Anglophilia : deference, devotion, and antebellum America / Elisa Tamarkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tamarkin, Elisa.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public opinion--United States--History--19th century.

Public opinion.

Popular culture--United States--History--19th century.

Popular culture.

Democracy--Social aspects--United States--History--19th century.

Democracy.

Political culture--United States--History--19th century.

Political culture.

United States--Civilization--1783-1865.

United States.

United States--Civilization--British influences.

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

United States--Relations--Great Britain.

Great Britain--Relations--United States.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Foreign public opinion, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (435 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Anglophilia charts the phenomenon of the love of Britain that emerged after the Revolution and remains in the character of U.S. society and class, the style of academic life, and the idea of American intellectualism. But as Tamarkin shows, this Anglophilia was more than just an elite nostalgia; it was popular devotion that made reverence for British tradition instrumental to the psychological innovations of democracy. Anglophilia spoke to fantasies of cultural belonging, polite sociability, and, finally, deference itself as an affective practice within egalitarian politics. Tamarkin traces the wide-ranging effects of anglophilia on American literature, art and intellectual life in the early nineteenth century, as well as its influence in arguments against slavery, in the politics of Union, and in the dialectics of liberty and loyalty before the civil war. By working beyond narratives of British influence, Tamarkin highlights a more intricate culture of American response, one that included Whig elites, college students, radical democrats, urban immigrants, and African Americans. Ultimately, Anglophila argues that that the love of Britain was not simply a fetish or form of shame-a release from the burdens of American culture-but an anachronistic structure of attachement in which U.S. Identity was lived in other languages of national expression.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter One. Monarch-Love; or, How the Prince of Wales Saved the Union

Chapter Two. Imperial Nostalgia

Chapter Three. Freedom and Deference

Chapter Four. The Anglophile Academy

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-381) and index.

ISBN:

9786611966621

9781281966629

1281966622

9780226789439

0226789438

OCLC:

309871240