Making a Nation: The United States and Its People, Volume I

by Boydston, Jeanne; Cullather, Nick; Lewis, Jan; McGerr, Michael; Oakes, James

• ISBN13: 9780130339928
• ISBN10: 013033992X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Pearson College Div

Summary

Taking political economy as its organizing theme,Making A Nation offers an intellectual focus to history that is sensitive to the recent innovations in women's history and environmental history. The book focuses on the relationships that shape and define human identity--cultural, diplomatic, race, gender, class and sectional relations-- and recognizes the importance of such traditional fields as politics and diplomacy. The reference synthesizes the literature in such as way as to allow readers to see the links between the particular and the general, between large and seemingly abstract forces such as globalization and political struggle and the daily struggles of ordinary men and women. Volume I covers U.S. history from its early days in 1450 and moves through colonial outposts, the eighteenth-century world and creating a new nation, to the market revolution, securing democracy, reform and conflict and . . .Please indicate where volume I leaves off. For historians and others interested in a comprehensive overview of the relationships that shape and define U.S. history.

Table of Contents

(NOTE: All chapters include a Web Connection box, a History on the Internet section, and a Special Feature box. All chapters conclude with a Conclusion, Chronology, Review Questions, and Suggestions for Further Readings.)
1. Worlds in Motion, 1450-1550.

Vignette: Christopher Columbus: World Traveler. The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. The World of the Indian Peoples. Worlds in Collision. The Biological Consequences of Conquest. Onto the Mainland.

2. Colonial Outposts, 1550-1660.

Vignette: Don Luís de Velasco Finds His Way Home. Pursuing Wealth and Glory Along the North American Shore. Spanish Outposts. New France: An Outpost in the Global Political Economy. New Netherland: The Empire of a Trading Nation. England Attempts an Empire.

3. The English Come to Stay, 1600-1660.

Vignette: The Adventures of John Rolfe. The First Chesapeake Colonies. The Political Economy of Slavery Emerges. A Bible Commonwealth in the New England Wilderness. Dissension in the Puritan Ranks.

4. Creating the Empire, 1660-1720.

Vignette: Tituba Shapes Her World and Saves Herself. The Plan of Empire. New Colonies, New Patterns. The Transformation of Virginia. New England Under Assault. The Empire Strikes. Massachusetts in Crisis. French and Spanish Outposts. Conquest, Revolt, and Reconquest in New Mexico.

5. The Eighteenth-Century World: Economy, Society, and Culture, 1700-1775.

Vignette: George Whitefield: Evangelist for a Consumer Society. The Population Explosion of the Eighteenth Century. The Transatlantic Political Economy: Producing and Consuming. The Varieties of Colonial Experience. The Head and the Heart in America: The Enlightenment and Religious Awakening. The Ideas of the Enlightenment.

6. Conflict on the Edge of the Empire, 1713-1774.

Vignette: Susannah Willard Johnson Experiences the Empire. The Wars for Empire. The Victory of the British Empire. Enforcing the Empire. Rejecting the Empire. The Imperial Crisis in Local Context. A Revolution in the Empire.

7. Creating a New Nation, 1775-1788.

Vignette: James Madison Helps Make a Nation. The War Begins. Winning the Revolution. The Challenge of the Revolution. A New Policy in the West. Creating a New National Government.

8. The Experiment Undertaken, 1789-1800.

Vignette: Washington's Inauguration. Conceptions of Political Economy in the New Republic. Factions and Order in the New Government. Congress Begins Its Work. A State and Its Boundaries. America in the Transatlantic Community.

9. Liberty and Empire, 1800-1815.

Vignette: Gabriel's Conspiracy for Freedom. Voluntary Communities in the Age of Jefferson. Jeffersonian Republicanism: Politics of Transition. Liberty and an Expanding Commerce. The Political Economy of an “Empire of Liberty” . The Second War with England.

10. The Market Revolution, 1815-1824.

Vignette: Cincinnati: Queen of the West. New Lands, New Markets. A New Nationalism. Firebells in the Night. The Political Economy of Regionalism.

11. Securing Democracy, 1820-1832.

Vignette: Jackson's Election. Perfectionism and the Theology of Human Striving. The Common Man and the Political Economy of Democracy. The Democratic Impulse in Presidential Politics. President Jackson: Vindicating the Common Man.

12. Reform and Conflict, 1828-1836.

Vignette: Free Labor Under Attack. The Growth of Sectional Tension. The Political Economy of Early Industrial Society. Self-Reform and Social Regulation.

13. Manifest Destiny, 1836-1848.

Vignette: Mah-i-ti-wo-nee-ni Remembers Life on the Great Plains. The Setting of the Jacksonian Sun. The Political Economy of the Trans-Mississippi West. Slavery and the Political Economy of Expansion.

14. The Politics of Slavery, 1848-1860.

Vignette: Frederick Douglass. The Political Economy of Freedom and Slavery. Slavery Becomes a Political Issue. Nativism and the Origins of the Republican Party. A New Political Party Takes Shape. An “Irrepressible” Conflict? The Retreat from Union.

15. A War for Union and Emancipation, 1861-1865.

Vignette: Edmund Ruffin. From Union to Emancipation. Mobilizing for War. The Civil War Becomes a Social Revolution. The War at Home. The War Comes to a Bloody End.

16. Reconstruction, 1865-1877.

Vignette: John Dennett Visits a Freedman's Bureau Court. Wartime Reconstruction. Presidential Reconstruction, 1865-1867. Congressional Reconstruction. The Retreat from Republican Radicalism. Reconstruction in the North. The End of Reconstruction.

Excerpts

Every human life is shaped by a variety of different relationships. Cultural relations, diplomatic relations, race, gender, and class relations, all contribute to how an individual interacts with the larger global community. This was as true in the past as it is today.Making a Nationretells the history of the United States by emphasizing the relationships that have shaped and defined the identities of the American people. For example, to disentangle the identity of a Mexican American woman working in a factory in Los Angeles in the year 2000 is to confront the multiple and overlapping "identities" that define a single American life.Making a Nationassumes that the multiplicity of cultures, classes, and regions, the vast changes as well as the enduring elements of our past, can nonetheless be told, as the story of a single nation, always in the making. There are many ways to explore these relationships. Making a Nation views them through the lens of political economy. This is an especially appropriate way to approach American history. In March of 1776, Adam Smith published his masterpiece,The Wealth of Nations,a few months before American colonists declared their independence from Great Britain. The imperial crisis had been building for some time and was a topic of international discussion. Smith delayed publication of his work for a year so that he could perfect a lengthy chapter on Anglo-American relations. ThusThe Wealth of Nations,one of the most important documents in a new branch of knowledge known aspolitical economy,was written with a close eye to events in the British colonies of North America, the colonies that were soon to become the United States. The fact that a large portion of Smith's book was framed as a history of England is equally important. Smith believed that history was one of the best ways to approach the study of political economy.Making a Nationshares that assumption; it takes political economy as an organizing theme for the history of the United States. What did Smith and his many American followers mean by "political economy?" They meant, firstly, that the economy itself is much broader than the gross national product, the unemployment rate, or the twists and turns of the stock market. They understood that economies are tightly bound to politics, that they are therefore the products of history rather than nature or accident. And just as men and women make history, so to do they make economies--in the way they work and organize their families as much as in their fiscal policies and tax structures. The term "political economy" is not commonly used any more, yet it is a way of thinking that is deeply embedded in American history. To this day we casually assume that different government policies create different "incentives" shaping everything from the way capital gains are invested to how parents raise their children, from how unmarried mothers on welfare can escape from poverty to how automobile manufacturers design cars for fuel efficiency and pollution control. This connection between government, the economy, and the relationships that shape the daily lives of ordinary men and women is the essence of political economy. But that connection points in different directions. Politics and the economy do not simply shape, but are in turn shaped by, the lives and cultural values of ordinary men and women. In short, political economy establishes a context that allows students to see the links between the particular and the general, between large and seemingly abstract forces such as "globalization" and the struggles of working parents who find they need two incomes to provide for their children.Making a Nationshows that such relationships were as important in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as they are today. So, for example, we begin this history of our nation by stepping back to view an early modern "world in mo