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A Rebirth of Freedom is a personal and intellectual biography of an American historian Thomas Payne Govan, and includes a selection of his essays. Govan was a southerner who, with his wife, rebelled against the racism of the region, against the South's pride in the "Lost Cause" of the Civil War, and the myth of a pastoral and agrarian past superior to the rest of the country. As a graduate student at Vanderbilt, he called himself "a liberal with socialist leanings." Later, as a budding American historian during the 1940s and 1950s, he was forced by his research to change radically: he became a Hamiltonian conservative in government and finance, and, heavily influenced by Reinhold Niebuhr's T...
President Andrew Jackson’s conflict with the Second Bank of the United States was one of the most consequential political struggles in the early nineteenth century. A fight over the bank’s reauthorization, the Bank War provoked fundamental disagreements over the role of money in politics, competing constitutional interpretations, equal opportunity in the face of a state-sanctioned monopoly, and the importance of financial regulation—all of which cemented emerging differences between Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs. As Stephen W. Campbell argues here, both sides in the Bank War engaged interregional communications networks funded by public and private money. The first reappraisal of this...
The Perennial Philadelphians tells the story of the city's inherited aristocracy—of Wanamakers and Drexels, of Biddles and Cadwaladers. Drawing on history, genealogy, politics, economics, the fine arts, private diaries, and the impressions and anecdotes of myriad living witnesses, Nathaniel Burt paints a fascinating portrait of Old Philadelphians. He traces the succession of a dynasty of doctors or lawyers, explores the country club scene, and takes us to regattas on the Schuylkill, fox hunts in Radnor, and horse shows in Devon. First published in 1963, this classic text has lost none of its timeliness. An adept social commentator, Burt cuts aside the centuries-old protective coloration in which Old Philadelphians have wrapped themselves, and reveals who these people are and how they manage to perpetuate themselves from generation to generation.
A definitive biography of the French aristocrat who became one of democracy’s greatest champions In 1831, at the age of twenty-five, Alexis de Tocqueville made his fateful journey to America, where he observed the thrilling reality of a functioning democracy. From that moment onward, the French aristocrat would dedicate his life as a writer and politician to ending despotism in his country and bringing it into a new age. In this authoritative and groundbreaking biography, leading Tocqueville expert Olivier Zunz tells the story of a radical thinker who, uniquely charged by the events of his time, both in America and France, used the world as a laboratory for his political ideas. Placing Toc...
An esteemed planter, politician, and military leader influential in the affairs of both South Carolina and Texas, James Hamilton (1786--1857) so declined in reputation during the last twenty years of his life that his home state refused to acknowledge him when he died. Robert Tinkler's superb, first-published biography of Hamilton conveys the enormous drama, dignity, and pathos that marked Hamilton's pursuit of the greatness achieved by his prominent Revolutionary-era forebears and his subsequent profound reversal brought on by debt. While a member of Congress during the 1820s, Hamilton came to champion states' interests over a strong central national government. As governor of South Carolin...
This beautiful two-volume, boxed set covers all aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition from its authorization and planning through Meriwether Lewis's violent death. A cornerstone of any library emphasizing the American West, Donald Jackson's splendid edition assembles letters, memoranda, and other documents of the expedition, providing detailed commentary and notes.
"[A History of the Lewis and Clark Journals] includes coverage of the diaries and journals of all members of the famous expedition to the Pacific Ocean in 1804 - 1806. In addition to co-leaders William Clark and Meriwether Lewis, the chroniclers were Charles Floyd, John Ordway, Patrick Gass, Nathaniel Pryor, Joseph Whitehouse, and Robert Frazer. [Paul] Cutright is to be especially commended for his exhaustive coverage [and] thorough documentation. This is a fine book and a major contribution to the historiography of the nation's most celebrated explorers." Minnesota History. "This is not a book about the expedition, of which there are already perhaps too many, but a history of the journals written by the two captains and a number of the enlisted men. A work such as this is of great value to anyone interested in the Lewis and Clark expedition. An invaluable reference work." Western Historical Quarterly.
Based on the biographies of some three hundred people in each city, this book shows how such distinguished Boston families as the Adamses, Cabots, Lowells, and Peabodys have produced many generations of men and women who have made major contributions to the intellectual, educational, and political life of their state and nation. At the same time, comparable Philadelphia families such as the Biddles, Cadwaladers, Ingersolls, and Drexels have contributed far fewer leaders to their state and nation. From the days of Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Girard down to the present, what leadership there has been in Philadelphia has largely been provided by self-made men, often, like Franklin, born outsi...
The Julius Rosenwald Fund has been largely ignored in the literature of both art history and African American studies, despite its unique focus, intensity, and commitment. Spertus Museum in Chicago has organized an exhibition, guest curated by Daniel Schulman, that presents and explores the work of funded artists as well as the history of the Fund. Through it, and this accompanying collection of essays, illustrations, and color plates, we see the Fund’s groundbreaking initiative to address issues relating to the unequal treatment of blacks in American life. The book constitutes a veritable Who’s Who of African American artists and intellectuals of the first half of the twentieth century, as well as a roll call of modern contributors who represent the leading scholars in their fields, including Peter M. Ascoli, grandson and biographer of Julius Rosenwald, and Kinshasha Holman Conwill, deputy director of the National Museum of African American Art and Culture. With far-reaching influence even today, the Julius Rosenwald Fund stands alongside the Rockefeller and Carnegie funds as a major force in American cultural history.