The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790-1820Winner 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." |
Contents
The Birth of the Liberal Republic 17901820 | 1 |
Besotted by Prosperity Corrupted by Avarice Abject from Luxury | 78 |
III | 109 |
I Will Be a Living Worker in the World | 123 |
Sacrificing Their Gold to Gamblers Their Health to Harlots | 141 |
IV | 161 |
Two Objects the Nearest to my Heart My Country and My Father | 196 |
V | 217 |
The Liberal Impulse to | 263 |
VI | 275 |
The Vindication of Gods Republic | 283 |
The Triumph of SelfMade | 289 |