The Nation Takes Shape: 1789-1837 / Edition 1

by Marcus Cunliffe

Overview

Marcus Cunliffe, whom the Washington Post and Times Herald calls "a master historian capable of seeing his subject whole," has written a cogent and revealing study of America's first half-century under the federal Constitution. Bounded by the first Washington Administration and the last Jackson Administration, this is the period in which democracy grew and shaped the nation. It witnessed the launching of the federal government; the expansion of the frontier; the establishment of a party system; the enunciation of a foreign policy; the manufacture of the symbols of nationalism; and the forging of the arguments of sectionalism. Most important, Mr. Cunliffe writes, "the American character seems to have been formed in essence within a generation of George Washington's accession to the Presidency."

"An urbane, stimulating, and admirably proportioned analysis. . . ."—Alexander DeConde, Wisconsin Magazine of History

"What [Mr. Cunliffe] has done is to weave together and show the fertile interplay of the American dream and the American reality—and show how much the dream modified the reality. . . . an acute and elegant performance."—Times Literary Supplement

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226126678
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	09/15/1960
Series:	The Chicago History of American Civilization
Edition description:	1
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Marcus Cunliffe is University Professor at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and is the author of George Washington: Man and Monument (1958).

Table of Contents

I. "Half a Century of Progress"
II. The Union Defined: Government, Politics, and Law
III. The World Outside: Foreign Policy
IV. The West: Territorial and Agricultural Expansion
V. Commerce and Industry
VI. Nationalism and Sectionalism
VII. Conservatism and Democracy
VIII. The American Character
Bibliographical Note
Important Dates
Index

Editorial Reviews

An urbane, stimulating, and admirably proportioned analysis...
—Wisconsin Magazine of History

Alexander VeConde