Passion Is the Gale

Nicole Eustace is associate professor of history at New York University.

"[Eustace] carefully balances the factors most commonly considered when analyzing gender -- race and status -- against other important personal attributes in order to offer a nuanced analysis of masculinity and participation in the body politic in early America." -- Early American Literature "An important book in a field of growing appeal, and the University of North Carolina Press have given it a beautiful production." -- Times Literary Supplement "Dr. Eustace has, through exhaustive research, gotten inside the collective colonial psyche and greatly expanded our understanding of the interconnections between available, often complex ideas and the various audiences living in eighteenth-century America." -- Southern Historian "Eustace's meticulous exploration of feeling's intersections with gender, race, class, and variety of power plays situates her book in the new history of emotion, but it is equally grounded in the older history of ideas." -- American Historical Review "Eustace's unique contribution adds to the already bountiful number of volumes on the subject. . . . Well written and encompassing. . . . Recommended." -- CHOICE "Fascinating. . . . An impressive body of evidence that incorporates personal journals, commonplace books, correspondence, political and religious tracts, public records, and newspapers. . . . An eminently humane piece of scholarship." -- Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography "In this provocative study, Eustace boldly advances a 'history of eighteenth-century American emotion'. . . . Strikingly original readings of a wide range of documents." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History "Reveals a new landscape for the pivotal events leading to American independence. . . . A path-breaking work. . . . Deeply researched and clearly argued. . . . All early American historians should read it, along with all scholars of the history of emotion." -- Journal of Social History "Sweeping in scope, subtle in analysis, and profound in importance. . . . Bridging intimate feelings with collective experience is a formidable task that Eustace executes with great skill. . . . A thought-provoking and creative book that provides fresh insights into the essential paradox at the heart of the American Revolution. . . . Intellectual, political, and cultural history of the highest order." -- William and Mary Quarterly "Tackle[s] an original and important subject and elegantly explain[s] complex developments with great clarity. . . . Exemplifies the best of recent cultural history by effectively fusing intellectual and social history." -- Journal of American History