Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Earliness of the Early Republic 2. The Dialectic of Liberty 3. The Commonalities of Common Sense 4. Becoming American 5. The Forgotten Publius 6. Finding Rome in America 7. Gabriel's Rebellion 8. Jefferson at Monticello 9. Charity in the City of Brotherly Love 10. The Last Early Republican Text Epilogue Notes Index
Robert A. Ferguson is George Edward Woodberry Professor in Law, Literature, and Criticism at Columbia University.
These fine essays analyze U.S. texts from the 1760s through the
1820s so as to illustrate the forms of expression, assumptions,
conflicts, and ambivalences of the era. The texts include a
remarkably broad spectrum, from the canonical Common Sense through
slave narratives, notable court cases, popular novels, and the
architecture of Monticello to The Last of the Mohicans. Two common
themes linking the essays are that the language 'was richer and
more nuanced than their inheritors' understood, and that the
current generation could benefit from careful reconsideration of
those complexities that are the foundation of American life. Useful
insights abound.
*Choice*
[Reading the Early Republic is best described as a cohesive
collection of discrete essays designed to show that very close
reading of selected texts and episodes can shed new light on our
understanding of the Revolutionary era broadly conceived...It is
written with remarkable clarity and moves along at a varied pace
that never fails to engage us. Reading the Early Republic is an
innovative and distinguished contribution that enriches our
understanding of the period.
*Law and History Review*
Ferguson aspires to give us a knowledge of the past that remembers
the intrinsic difference of its vitality, yet does not leave us to
the crises of our moment without a sense of "answering
relevance."
*Early American Literature*
Reading the Early Republic revisits some of the most emblematic
words and texts of that period and brings to the fore some
forgotten individuals and documents to produce a thoroughgoing
historical analysis of the new nation. In the process, Ferguson
develops a portrayal of the period that serves as a powerful
corrective to recent histories that emphasize national unity and
ideological familiarity...Ferguson has also written a book with a
surprising degree of relevance, revealing his intentions to speak
to an audience outside academia.
*New England Quarterly*
A major contribution to literary and intellectual history, Reading
the Early Republic also serves as a brilliant and formidable
rebuttal to those policy makers, judges, and lawyers who are
currently raiding the early Republic in the hope of settling
current debates by recovering the original meanings of founding
texts...Reading the Early Republic demonstrates why the history of
political writing and rhetoric constitutes an important and
distinct discipline from the history of political thought.
*William and Mary Quarterly*
Rejecting what he regards as over-simplified interpretations of the
period's literary output, Ferguson sets out to recover the variety
of meanings that these texts conveyed to contemporaries. Drawing on
a range of works, from those that have become canonical to those
that have been marginalized, he finds that early republican
writings were significantly more nuanced, complex and volatile than
even the most sensitive critics have acknowledged. Ferguson
proceeds to offer fresh readings of several different kinds of
sources, including novels, pamphlets, journals, legal records, and
slave narratives...Reading the Early Republic is wide-ranging and
insightful. Opening out the texts in this way adds a new dimension
to our understanding of the essential fluidity, volatility and
contested quality of the early republic.
*History*
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