The post-Enlightenment movement known as Romanticism is a messy period; so messy, in fact, that many scholars eschew any attempt to define it. In reaction to the overreliance placed on reason by Enlightenment thinkers, Romantics emphasized individual freedom, emotional intensity, introspection, sincerity, and heightened imagination. They sought ......
The Early Influence of Jewish Thought in the New World
Explores the influence of Kabbalah in shaping America's religious identity In 1688, a leading Quaker thinker and activist in what is now New Jersey penned a letter to one of his closest disciples concerning Kabbalah, or what he called the mystical theology of the Jews. Around that same time, one of the leading Puritan ministers developed a ......
"[Historian Allen] recreates in this meticulous and fast-moving posthumous account the events of the pivotal year 1789 in America. It's a superb distillation of a complex moment in U.S. history."-- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review 1789: George Washington and the Founders Create Americadraws on hundreds of sources to paint a vivid portrait of the ......
Do Jane Austen novels truly celebrate--or undermine--romance and happy endings? How did Jane Austen become a cultural icon for fairy-tale endings when her own books end in ways that are rushed, ironic, and reluctant to satisfy readers' thirst for romance? In Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness, Austen scholar Inger Sigrun Bredkjaer Brodey ......
Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburg
The fascinating story of a British army chaplain's buggery trial in 1774 reveals surprising truths about early America. On the eve of the American Revolution, the British army considered the case of a chaplain, Robert Newburgh, who had been accused of having sex with a man. Newburgh's enemies cited his flamboyant appearance, defiance of military ......
How did the evil nature of slavery become enshrined in law in Great Britain? What drove the change in public perception? What were the key victories on the journey to abolition and who were the key players? What is to prevent a similar evil gaining acceptance again today? Just as Britain's industrial development in the eighteenth and early ......
Entangled Memories and Emotional Loss in Early America
Untangling the private feelings, ambitions, and fears of early Americans through their personal writings from the Revolution to the Civil War. Modern readers of history and biography unite around a seemingly straightforward question: What did it feel like to live in the past? In Longing for Connection, historian Andrew Burstein attempts to answer ......
Political Caricature in the United States, 1789-1828
Prints of a New Kind details the political strategies and scandals that inspired the first generation of American caricaturists to share news and opinions with their audiences in shockingly radical ways. Complementing studies on British and European printmaking, this book is a survey and catalogue of all known American political caricatures ......
Seeking to honor and extend the critical legacy of Howard Weinbrot, this volume re-examines, rebuilds, and upgrades the most prominent pillars of long eighteenth-century scholarship. The collection is divided into four thematic sections, beginning with a series of chapters offering fresh analyses of Swift, Dryden, Hogarth, and other major authors ......
