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The Republic Reborn

War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790-1820

Steven Watts

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Winner of the Book Prize for New Authors from the National Historical Society

The War of 1812 played a critical role in the emergence of an American "culture of capitalism." In The Republic Reborn Steven Watts offers a brilliant new interpretation of the war and the foundation of liberal America. He explores the sweeping changes that took place in America between 1790 and 1820—the growth of an entrepreneurial economy of competition, the devlopment of a liberal political structure and ideology, and the rise of a bourgeois culture of self-interest and self-control. "Serving as a vehicle for...

Winner of the Book Prize for New Authors from the National Historical Society

The War of 1812 played a critical role in the emergence of an American "culture of capitalism." In The Republic Reborn Steven Watts offers a brilliant new interpretation of the war and the foundation of liberal America. He explores the sweeping changes that took place in America between 1790 and 1820—the growth of an entrepreneurial economy of competition, the devlopment of a liberal political structure and ideology, and the rise of a bourgeois culture of self-interest and self-control. "Serving as a vehicle for change and offering an outlet for the anxieties of a changing socity," Watts writes, the War of 1812 "ultimately intensified and sanctioned the imperatives of a developing world-view."

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As the national love feast with Oliver North reminded us, Americans have an abiding attraction to war and warriors... The Republic Reborn probes the historical roots of this attraction.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
406
ISBN
9780801839412
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. The Birth of the Liberal Republic, 1790—1820
Chapter 1. "A New Era Has Commenced in the United States"
Chapter 2. John Taylor: "The Family of the Earth"
Chapter 3

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. The Birth of the Liberal Republic, 1790—1820
Chapter 1. "A New Era Has Commenced in the United States"
Chapter 2. John Taylor: "The Family of the Earth"
Chapter 3. John Adams: "Our Country Is in Masquerade!"
Chapter 4. Hugh Henry Brackenridge: Modern Chivalry and the Search for Self
Chapter 5. War and the Wages of Change
Part II. Ambition and Civism: War and Social Regeneration
Chapter 6. Society and Self-Made Men: Dreams and Disquietude
Chapter 7. Philip Freneau: "Besotted by Prosperity, Corrupted by Avarice, Abject from Luxury"
Chapter 8. Henry Clay: "The Tranquil, Putrescent Pool of Ignominious Peace"
Chapter 9. Charles J. Ingersoll: "Deep in the Slough of Faction"
Chapter 10. War as Social Crusade: Civism and Renewal
Part III. Religion and Repression: War and Early Capitalist Culture
Chapter 11. Con Men and Character: The Burden of Moral Free-Agency
Chapter 12. Spencer Houghton Cone: "I Will Be a Living Worker in the World—I Will Play No More"
Chapter 13. Benjamin Rush: "I Consider It as Possible to Convert Men into Republican Machines"
Chapter 14. Mason Locke Weems: "Sacrificing Their Gold to Gamblers, Their Health to Harlots, and Their Glory to Grog"
Chapter 15. War as Cultural Crusade: Self-Control and Civil Religion
Part IV. Founding Fathers and Wandering Sons: War and the Masks of Personae
Chapter 16. The Quiet Desperation of the Liberal Self
Chapter 17. Charles Brockden Brown: "I am Conscious of a Double Mental Existence"
Chapter 18. Alfred Brunson: "Either Rise to Distinction or Fall in the Attempt"
Chapter 19. John Quincy Adams: "Two Objects the Nearest to my Heart, My Country and My Father"
Chapter 20. War as Personal Quest: The Inner Healing of the Liberal Individual
Part V. Politics and Productivity: War and the Emergence of Liberalism
Chapter 21. The Crisis of Republicanism
Chapter 22. Tensions in Political Economy: Producers and Home Markets
Chapter 23. Strategies for Survival: From Enlightened to Energized Republicanism
Chapter 24. The Liberal Republications: "Our New Era in our Politics"
Chapter 25. The Liberal Impulse to War
Part VI. The Republic Reordered, 1812—1815
Chapter 26. The Crucible of War
Chapter 27. The Vindication of God's Republic
Chapter 28. The Triumph of Self-Made Men
Chapter 29. The Victory of Liberalism
Chapter 30. Into the Future
Notes
Index

Author Bio
Featured Contributor

Steven Watts

Steven Watts is a professor of American intellectual and cultural history at the University of Missouri. He has contributed to the New York Times, Washington Post, and the New Republic. He is the author of Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream and The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century.