyses with practical proposals. The author treats Franklin as shrewd, creative, and engaged—a lively thinker who joined both learned controversies and political conflicts at home and abroad. Drawing on archival research, he examines such themes as trade and commerce, voluntary associations and civic militias, population growth and immigration policy, political union and electoral institutions, and freedom and slavery. In each case, the author shows how Franklin urged the improvement of self and society. The book provides a compelling portrait of Franklin, a fresh perspective on American identity, and a vital account of what it means to be practical.Less
This book explores Benjamin Franklin's social and political thought. Although Franklin is often considered “the first American,” his intellectual world was cosmopolitan. An active participant in eighteenth-century Atlantic debates over the modern commercial republic, he combined abstract analyses with practical proposals. The author treats Franklin as shrewd, creative, and engaged—a lively thinker who joined both learned controversies and political conflicts at home and abroad. Drawing on archival research, he examines such themes as trade and commerce, voluntary associations and civic militias, population growth and immigration policy, political union and electoral institutions, and freedom and slavery. In each case, the author shows how Franklin urged the improvement of self and society. The book provides a compelling portrait of Franklin, a fresh perspective on American identity, and a vital account of what it means to be practical.
1895
1929
1971
1989
42
“A Gentleman and an Officer”
‘A Nation of Beggars’?
The A Priori in Philosophy
A. J. Appasamy and his Reading of Rāmānuja
