Contested democracy : freedom, race, and power in American history / edited by Manisha Sinha and Penny Von Eschen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Sinha, Manisha.

Von Eschen, Penny M. (Penny Marie)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democracy--United States--History.

Democracy.

Power (Social sciences)--United States--History.

Power (Social sciences).

Radicalism--United States--History.

Radicalism.

Social movements--United States--History.

Social movements.

United States--History.

United States.

United States--Politics and government.

United States--Race relations.

United States--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (349 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

With essays on U.S. history ranging from the American Revolution to the dawn of the twenty-first century, Contested Democracy illuminates struggles waged over freedom and citizenship throughout the American past. Guided by a commitment to democratic citizenship and responsible scholarship, the contributors to this volume insist that rigorous engagement with history is essential to a vital democracy, particularly amid the current erosion of human rights and civil liberties within the United States and abroad. Emphasizing the contradictory ways in which freedom has developed within the United States and in the exercise of American power abroad, these essays probe challenges to American democracy through conflicts shaped by race, slavery, gender, citizenship, political economy, immigration, law, empire, and the idea of the nation state. In this volume, writers demonstrate how opposition to the expansion of democracy has shaped the American tradition as much as movements for social and political change. By foregrounding those who have been marginalized in U.S society as well as the powerful, these historians and scholars argue for an alternative vision of American freedom that confronts the limitations, failings, and contradictions of U.S. power. Their work provides crucial insight into the role of the United States in this latest age of American empire and the importance of different and oppositional visions of American democracy and freedom. At a time of intense disillusionment with U.S. politics and of increasing awareness of the costs of empire, these contributors argue that responsible historical scholarship can challenge the blatant manipulation of discourses on freedom. They call for careful and conscientious scholarship not only to illuminate contemporary problems but also to act as a bulwark against mythmaking in the service of cynical political ends.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction / Sinha, Manisha / Eschen, Penny Von

1. An Alternative Tradition of Radicalism: African American Abolitionists and the Metaphor of Revolution / Sinha, Manisha

2. Isaiah Rynders and the Ironies of Popular Democracy in Antebellum New York / Anbinder, Tyler

3. Leave of Court: African American Claims-Making in the Era of Dred Scott v. Sanford / Jones, Martha S.

4. City Women: Slavery and Resistance in Antebellum St. Louis / Saxton, Martha

5. Free Soil, Free Labor, and Free Markets: Antebellum Merchant Clerks, Industrial Statistics, and the Tautologies of Profit / Zakim, Michael

6. Make "Every Slave Free, and Every Freeman a Voter": The African American Construction of Suffrage Discourse in the Age of Emancipation / Wang, Xi

7. Making It Fit: The Federal Government, Liberal Individualism, and the American West / Lawson, Melinda

8. Reconstructing the Empire of Cotton: A Global Story / Beckert, Sven

9. Cuba Libre and American Imperial Nationalism: Conflicting Views of Racial Democracy in the Post- Reconstruction United States / Lorini, Alessandra

10. Transnational Solidarities: The Sacco and Vanzetti Case in Global Perspective / McGirr, Lisa

11. "An Ironic Testimony to the Value of American Democracy": Assimilationism and the World War II Internment of Japanese Americans / Ngai, Mae M.

12. Student Protest, "Law and Order," and the Origins of African American Studies in California / Biondi, Martha

13. Duke Ellington Plays Baghdad: Rethinking Hard and Soft Power from the Outside In / Eschen, Penny Von

14. The Story of American Freedom-Before and After 9/11 / Foner, Eric

Afterword: "From the Archives and from the Heart" / Blight, David W.

Notes on Contributors

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780231511988

0231511981

OCLC:

818855935