Gentlemen Revolutionaries

Power and Justice in the New American Republic

Nonfiction, History, Revolutionary, Americas, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)
Cover of the book Gentlemen Revolutionaries by Tom Cutterham, Princeton University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Tom Cutterham ISBN: 9781400885213
Publisher: Princeton University Press Publication: June 27, 2017
Imprint: Princeton University Press Language: English
Author: Tom Cutterham
ISBN: 9781400885213
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication: June 27, 2017
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Language: English

In the years between the Revolutionary War and the drafting of the Constitution, American gentlemen—the merchants, lawyers, planters, and landowners who comprised the independent republic's elite—worked hard to maintain their positions of power. Gentlemen Revolutionaries shows how their struggles over status, hierarchy, property, and control shaped the ideologies and institutions of the fledgling nation.

Tom Cutterham examines how, facing pressure from populist movements as well as the threat of foreign empires, these gentlemen argued among themselves to find new ways of justifying economic and political inequality in a republican society. At the heart of their ideology was a regime of property and contract rights derived from the norms of international commerce and eighteenth-century jurisprudence. But these gentlemen were not concerned with property alone. They also sought personal prestige and cultural preeminence. Cutterham describes how, painting the egalitarian freedom of the republic's "lower sort" as dangerous licentiousness, they constructed a vision of proper social order around their own fantasies of power and justice. In pamphlets, speeches, letters, and poetry, they argued that the survival of the republican experiment in the United States depended on the leadership of worthy gentlemen and the obedience of everyone else.

Lively and elegantly written, Gentlemen Revolutionaries demonstrates how these elites, far from giving up their attachment to gentility and privilege, recast the new republic in their own image.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In the years between the Revolutionary War and the drafting of the Constitution, American gentlemen—the merchants, lawyers, planters, and landowners who comprised the independent republic's elite—worked hard to maintain their positions of power. Gentlemen Revolutionaries shows how their struggles over status, hierarchy, property, and control shaped the ideologies and institutions of the fledgling nation.

Tom Cutterham examines how, facing pressure from populist movements as well as the threat of foreign empires, these gentlemen argued among themselves to find new ways of justifying economic and political inequality in a republican society. At the heart of their ideology was a regime of property and contract rights derived from the norms of international commerce and eighteenth-century jurisprudence. But these gentlemen were not concerned with property alone. They also sought personal prestige and cultural preeminence. Cutterham describes how, painting the egalitarian freedom of the republic's "lower sort" as dangerous licentiousness, they constructed a vision of proper social order around their own fantasies of power and justice. In pamphlets, speeches, letters, and poetry, they argued that the survival of the republican experiment in the United States depended on the leadership of worthy gentlemen and the obedience of everyone else.

Lively and elegantly written, Gentlemen Revolutionaries demonstrates how these elites, far from giving up their attachment to gentility and privilege, recast the new republic in their own image.

More books from Princeton University Press

Cover of the book How to Do Ecology by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Last Looks, Last Books by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Citizenship between Empire and Nation by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book The Apple of His Eye by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Tesla by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Syllabus of Errors by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Exceptional People by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Stand and Prosper by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Causation in Science by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book In Harm's Way by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Foreign Relations by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book The Story of Silver by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book A Taste for the Beautiful by Tom Cutterham
Cover of the book Women at the Beginning by Tom Cutterham
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy