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Perhaps the most hotly debated character in American history, Jefferson stands as an enigma representing different and often contradictory ideas. This concise biography answers many of the contradictions of Jefferson's fruitful life. Specifically, it finds continuity in his evolving philosophy of political economy. Because Jefferson was not a man intellectually tied to a single ideology, he was able to embrace competing "persuasions" that seem to us incompatible today. Indeed, Jefferson's rhetoric was more a matter of time and circumstance than an element of absolute belief. The Jefferson that emerges is not only a facile thinker but also a consummate politician.
A captivating and lucid narrative of America's revolutionary generation, Jefferson's America takes the reader from the earliest rumblings of colonial dissent, through the crises of revolution and nation-making, to the heroic drama of the War of 1812. Risjord deftly weaves together strands of biography and social history with military and political history to depict the rich fabric of the young republic.
A grand tour of the North Star State's geographical, political, and human history, including travelers' guides to historic destinations.
Like the preceeding books in The Representative Americans series, The Romantics makes history human by putting tissue on the skeletal framework of names and dates. It treats people whose principal contributions fell in the first half of the nineteenth century. And while certain individuals may be unfamiliar to readers-the slaves Prince and Fed; Free Frank, a black farmer of Kentucky and Illinois; and the Lowell Girls, Lucy Lacom and Sarah Bagley-the majority of the figures studied are well-known, such as Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Horace Mann, and Catharine Beecher. Tying it all together is the prevailing spirit of American Romanticism. Visit our website for sample chapters!
A captivating and lucid narrative of America's revolutionary generation, Jefferson's America takes the reader from the earliest rumblings of colonial dissent, through the crises of revolution and nation-making, to the heroic drama of the War of 1812. Risjord deftly weaves together strands of biography and social history with military and political history to depict the rich fabric of the young republic. While most writers on this period conclude with the end of the Revolution, the ratification of the Constitution, or the election of Jefferson, Risjord contends that there is a fundamental continuity in the history of the Early Republic. The basic problems involved in creating a stable, repres...
In Shining Big Sea Water, historian Norman K. Risjord offers a grand tour of Lake Superior's remarkable history, taking readers through the centuries and into the lives of those who have traveled the lake and inhabited its shores. Through lively, informative chapters, Risjord begins with the lake's cataclysmic geological birth, then explores the lives of native peoples along the shore before European contact and during the fur trade, showing how Superior functioned as a "blue-water highway" for Indians, early explorers, industries, and settlers. He outlines the development of such cities as Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; Ashland, Wisconsin; and Two Harbors, Minnesota, and tells the fascinating ...
In this engaging new biography, James L. Huston explores the political life of Stephen A. Douglas and his definition and promotion of the ideal of democratic equality. By placing Douglas in the current historiographical controversies of the antebellum period, Huston updates our understanding of Douglas and the battles that he fought over the meaning democracy and its institutional framework in the building of the Democratic party, the struggle over slavery's extension into the West, the meaning of popular sovereignty and the legitimacy of peaceful secession from the Union.
This updated volume of Representative Americans highlights three generations of colonial Americans--men and women who founded, shaped, and coined traditions of this country. This is a glimpse into a time of empire and frontier, religion, and science. The breadth of this experience is represented in the book's three sections.
A memoir in bite-size chunks from the author of the viral Modern Love column “You May Want to Marry My Husband.” “[Rosenthal] shines her generous light of humanity on the seemingly humdrum moments of life and shows how delightfully precious they actually are.” —The Chicago Sun-Times How do you conjure a life? Give the truest account of what you saw, felt, learned, loved, strived for? For Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the surprising answer came in the form of an encyclopedia. In Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life she has ingeniously adapted this centuries-old format for conveying knowledge into a poignant, wise, often funny, fully realized memoir. Using mostly short entries organized from A to Z, many of which are cross-referenced, Rosenthal captures in wonderful and episodic detail the moments, observations, and emotions that comprise a contemporary life. Start anywhere—preferably at the beginning—and see how one young woman’s alphabetized existence can open up and define the world in new and unexpected ways. An ordinary life, perhaps, but an extraordinary book.