This Violent Empire The Birth of an American National Identity

• Main Author: Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll
• Format: eBook Book
• Language: English
• Published: Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina Press 01.12.2012; Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, by the University of North Carolina Press; Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture; Omohundro Institute and University of North Caroli; University of North Carolina Press
• Edition: 1
• Series: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia
• Subjects: 1783–1865; 18th century; Attitudes; Civilization; Colonial Period (1600-1775); Difference; Difference (Psychology); Difference (Psychology) > Political aspects > United States > History > 18th century; Empires; HISTORY; Identity formation; Language & Literature; Marginality, Social; Marginality, Social > United States > History > 18th century; Men, White; Men, White > United States > Attitudes > History > 18th century; National characteristics, American; National characteristics, American > History > 18th century; National identity; Paranoia; Paranoia > United States > History > 18th century; Political aspects; Political culture; Political culture > United States > History > 18th century; Racism; Racism > United States > History > 18th century; Revolutionary Period (1775-1800); Sexism; Sexism > United States > History > 18th century; U.S.A; United States; United States > Civilization > 1783-1865; Violence; Violence > United States > History > 18th century
• ISBN: 0807832960; 0807872717; 9780807872710; 9780807832967

This Violent Empiretraces the origins of American violence, racism, and paranoia to the founding moments of the new nation and the initial instability of Americans' national sense of self.Fusing cultural and political analyses to create a new form of political history, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg explores the ways the founding generation, lacking a common history, governmental infrastructures, and shared culture, solidified their national sense of self by imagining a series of "Others" (African Americans, Native Americans, women, the propertyless) whose differences from European American male founders overshadowed the differences that divided those founders. These "Others," dangerous and polluting, had to be excluded from the European American body politic. Feared, but also desired, they refused to be marginalized, incurring increasingly enraged enactments of their political and social exclusion that shaped our long history of racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Close readings of political rhetoric during the Constitutional debates reveal the genesis of this long history.