Among the powers of the earth : the American Revolution and the making of a new world empire / Eliga H. Gould.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gould, Eliga H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

International relations--United States.

International relations.

United States--Foreign relations--1775-1783.

United States.

United States--Foreign relations--1783-1815.

United States--International status--History.

United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783--Influence.

United States--Territorial expansion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations, maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.

Summary:

For most Americans, the Revolution's main achievement is summed up by the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Yet far from a straightforward attempt to be free of Old World laws and customs, the American founding was also a bid for inclusion in the community of nations as it existed in 1776. America aspired to diplomatic recognition under international law and the authority to become a colonizing power itself. As Eliga Gould shows in this reappraisal of American history, the Revolution was an international transformation of the first importance. To conform to the public law of Europe's imperial powers, Americans crafted a union nearly as centralized as the one they had overthrown, endured taxes heavier than any they had faced as British colonists, and remained entangled with European Atlantic empires long after the Revolution ended. No factor weighed more heavily on Americans than the legally plural Atlantic where they hoped to build their empire. Gould follows the region's transfiguration from a fluid periphery with its own rules and norms to a place where people of all descriptions were expected to abide by the laws of Western Europe-"civilized" laws that precluded neither slavery nor the dispossession of Native Americans.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

MAPS

Introduction

Chapter 1. On the Margins of Europe

Chapter 2. The Law of Slavery

Chapter 3. Pax Britannica

Chapter 4. Independence

Chapter 5. A Slaveholding Republic

Chapter 6. The New World and the Old

Epilogue

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674065024

0674065026

9780674068261

0674068262

OCLC:

794427992