Jefferson's Empire

Jefferson's Empire
Author :
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Total Pages : 276
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0813922046
ISBN-13 : 9780813922041
Rating : 4/5 (46 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Jefferson's Empire by : Peter S. Onuf

Download or read book Jefferson's Empire written by Peter S. Onuf and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.


Jefferson's Empire Related Books

Jefferson's Empire
Language: en
Pages: 276
Authors: Peter S. Onuf
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2000 - Publisher: University of Virginia Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Thomas Jefferson believed that the American revolution was atransformative moment in the history of political civilization. He hoped that hisown efforts as a fo
Language: en
Pages: 400
Authors: Annette Gordon-Reed
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-04-13 - Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

New York Times Bestseller Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle Finalist for the George Washington Prize Finalist for the Libra
Empire of Liberty
Language: en
Pages: 377
Authors: Robert W. Tucker
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 1992-04-30 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Empire of Liberty takes a new look at the public life, thought, and ambiguous legacy of one of America's most revered statesmen, offering new insight into the m
Inventing a Nation
Language: en
Pages: 166
Authors: Gore Vidal
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-10-01 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This New York Times bestseller offers “an unblinking view of our national heroes by one who cherishes them, warts and all” (New York Review of Books). In In
Astoria
Language: en
Pages: 333
Authors: Peter Stark
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-03-04 - Publisher: Harper Collins

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Skeletons in the Zahara, Astoria is the thrilling, true-adventure tale of the 1810 Astor Expedition, an epic, now for