Reddit Reddit reviews Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States)

We found 6 Reddit comments about Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

History
Books
American History
United States History
U.S. Revolution & Founding History
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States)
Oxford University Press USA
Check price on Amazon

6 Reddit comments about Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States):

u/MYGODWHATHAVEIDONE · 39 pointsr/AskSocialScience

I think this is an informative answer, but I'm going to point out that you shifted terminology in an important way. The question asks if the U.S. is an "empire." Your answer is about "imperialism." These are analytically differentiable—the former is a governance/sovereignty structure the latter is a type of foreign policy. Hans Morgenthau (Politics among Nations) would chide you for conflating the two. (The unflaired commenters below also make this mistake.)

Can you have a non-imperialist empire? Yes. Can you have an imperialist non-empire? Yes.

As far as the OP's question, you can certainly make the argument that early U.S. expansion was conceived of as constructing an empire. Even an "empire of liberty" as Thomas Jefferson put it. Pop historian Niall Ferguson makes this kind of argument as well in his book Colossus.

Structurally a federation and an empire are somewhat analogous. It's no secret that the Romans copied the Achaemenid satrapy structure for their own empire, and the the Founding Fathers leaned heavily on their readings of the Romans when conceiving of the political theory foundation for the U.S. Constitution. The difference would be the location of sovereignty and the means by which the federation/empire is constructed. For the Achaemenids and Romans it was conquest by the imperial forces. For the United States it was first settlers, filibusterers, and corporations, and then eventually the federal army. The incorporation of a new state wasn't through conquest (the prospective state and the Congress had to vote on accession), but the acquisition of new territory was through conquest. There are parallels and analogies between early U.S. expansion and the traditional land empires (another interesting parallel is with the Russian Empire's expansion, which used remarkably similar liberal means to expand across Eurasia in the 1700s/1800s). But the construction of sovereignty was different in the case of the U.S. than in traditional empires of conquest and tribute.

u/captmonkey · 36 pointsr/TrueReddit

It's more complicated than that. The 2nd Great Awakening began in the decades following the Revolution, so while the founders were one of the least religious generations in American history, the generation immediately following was one of the most religious.

In order to remain relevant, the members of the founders who were struggling to still remain relevant in American politics began to make, often misguided and half-hearted, attempts to appear religious. So, you can quote mine people like Jefferson during this period for religious appeals.

Gordon Wood's Empire of Liberty covers the time period pretty well, if anyone is interested.

u/studentthrowaway1 · 3 pointsr/conspiracy

Tons of great historians that don't 100% disagree with Chomsky, but provide an alternate perspective. Great way to build a world history and world politics narrative that covers all perspectives.


Here are two off the top of my head:


Dr. Daniele Bolelli's History on Fire series counters Chomsky's views on Theodore Roosevelt. Worth a listen: 1 2 3


Empire of Liberty (by Gordon Wood) has an extensive history on the early American Republic that seems to be more fair regarding our Founding Fathers and the US.

u/shelbys_foot · 2 pointsr/politics

The article argues that our current political battles go back to the civil war. But I'd say the North / South divide goes back to the very beginning or close to it. If you read 19th century American history [(here's an especially fine book about it)] (http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Liberty-History-Republic-1789-1815/dp/0199832463) it's striking how little the arguments about government have changed in America's history.

u/yo2sense · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

The general resource for this is Thomas Slaughter's The Whiskey Rebellion. The central insight of that work is that the resistance was hardly confined to Western Pennsylvania but encompassed the entire frontier area of the United States. People living in backcountry areas basically hadn't been paying taxes since the Revolution began and didn't intend to start with such a heavy tax laid on by a distant government. What made Western Pennsylvania unique is the presence of someone actually willing to attempt to enforce the law in the person of General John Neville.

This is what we need to remember when looking into why the this tax was chosen. Eastern elites such as Alexander Hamilton looked upon frontier people much as Parliament looked upon the colonists when picking the Stamp Act tax or Mitt Romney looked upon the 47%. The whiskey tax would fall harder on freeloaders than on the productive people in eastern counties. For a more nuanced look at the politics see William Hogeland's The Whiskey Rebellion. Ron Chernow in Alexander Hamilton argues that the whiskey tax was the only real option for funding after federal assumption of state debts but doesn't explore the structure of the law designed to fall harder on small producers than on large.

The result was the strengthening of the government of the United States. It demonstrated to its states and foreign governments that it could enforce an unpopular tax and field large military forces to subdue its hinterlands. On the flip side, a lot of frontier farmers lost their land. Despite the prejudices of rich people, poor people really are poor. The situation became less bleak for western farmers after the opening of the Mississippi but agrarian unrest didn't subside until easy money and credit reached them in the wake of the demise of the First Bank of the United States ( See Gordon Wood Empire of Liberty page 298.