After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture

by Joseph J. Ellis Ph.D.

Overview

Through portraits of four figures—Charles Willson Peale, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, William Dunlap, and Noah Webster—Joseph Ellis provides a unique perspective on the role of culture in post-Revolutionary America, both its high expectations and its frustrations.

An entrepreneur, a writer who wanted to depict an ideal society, a dramatist who tried to reconcile high aesthetic standards and populism, and a Connecticut Yankee who ran into the contradictions of conservatism and liberalism—each of the four men depicted in this book had a vision of what kind of society post-Revolutionary America should be. Through portraits of these bellwether figures, the prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis examines the currents that were shaping the new country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393322330
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/17/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	274
Sales rank:	548,573
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	1470L (what's this?)

About the Author

Joseph J. Ellis is the best-selling author of twelve previous books, including American Sphinx, which won the National Book Award, and Founding Brothers, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Plymouth, Vermont.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
Part 1	Premonitions and Paradoxes in the Revolutionary Era
Chapter 1	Premonitions: An American Athens	3
Chapter 2	Paradoxes: Culture and Capitalism	23
Part 2	Profiles
Chapter 3	Charles Willson Peale: Portrait of the American Artist as Virtuous Entrepreneur	41
Chapter 4	Hugh Henry Brackenridge: The Novelist as Reluctant Democrat	73
Chapter 5	William Dunlap: The Dramatist as Benevolent Patriarch	113
Chapter 6	Noah Webster: The Connecticut Yankee as Nationalist	161
	Epilogue: New Critics: Toward Emerson	213
	Notes	223
	Index	252