Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American NationhoodUniversity of Virginia Press, 2000 - Počet stran: 250 Thomas Jefferson believed that the American revolution was atransformative moment in the history of political civilization. He hoped that hisown efforts as a founding statesman and theorist would help construct a progressiveand enlightened order for the new American nation that would be a model andinspiration for the world. Peter S. Onuf's new book traces Jefferson's vision of theAmerican future to its roots in his idealized notions of nationhood and empire.Onuf's unsettling recognition that Jefferson's famed egalitarianism was elaboratedin an imperial context yields strikingly original interpretations of our nationalidentity and our ideas of race, of westward expansion and the Civil War, and ofAmerican global dominance in the twentiethcentury. Jefferson's vision of an American "empirefor liberty" was modeled on a British prototype. But as a consensual union ofself-governing republics without a metropolis, Jefferson's American empire would befree of exploitation by a corrupt imperial ruling class. It would avoid the cycle ofwar and destruction that had characterized the European balance ofpower. The Civil War cast in high relief thetragic limitations of Jefferson's political vision. After the Union victory, as thereconstructed nation-state developed into a world power, dreams of the United Statesas an ever-expanding empire of peacefully coexisting states quickly faded frommemory. Yet even as the antebellum federal union disintegrated, a Jeffersoniannationalism, proudly conscious of America's historic revolution against imperialdomination, grew up in its place. In Onuf's view, Jefferson's quest to define a new American identity also shaped his ambivalentconceptions of slavery and Native American rights. His revolutionary fervor led himto see Indians as "merciless savages" who ravaged the frontiers at the Britishking's direction, but when those frontiers were pacified, a more benevolentJefferson encouraged these same Indians to embrace republican values. AfricanAmerican slaves, by contrast, constituted an unassimilable captive nation, unjustlywrenched from its African homeland. His great panacea: colonization. Jefferson's ideas about race revealthe limitations of his conception of American nationhood. Yet, as Onuf strikinglydocuments, Jefferson's vision of a republican empire--a regime of peace, prosperity, and union without coercion--continues to define and expand the boundaries ofAmerican national identity. |
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... wrote for the conference was published as " Thomas Jefferson , Missouri , and the ' Empire for Liberty , ' " in James P. Ronda , ed . , Thomas Jefferson and the Changing West ( Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press , 1997 ) , 111 ...
... wrote , Jefferson's personal presence be- came increasingly palpable to me , even though I had not intended to look for him . The Jefferson I have come to know is not the proverbial flawed founder , the great visionary with the feet of ...
... wrote , " We seem not to have perceived that , by the law of nature , one generation is to another as one independant nation to another . " 29 The existence and integrity of every people , or nation , or generation should be self ...
... wrote in the Declaration , George III had unleashed " merciless Indian Savages , " vicious remnants of once proud nations , against the American frontiers.35 As tools of counterrevo- lution , these " savages " threatened to deny the ...
... wrote in the Notes . If the absence of despotic government over men made Indian societies seem more " natural " to Jefferson , the oppression of Indian women clearly violated the women's natural rights and showed why the progress of ...
Obsah
1 | |
18 | |
Republican Empire | 53 |
The Revolution of 1800 | 80 |
Federal Union | 109 |
To Declare Them a Free and Independant People | 147 |
4 July 1826 | 189 |
Notes | 193 |
Bibliography | 229 |
Index | 243 |
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Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood Peter S. Onuf Náhled není k dispozici. - 2001 |
Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood Peter S. Onuf Náhled není k dispozici. - 2000 |