American Republics

A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850

17 June 2022

Territory Rights — Worldwide.

Alan Taylor (Author)

Description

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the powerful story of a precarious United States as it expands across a contested continent

In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, an eminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation marching to its continent-spanning destiny.

The newly constituted United States actually emerged as an internally fragile union of states that clashed over a tenuous balance of regional power. European empires and the new republic of Mexico sought to contain that union by allying with Native peoples who defended their homelands. Bitter political divisions pitted those favouring strong government with elite rule against those, like Andrew Jackson, espousing a democratic populism for white men. With a flood of settlers pouring into the west, the United States invaded Canada, Florida, Texas and much of Mexico. It forcibly removed most of the Native peoples living east of the Mississippi. And after the Mexican war, with conquered territory reaching west to the Pacific, the sectional divisions over slavery produced a crisis.

Reviews

"Stimulating… Many histories of this important interregnum period have been written, but none emphasizes the fragility of the American experiment as strongly as Taylor’s book does. American Republics succeeds admirably." — David S. Reynolds, The New York Times Book Review

"[Alan Taylor’s] book is written in clear, readable prose designed for readers with little or no prior knowledge of the period, and the work has touches of wokeness, which helps to fit it nicely into this extraordinary moment in our history." — Gordon S. Wood, The Wall Street Journal

"[A] masterful new volume..." — M.J. Andersen, Boston Globe

Also By: Alan Taylor View all by author...

  • American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873

    Alan Taylor

    Hardback, 2024

    A Pulitzer Prize winner's masterful history of the American Civil War and its reverberations across the continent
  • Thomas Jefferson's Education

    Alan Taylor

    Paperback, 2020

    From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, a brilliant, absorbing study of Jefferson and his campaign to save Virginia through education.
  • Thomas Jefferson's Education

    Alan Taylor

    Hardback, 2019

    From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, a brilliant, absorbing study of Jefferson and his campaign to save Virginia through education.
  • Thomas Jefferson's Education

    Alan Taylor

    E Book, 2019

    From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, a brilliant, absorbing study of Jefferson and his campaign to save Virginia through education.
  • American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804

    Alan Taylor

    Paperback, 2017

    From a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a fresh, authoritative history that recasts thinking about America’s founding period.

Paperback

9781324021803

140 x 208 mm • 544 pages

£15.99

Add to Basket

Ebook

9781324005803

Powered by Glassboxx

£15.99

Add to Basket