The Complete Colonial Gentleman: Cultural Legitimacy in Plantation America

by Michal Jan Rozbicki

Overview

The colonial plantation elite's persistent emulation of the British landed gentry has long intrigued American historians, who recently have insisted that the pursuit of this apparently outdated ideal was an impediment to the development of a distinctive American culture. In The Complete Colonial Gentleman, Michal J. Rozbicki argues that such a view misreads the legitimizing process and the history of culture.

Rozbicki's interpretation contrasts provocatively with recent studies of colonial America and demonstrates how the essentially conservative aspirations of colonial planter gentility foreshadowed distinctly American and democratice developments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813922362
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	05/29/1998
Pages:	221
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michal J. Rozbicki is Associate Professor of History at Saint Louis University.

Editorial Reviews

To the many battles in colonial Americathe battle for survival, the regional differences over agrarianism and slavery, the war for independenceRozbicki (Transformation of the English Cultural Ethos in Colonial America, Univ. Pr. of America, 1988) adds the struggle for cultural legitimacy. On the European side of the Atlantic, British society was reflected in the aristocrat, the cultured gentleman. In the American colonies, the planter aspired to cultural gentility but, in the eyes of the British, he was not only uncultured; his aspirations to gentility were unrealistic. Rozbicki makes extensive use of primary sources to explore colonial culture, sophistication, arts, and learning, and concludes that the pursuit of legitimacy is characteristic of a society with a zeal for liberty and equality. Rozbicki points to the self-made man, the planter elite, who played the significant role in American independence and whose ambition for recognition was a product of this quest for legitimacy. For academic libraries.Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., Ala.

Library Journal

The colonial American plantation elite's persistent emulation of the British landed gentry has long fascinated historians. Rozbicki (history, Saint Louis U.) asserts that the emerging elite's quest for gentility was the only plausible route to identity and authority and argues that the essentially conservative aspirations of the colonial planters foreshadowed distinctly American and democratic developments. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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