The Other America: Caribbean Literature in a New World Context
J. Michael Dash
224 pages (June 1998)
Paper ISBN: 0813917646
Writing and Postcolonialism
in the Early Republic
Edward Watts
Hardcover - 256 pages (May 1998)
ISBN: 0813917611
Privacy and Print: Reading
and Writing in Seventeenth-Century England
Cecile M.Jagodzinski
256 pages, 6 x 9 • Cloth $45.00
ISBN 0-8139-1839-1
AMIDST THE OTHER religious, political, and technological changes
in seventeenth-century England, the ready
availability of printed books was the most
significant sign of the disappearance of old ways of thinking.
The ability to read granted new independence as the
interactions between reader, text, and author moved from the
public forums of church and court to the privacy and solitude of
the home.
Privacy and Print proposes that the emergence of the concept of
privacy as a personal right, as the very core of
individuality, is connected in a complex fashion with the history
of reading. Cecile M. Jagodzinski attempts to recover the
experience of readers past by examining representations of
reading and readers (especially women) in five genres of
seventeenth-century literature: devotional books, conversion
narratives, personal letters, drama, and the novel. The
discussion ranges from the published letters of Charles I and
John Donne to Aphra Behn's Love-Letters between a Nobleman and
His Sister and Margaret Cavendish's literary
activities. The author examines how the resulting shifts in
religious and literary practices due to the printed book
influenced the development of the literary canon. She also
addresses women's ambiguous roles in print culture,
trying to pinpoint how privacy became gendered in the early
modern period.
Debates about privacy and individualism still rage in today's
computerized society. Jagodzinski's important and
well-written book speaks to these present-day concerns and offers
a historical example of the effect of new
technologies on popular culture.
Cecile M. Jagodzinski is Associate Professor at the Milner
Library at Illinois State University.
Federalists Reconsidered
Edited by Doron Ben-Atar and
Barbara Oberg
Hidden Lives: The
Archaeology of Slave Life at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest
Barbara Heath
96 pages, 39 illustrations, 8 x 10 • Paper $12.50
ISBN 0-8139-1867-7
LIKE MONTICELLO, Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest offers a
significant archeological view of slave life at the turn of the
nineteenth century in rural Virginia. In Hidden Lives, Barbara J.
Heath re-creates the daily life of slaves at Jefferson's second
home from 1773, the year he inherited the plantation, until 1812,
when his reorganization of its landscape resulted in the
destruction of a slave quarter. Drawing on census data, letters,
memoranda, and other primary material, Heath describes the slave
community's family ties, the agricultural cycle of work, and the
sickness and health care they experienced. Her portrait is
enhanced by fresh archaeological findings and a wealth of
illustrations, including site and contemporary maps, ../images of
slaves at work and at home, artifacts, and interpretive drawings.
By looking at the social meaning of buildings, yards, and
artifacts, Heath presents new interpretations of how individuals
used materials to create a sense of self and community, how they
acquired belongings, and how they safeguarded them. For visitors
to historic sites and students and scholars of archaeology,
Heath's book offers a visual and textual exploration of complex
relationships within the plantation and of the resulting choices,
compromises, and limitations that Jefferson's slaves negotiated
in the process of making a home within the confines of
institutionalized slavery.
Reviews
"An original and fascinating contribution to the growing
literature on the archaeology of the African-American experience.
Heath writes exceptionally well and has a captivating
style." --Mary C. Beaudry, Boston University
"A fine addition to our understanding of the archaeology of
slavery in the Virginia piedmont and on the plantations of Thomas
Jefferson. The writing is lucid, and the treatment, while
maintaining its scholarly standards, is suitable for a broad
range of
readers." --Lucia C. Stanton, Monticello
The Authors
Barbara J. Heath is Director of Archaeology at Thomas Jefferson's
Poplar Forest in Forest, Virginia.
Rearing Wolves to Our Own
Destruction": Slavery in Richmond, Virginia, 1782-1865
Midori Takagi
238 pages, 6 x 9 • Cloth $37.50
ISBN 0-8139-1834-0
RICHMOND WAS NOT only the capital of Virginia and of the
Confederacy; it was also one of the most
industrialized cities south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Boasting
ironworks, tobacco processing plants, and flour mills,
the city by 1860 drew half of its male workforce from the local
slave population. "Rearing Wolves to Our Own
Destruction"
examines this unusual urban labor system from 1782 until the end
of the Civil War. Many urban bondsmen and
women were hired to businesses rather than working directly for
their owners. As a result, they frequently had the
opportunity to negotiate their own contracts, to live alone, and
to keep a portion of their wages in cash. Working
conditions in industrial Richmond enabled African-American men
and women to build a community organized
around family networks, black churches, segregated neighborhoods,
secret societies, and aid organizations. Through these
institutions, Takagi demonstrates, slaves were able to educate
themselves and to develop their political awareness. They also
came to expect a degree of control over their labor and lives.
Richmond's urban slave system offered blacks a level of economic
and emotional support not usually available to plantation slaves.
"Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction" offers a
valuable portrait of urban slavery in an individual city that
raises questions about the adaptability of slavery as an
institution to an urban setting and, more importantly, the ways
in which slaves were able to turn urban working conditions to
their own advantage.
Reviews
"This book is an impressive piece of work. Based on solid
research, it makes an important contribution to the
history of Richmond, to our understanding of urban and industrial
slavery, and to the broader field of slave historiography."
--Charles B. Dew, Williams College
"A thoughtful exploration of the promises and pitfalls of
urban residence and factory labor for enslaved Virginians
in Richmond, and for their enslavers, between independence from
the British and the defeat of the Confederacy." --Michael P.
Johnson, Johns Hopkins University
Midori Takagi is Assistant Professor of History at Fairhaven
College, Western Washington University.
George and Martha
Washington: Portraits from the Presidential Years
Edited by Ellen Miles and
Preface by Edmund
Morgan
64 pages, 8-1/2 x 11 • Paper $17.95
ISBN 0-8139-1886-3
RESPONDING TO a near-constant flow of requests, George and Martha
Washington sat for about two dozen portraits from 1789 to 1797,
collected here in this elegantly illustrated volume. From
miniatures executed on ivory for family and friends to a
historical portrait that depicts Washington during the
Revolution, the ../images vary widely in treatment and setting.
What they all reflect, Ellen Miles suggests, is the great need
the new republic had for portraits of its first chief executive,
often to stand in for Washington himself. In the portraits,
Martha Washington is usually dressed plainly, her round face
composed in a benign but cheerful expression. Portraits of George
Washington often show him in military uniform, the pin of the
Society of the Cincinnati on his lapel; others have him in black
velvet, wearing a simple ruffled white shirt, his hair tied back
in a queue. Most observers agreed that Martha was short and
pleasant-looking, and that George was nearly six feet tall, had a
long nose, large and penetrating light eyes, and a noble
forehead. The state of his teeth affects his appearance in some
portraits.
Washington responded to having his likeness taken with a
characteristic mixture of pride in his position and mild
irritation. Once, a painter in Boston hid behind a church pulpit
to sketch him. Washington's mild chafing at requests for him to
sit illustrates the conflict he felt between his obligation to
the nation and his desire to return to private life. As Edmund
Morgan writes in his preface, Washington "succeeded in
clothing the new government with his own honor and left the
presidency with a heritage of independence and respect which,
despite the antics of so many of his successors, has never quite
left it." George and Martha Washington: Portraits from the
Presidential Years offers, quite literally, a unique portrait of
the original First Couple.
Ellen G. Miles is Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the
National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian. Edmund Morgan is
Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University.
George Washington: The Man
Behind the Myths
William M. S. Rasmussen and Robert Tilton
344 pages, 9 x 12 • Paper $24.95
ISBN 0-8139-1900-2
TWO HUNDRED YEARS after Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee's
funeral oration for George Washington, the eloquence of his words
"first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of
his countrymen" has caused most Americans to forget the
clause that followed in which Lee located Washington's character
firmly in his private life. George Washington: The Man behind the
Myths redresses this historical imbalance in our image of
Washington by examining our conceptions and misconceptions about
him through a fascinating collection of documents and ../images.
Washington's own accounts, observations by his contemporaries,
narratives by the first generation of Washington biographers,
decorative objects, and visual images, which were assembled for a
major exhibition sponsored by the Virginia Historical Society,
the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, and Washington and Lee
University, invite a fresh evaluation
of Washington. William M. S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton trace
the ways in which Washington's origins in the peculiar colonial
society of Virginia prepared him for success on the national
stage. Chronologically arranged chapters examine Washington's
early exposure to the wealthy Fairfax family, his command of the
Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and later the
Continental Army, his decision to attend the Constitutional
Convention, and his two elections to the presidency. Rasmussen
and Tilton argue that the major transitions we see in
Washington's public image were made possible
by the stability of his private life and his love of Mount
Vernon.
The image of Washington created by antebellum writers and artists
after his death was intended to capture what he signified to the
fledgling republic. This myth has survived largely because of its
usefulness to our national culture. George Washington: The Man
behind the Myths takes a crucial step in restoring our
understanding of Washington as he actually was.
Reviews
"A very readable and deeply informative work that offers
fresh views on Washington's life and character. The authors show
considerable originality and insight in their analysis of the
reciprocal influence between Washington's public and private
lives." --Philander D. Chase, Papers of George Washington
George Washington: The Man behind the Myths is a splendid
combination of narrative, analysis, and visual imagery. It makes
an original contribution to Washington scholarship." --Don
Higginbotham, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
William M. S. Rasmussen is Curator of Art at the Virginia
Historical Society. Robert S. Tilton is Assistant Professor of
American Literature and Director of American Studies at the
University of Connecticut at Storrs.
The Invention of George
Washington
Paul K. Longmore
352 pages, 6-1/4 x 9-1/4 • Paper $16.95
ISBN 0-8139-1872-3
BY TRACING George Washington's deliberate development from
colonial planter and soldier to republican icon, Paul Longmore
answers the riddle of Washington's simultaneous fame and
aloofness, arriving at a portrait of Washington as a
self-fashioning representative of his turbulent time. As a young
Virginia planter, Washington aspired to virtues associated with
the colonial gentry, but as the British system of patronage
threatened his own ambitions, he adopted the radical Whig
patriotism that would lead him to take up arms. As a national
hero of the Revolutionary War, and in accepting the presidency,
Washington defended civilian control of the military and other
ideals of republican government because his own image was
inextricably tied to their success. The Invention of George
Washington, first published in hardcover in 1988, explores the
character of our first president in modern terms, but as Longmore
shows, Washington's assiduous cultivation of his own public image
does not ultimately diminish his extraordinary achievements as
general and statesman.
Reviews
"Paul Longmore has examined the origins of the national
image of George Washington, an image that still seems to hide the
man. (How could anyone have been that good?) It was not, Longmore
shows, the work of Washington's admirers, nor yet of any
18th-century equivalent of the press agent. Washington
deliberately created his image himself." --The New Republic
"Longmore's well-written and thoroughly researched work
explains George Washington's career in terms of his lifelong
ambition for public recognition, his conscious embodiment of
colonial Virginia's honor-based culture, and his adherence to the
Whig ideal of true patriotism. . . . Longmore also convincingly
demonstrates that, contrary to previous scholarship, Washington
was as politically sophisticated and well-read in history and
politics as other Founding Fathers." --Choice
Paul K. Longmore is Professor of History at San Francisco State
University.
George Washington's Diaries: An Abridgment
Edited by Dorothy Twohig
640 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 • Cloth $65.00 • Paper $18.95
Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1856-1 • Paper ISBN 0-8139-1857-X
CULLED FROM the six volumes of The Diaries of George Washington
completed in 1979, this selection of entries chosen by retired
Washington Papers editor Dorothy Twohig reveals the lifelong
preoccupations of the public and private man.
Washington was rarely isolated from the world during his eventful
life. His diary for 1751-52 relates a voyage to Barbados when he
was nineteen. The next two accounts concern the early phases of
the French and Indian War, in which Washington
commanded a Virginia regiment. By the 1760s when Washington's
diaries resume, he considered himself retired from public life,
but George III was on the British throne and in the American
colonies the process of unrest was beginning that would
ultimately place Washington in command of a revolutionary army.
Even as he traveled to Philadelphia in 1787 to chair the
Constitutional Convention, however, and later as president,
Washington's first love remained his plantation, Mount Vernon. In
his diary, he religiously recorded the changing methods of
farming he employed there and the pleasures of riding and
hunting. Rich in material from this private sphere, George
Washington's Diaries: An Abridgment offers historians and anyone
interested in Washington a closer view of the first president in
this bicentennial year of his death.
Reviews
"In March 1785 Washington referred to his work at Mount
Vernon as his singular 'amusement,' which is what Donald Jackson
and Dorothy Twohig continue to provide readers of Washington's
diaries. These volumes stand in welcome contrast to the growing
colorlessness that has become the hallmark of too many
documentary editions." --American Historical Review
"The editors have turned the diaries and almanac notes . . .
into sources that when placed in their context give us real
insight into this most inscrutable of the Founding Fathers."
--Virginia Quarterly Review
"An invaluable guide for historians and, surprisingly, the
casual reader interested in Washington, his observations on
several trips and . . . comments on some of the military and
political affairs of the day. . . . Large sections of the diary.
. . give the general reader a fascinating insight to the
man." --Will Molineux in Newport News Daily Press
Dorothy Twohig recently retired as Editor in Chief of The Papers
of George Washington after more than thirty years with the
project.
Annette Gordon-Reed
Rumors of Thomas Jefferson's sexual involvement with his slave
Sally Hemings have circulated for two centuries. It remains,
among all aspects of Jefferson's renowned life, perhaps the most
hotly contested topic. With Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings,
Annette Gordon-Reed promises to intensify this ongoing debate as
she identifies glaring inconsistencies in many noted scholars'
evaluations of the existing evidence. She has assembled a
fascinating and convincing argument: not that the alleged
thirty-eight-year liaison necessarily took place but rather that
the evidence for its taking place has been denied a fair hearing.
Friends of Jefferson sought to debunk the Hemings story as early
as 1800, and most subsequent historians and biographers have
followed suit, finding the affair unthinkable based upon their
view of Jefferson's life, character, and beliefs. Gordon-Reed
responds to these critics by pointing out numerous errors and
prejudices in their writings, ranging from inaccurate citations,
to impossible time lines, to virtual exclusions of
evidence--especially evidence concerning the Hemings family. She
demonstrates how these scholars may have been misguided by their
own biases and may even have tailored evidence to serve and
preserve their opinions of Jefferson.
Possessing both a layperson's unfettered curiosity and
a lawyer's logical mind, Annette Gordon-Reed writes with a style
and compassion that are irresistible. Each chapter revolves
around a key figure in the Hemings drama, and the resulting
portraits are engrossing and very personal. Gordon-Reed also
brings a keen intuitive sense of the psychological complexities
of human relationships--relationships that, in the real world,
often develop regardless of status or race. The most compelling
element of all, however, is her extensive and careful research,
which often allows the evidence to speak for itself. Thomas
Jefferson and Sally Hemings is a controversial new look at a
centuries-old question that should fascinate general readers and
historians alike. It promises to be the definitive word on the
subject for years to come.
"This is the definitive work on the Thomas Jefferson-Sally
Hemings issue. Gordon-Reed has produced an extraordinarily fine
piece of historical research on a subject loaded with minefields
for even the most cautious of historians." --Charles B. Dew,
author of Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge
"Short of digging up Jefferson and doing DNA testing on him
and Hemings' descendants, Gordon-Reed's account gets us as close
to the truth as the available evidence allows." --Joseph J.
Ellis, author of American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas
Jefferson
"In this lucid and compelling book, Annette Gordon-Reed
confronts the tale of a Jefferson- Hemings liaison neither to
prove nor disprove it. Instead her goal is to weigh the evidence,
to evaluate its possibility. In doing so, she provides a
meticulous review of primary documents and looks at the way in
which the best historians can fall prey to unreasoned
predispositions." --Patricia J. Williams, author of The
Alchemy of Race and Rights
Annette Gordon-Reed, a graduate of Harvard Law School, is
Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School.
April 305 pages 6 x 9 cloth ISBN 0-8139-1698-4 $29.95
James Madison was a small man whose quiet voice was
often drowned by the hubbub of legislative debate, yet his
words--as preserved in his speeches, essays, and letters--resound
across the centuries with an authority unmatched by any
historical figure of his generation. Long obscured by the fame of
his brilliant friend Thomas Jefferson, Madison has emerged as an
intellectual giant in his own right. Americans may turn to
Jefferson for inspiration, to Benjamin Franklin for wit and
charm, and to George Washington for steadfast courage, but when
questions involve the structure and workings of their government,
they invariably seek out the wisdom of James Madison.
James Madison's "Advice to My Country" is designed as a
ready reference to Madison's thought, including his most
perceptive observations on government and human nature. This
compendium brings together excerpts from his writings on a
variety of political and social issues, ranging from agriculture
to free trade, from religion and the state to legislative power,
from friendship to fashion, from slavery to unity. Madison is
widely cited by politicians, lawyers, and judges because many of
the issues he wrote about, such as education, trade, and support
for the arts, have contemporary relevance. This selection of
short passages will enlighten those pundits who are prone to
misquote Madison or enlist him in support of virtually any
position in current political debate. With passages cross-
referenced to The Papers of James Madison volumes, others will
use it as a guide to investigate Madison's views further.
As a representative sample of Madison's writings--in breadth and depth--the book will be useful to journalists, politicians, and policymakers, as well as academics, and will make him more accessible to the general reader. Culled from the roughly six thousand known items Madison wrote, these selections provide inspiration, guidance, instruction, and a window into the mind of one of our greatest Founders.
Religion
Religion and Government will both exist in greater
purity, the less they are mixed together. (DLC: Madison Papers)
Public Opinion
Public opinion sets bounds to every Government, and is
the real sovereign in every free one. (PJM 14:161)
War and Executive Power
The testimony of all ages forces us to admit, that war is among the most dangerous of all enemies to liberty; and that the executive is the most favored by it, of all the branches of power.
(PJM 17:241)
David B. Mattern is Associate Professor/Associate Editor of The
Papers of James Madison at the University of Virginia. He is the
principal editor of
The Papers of James Madison, volume 17, and The Papers
of James Madison, Secretary of State Series, volume 3, and the
author of Benjamin Lincoln and the American Revolution.
April 144 pages 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 cloth
ISBN 0-8139-1717-4 $17.95 T
Very few studies of free blacks have attempted to
interpret the actions and events affecting them from their own
perspectives. At the same time, the search for understanding the
antebellum black experience in the South usually has centered on
slaves. In Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860, Tommy L.
Bogger portrays lives somewhere between slavery and freedom.
A free black community of skilled artisans and semi-skilled
laborers emerged in Norfolk around 1800. Some free blacks earned
the respect of leading white businessmen, and many enjoyed easy
access to credit and steady employment. They showed no hesitation
in suing recalcitrant debtors--black or white--and until 1805
they could count on the cooperation of court officials in helping
them to collect. But from then on, free blacks experienced a
steady decline in status that continued throughout the antebellum
period. Legal restraints were placed on them at the same time
that Norfolk's economy stagnated, and white immigrants arriving
in the 1830s entered fields once monopolized by blacks. By the
1850s the free black community was sunk in hopelessness and
despair.
Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860 discusses the active
roles that blacks played in creating their community,
contradicting prevalent images of free blacks at the mercy of
whites. While previous studies of Virginia's free blacks have
focused on Richmond or Petersburg, developments in Norfolk's free
black community also merit analysis. Norfolk also offers the
advantage of a population large enough to provide a reliable data
base yet small enough to preserve the stories of individual
lives.Those interested in African-American history, Virginia
history, or the South in general will find this book a valuable
new resource.
"The depth of research, the intelligence of the analysis, and thecontribution to southern and African-American history make this a very important study. Bogger provides much information and many insights into the conditions of free blacks in a slave society. He focuses on one key city but is well versed in the literature on free blacks in other cities as well as the more general works on the topic. Many key issues are covered, and it will become a widely cited and discussed book."
--Stanley L. Engerman, University of Rochester
"This original work of scholarship is of substantial importance because Virginia was the home of one of the largest free African-American populations of the antebellum years. It offers complex interpretations of the interaction of whites and blacks within Norfolk that extend beyond African-American history. Building on the base of older works, Free Blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1860 establishes the importance of the antebellum free community in forming patterns of race relations, housing, family, and institutions."
--Sarah Hughes, Shippensburg University
Tommy L. Bogger is Professor/University Archivist at Norfolk
State University.
Carter G. Woodson Institute Series in Black Studies
February 254 pages 6 x 9 cloth
ISBN 0-8139-1690-9 $35.00 S
Confederation Series Volume 5, February-December 1787
Edited by W. W. Abbot
The extensive correspondence regarding Shays' Rebellion and
widespread alarm over the state of the Union continues in this
volume, and there are the usual letters numbering in the hundreds
which deal with his more personal concerns: farm and family,
slave and tenant, tradesman and artisan. But the main focus of
this volume is the Federal Convention in the summer of 1787 and
the fight for ratification of the Constitution beginning in the
fall. About these and other matters of importance Washington
wrote to and heard from such Americans as Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, Alexander
Hamilton, John Jay, George Clinton, Gouverneur and Robert Morris,
John Rutledge, William Moultrie, Christopher Gadsden, Noah
Webster, Ezra Stiles, Charles Willson Peale, and John Paul Jones;
to and from such Europeans as Lafayette, Catherine Sawbridge
Macaulay Graham, Chastellux, Gardoqui, and La Luzerne. Of
particular importance are Washington's exchanges regarding
agricultural matters with Arthur Young, Thomas Peters, and a
number of his fellow Virginia planters.
February 592 pages 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth
ISBN 0-8139-1672-0 $47.50 S
Confederation Series Volume 6, January-September 1788
Edited by W. W. Abbot
This is the sixth and final volume of Washington's
papers in the Confederation period. The series begins on 1
January 1784 with the hero of the American Revolution back at
Mount Vernon under his own "vine and fig tree." It ends
in September 1788 on the eve of his return to public life as
president under the new Constitution. Unlike the series devoted
to Washington's Revolutionary War and presidential papers, the
Confederation Series is composed almost entirely of personal
letters and includes very few official documents.
Beginning with the decision made early in 1787 to attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer, Washington's papers in volume 6 of the series reveal him as once again a public figure no longer standing outside and above the fray as he had been seeking to do with some success since leaving the army at the end of 1783. In the first nine months of this year Washington continued to give meticulous attention to his personal affairs at Mount Vernon as he had done before, but his correspondence, particularly that with James Madison, makes it clear that his overriding concern had become the ratification of the new Federal Constitution and that his mind was turning to the role he should, and must, play in establishing the new government. The next volume of the Papers, volume 1 of the Presidential Series, which has been in print since 1987, traces the path to the presidency that Washington followed from September 1788 until his departure for New York in the spring of 1789.
February 608 pages 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth
ISBN 0-8139-1684-4 $47.50 S
The last decade has seen a major shift in the way
nineteenth-century American history is interpreted. Increasing
attention is being paid to the market revolution occurring
between 1815 and the Civil War. During this period a largely
subsistence economy of small farms and tiny workshops was
replaced by an economy in which farmers and manufacturers
produced food and goods for the cash rewards of a distant
marketplace. This collection of essays by preeminent scholars in
nineteenth-century history aims to respond to Charles Sellers's
The Market Revolution, reflecting upon the historiographic
accomplishments initiated by his work, while at the same time
advancing the argument across a range of fields. Contributors
explore the impact of an expanding market on economic and social
institutions, household arrangements, political practice and
ideology, and cultural patterns.
Contents: "Introduction" Melvyn Stokes, University
College London
"The Consequences of the Market Revolution in the American
North" Christopher Clark, University of York, England
"Slavery and Development in a Dual Economy: The South and
the Market Revolution" Harry L. Watson, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Home Life and the Morality of the Market" Amy Dru
Stanley, University of Chicago
"Free Labor and Nineteenth-Century Political Ideology"
Eric Foner, Columbia University
"Free Labor, Wage Labor, and the Slave Power: Republicanism
and the Republican Party in the 1850s" John Ashworth,
University of East Anglia
"The Market Revolution and the Transformation of American
Politics, 1801-1837" Richard E. Ellis, State University of
New York at Buffalo
"The Crisis of Commercialization: National Political
Alignments and the Market Revolution, 1819-1844" Donald J.
Ratcliffe, University of Durham, England
"Slavery, Antislavery, and Jacksonian Democracy" Sean
Wilentz, Princeton University
"From Center to Periphery: The Market Revolution and Major
Party Conflict, 1835-1880" Michael F. Holt, University of
Virginia
"The Market Revolution and the Shaping of Identity in Whig
Jacksonian America" Daniel Walker Howe, University of Oxford
"'Antinomians' and 'Arminians': Methodists and the Market
Revolution" Richard Carwardine, Sheffield University
"Capitalism and Democracy in American Historical
Mythology" Charles Sellers, Professor Emeritus, University
of California-Berkeley
"Conclusion" Melvyn Stokes
Melvyn Stokes teaches American history at University
College London. He has published a number of articles and is
co-editor, of Race and Class in the American South since 1890.
Stephen Conway lectures in history at University College London.
He is author of The War of American Independence, 1775-1783, and
has edited three volumes of Jeremy Bentham's Correspondence.
May 416 pages 6 x 9
Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1649-6 $55.00 STMR
Paper ISBN 0-8139-1650-X $22.50 STMRP
This volume brings together twenty-three essays by one of the
most important and influential colonial historians. "Few
historians of my generation became writers of historiographical
and critical essays," writes Jack Greene in the preface to
this volume. "As the number of historians and the volume of
historical work grew, historians became far more attentive to the
methodological and philosophical problems inherent in the act of
writing history, to the operating assumptions that guided their
work, to their varying approaches to the study of the past, and
to the differing interpretations they constructed."
Interpreting Early America collects Greene's reflections on these
issues. The essays are arranged in three parts: "Changing
Historical Perspectives," "Colonial British
America," and "The American Revolution."
Profoundly influenced by early historiographers Frederick B. Tolles, RichardB. Morris, and especially Edmund S. Morgan in the mid-1950s, Greene began tailoring his advanced early American history courses to reflect historiographical ideas. In 1961 he began publishing historiographical essays. Most of his 1960s work focused on the American Revolution, but in the 1970s his research interests shifted toward the colonial period and social and cultural history. Since the 1970s, Greene's historiographical essays have been about equally divided between the Revolution and the colonial period.
Interpreting Early America will appeal to American historians of the colonial and early national periods, as well as political scientists interested in American and constitutional history.
June 576 pages 6 x 9
Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1622-4 $75.00 GRIA
Paper ISBN 0-8139-1623-2 $28.50 GRIAP
Also Available
Imperatives, Behaviors, and Identities
Essays in Early American Cultural History
1992 406 pages
Cloth ISBN 0-8139-1406-X $49.50
Paper ISBN 0-8139-1408-6 $18.95
The Presidential Series of The Papers of George Washington, when complete, will cover the eight precedent-setting years of Washington's presidency. These volumes include the public papers written by Washington or presented to him during both of his administrations. Among the documents are Washington's messages to Congress, addresses to him from public and private bodies, applications for public office, and documents concerned with diplomatic and Indian affairs, as well as Washington's private papers, which include family letters, farm reports, political letters from friends and acquaintances, and documents relating to the administration of his Mount Vernon plantation.
Volume 5, January-June 1790 Edited by Dorothy Twohig,
Mark A. Mastromarino, and Jack D. Warren
Volume 5 covers the first half of 1790 and focuses on
Washington's continued concentration on the problems facing the
new government. North Carolina had ratified the Constitution in
late 1789, and Rhode Island held its ratifying convention in
early 1790. Many documents in this volume reflect the president's
concern with the establishment of ties to the federal government
in both states, especially in the matter of appointments to the
federal civil service. Also treated in detail in the volume are
Washington's near-fatal illness in May 1790 and his difficult
recovery. The heavy incoming correspondence concerns matters as
diverse as the administration's attempts to deal with escalation
of Indian hostilities on the northern frontier, negotiations
concerning military medals issued for achievement during the
Revolutionary War, establishment of a coinage system for the
young nation, petitions from Quakers concerning abolition, events
surrounding the arrival of American vessels on the coast of
Oregon, Gouverneur Morris's diplomatic mission to London, and the
formation of the Scioto Company.
February
656 pages 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth
ISBN 0-8139-1619-4 $47.50
TWP5
Volume 6: July - November 1790
Edited by Mark A. Mastromarino
During the period covered by Volume 6, Washington's attention was devoted to several matters of great national significance. He signed the Residence and Funding Acts, authorizing a permanent new Federal City on the Potomac, establishing the seat of the federal government at Philadelphia until 1800, and creating a national debt by assuming the Revolutionary War debts of the states. Washington's official correspondence also shows his concern with Indian affairs, particularly his frustration with Brig. Gen. Josiah Harmar's punitive expedition in the Northwest Territory. Secretary of War Henry Knox's negotiations at New York with the southern Creeks loom large in the documents and annotation of early August 1790, which provide evidence of contemporary attitudes toward the native American negotiators. Light is also shed on the intrigues of foreign agents on America's frontiers and in its capital as Spain and Great Britain appeared to drift toward war. The president's triumphal visit to Rhode Island in celebration of its ratification of the Federal Constitution is well documented. Washington's private correspondence with his secretary about remodeling the new presidential mansion and renovating his coach provides a detailed picture of high Federal culture and a glimpse of those whose livelihoods depended on serving the elite. Several requests for charity and numerous letters of application for federal office, particularly for posts in the newly created Revenue Cutter Service, describe the lives of various other ordinary American citizens.
April
800 pages 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth
ISBN 0-8139-1637-2, $57.50
The twelve-month period covered in this third volume
of the Presidential Series was dominated by foreign policy
concerns, as Madison sought ways to compel Great Britain to
respect America's neutral rights. The documents chronicle the
consequences of Madison's decision to impose nonintercourse
against Great Britain to force a repeal of the orders in council
following Napoleon's claim that he had repealed French trade
restrictions. British doubts that the French repeal was
valid--shared by many Americans and possibly even Madison
himself--are amply documented, as are the consequences of Great
Britain's refusal to buckle under American pressure. The apparent
failure of the diplomacy of commercial restriction increasingly
brought Madison under pressure at home to change his policies,
and by November 1811 he was ready to request Congress to prepare
for war.
Madison's attention was also occupied during the year by the
continuing disintegration of the Spanish colonial empire. His
correspondence addresses the consequences arising from the
annexation of West Florida, sets the stage for the occupation of
East Florida, and records America's first diplomatic contacts
with other rebellious Spanish-American colonies.
On the domestic front this volume illuminates Madison's painful decisions to dismiss Secretary of State Robert Smith in late March and replace him with James Monroe. And it documents growing hostility between American settlers and Indian inhabitants of the northwestern and southern frontiers, a development which would eventually bring the latter peoples into open conflict with the United States. Scholars will thus find that this carefully annotated and indexed volume sheds new light on many of the domestic and foreign tensions that were soon to culminate in the War of 1812.
May
648 pages 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 cloth
ISBN 0-8139-1632-1 $55.00
December 15, 1999