"Cayton and Onuf have tried to recapture a central place for region in our thinking while, at the same time, incorporating into their analysis the latest scholarship on gender, political behavior, etc. Theirs is a fine blending of the old and the new: old scholarship and new directions." ―Malcolm J. Rohrbough
"This is an ambitious work that... truly beongs on the ‘must do’ reading list of all midwestern and American historians." ―American Historical Review
"... an impressive interpretive work that will command the attention of regional historians and national scholars alike." ―Illinois Historical Journal
"... an excellent extended historiographic essay that seeks not only to locate the significance of the region created by the early land ordinance but also to raise issues for the historical examination of other regions of the country." ―South Dakota History
"What makes this book especially interesting and valuable is that it is informed by the post-modern scholar’s view that knowledge can never be objective and eternally true; rather, it is subjective and socially constructed, shaped by the political, social, intellectual, and economic environments in which it is formed." ―Western Illinois Regional Studies
"The book’s review of scholarship about the region is exhaustive, as well as brisk and lucid." ―American Studies International
"... a rigorous intellecutal analysis of the region’s most important historiography." ―Gateway Heritage
"... an excellent book... " ―The Annals of Iowa
"What is impressive about this densely written work is the number of secondary works incorporated into the text and the importance of the authors' thesis of the considerable influence of happenings in the Midwest of the nineteenth century." ―North Dakota History
"There is... much to be praised in this book, and it will be frequently used and discussed by scholars of the early Midwest." ―Journal of American History

The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region (Midwestern History and Culture)

History

Onuf, Peter S.

CAYTON, ANDREW R.L.

Americas

Indiana University Press

The 200th anniversary of a great document of freedom.

Statehood and union: A history of the Northwest Ordinance (Midwestern history and culture)

Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance

University of Notre Dame Press

This new edition of Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance, originally published in 1987, is an authoritative account of the origins and early history of American policy for territorial government, land distribution, and the admission of new states in the Old Northwest. In a new preface, Peter S. Onuf reviews important new work on the progress of colonization and territorial expansion in the rising American empire.

From the onset of the Revolution in 1776 to the inauguration of the federal government in 1789, the American political culture was transformed. The movement for an effective continental republic is here linked to the groundswell for development and economic freedom set off by the Revolution. A Union of Interests reconstructs the discourse of American federalism, a discourse grounded in the debate over the role of government in the regulation of the economy. Cathy Matson and Peter Onuf integrate analyses of economic ideas and interests with many of the critical problems facing the union after the war--such as jurisdictional disputes, threats of secession, and new prospects for frontier settlement. The revolutionary ideology that had justified the creation of sovereign states under the Articles of Confederation seemed increasingly "artificial" in light of the pressing need to create a "natural," extended republic that would be truer to the changing circumstances of the American people. The authors demonstrate that the movement for the Constitution drew upon increasingly popular political-economic ideas that sought to reconcile the apparent conflicts between a national interest and the "enlightened" self-interest of citizens. A pivotal chapter argues that the Constitutional Convention was itself both a product of this broad public discussion about America's future and a contribution to it in which the founders debated the limits to which they should compromise their distinct goals to fit this emerging vision. This book is part of the American Political Thought series.

A Union of Interests: Political and Economic Thought in Revolutionary America

Matson, Cathy D.

Univ Pr of Kansas

From the onset of the Revolution in 1776 to the inauguration of the federal government in 1789, the American political culture was transformed. The movement for an effective continental republic is here linked to the groundswell for development and economic freedom set off by the Revolution. A Union of Interests reconstructs the discourse of American federalism, a discourse grounded in the debate over the role of government in the regulation of the economy. Cathy Matson and Peter Onuf integrate analyses of economic ideas and interests with many of the critical problems facing the union after the war—such as jurisdictional disputes, threats of secession, and new prospects for frontier settlement. The revolutionary ideology that had justified the creation of sovereign states under the Articles of Confederation seemed increasingly "artificial" in light of the pressing need to create a "natural," extended republic that would be truer to the changing circumstances of the American people. The authors demonstrate that the movement for the Constitution drew upon increasingly popular political-economic ideas that sought to reconcile the apparent conflicts between a national interest and the "enlightened" self-interest of citizens. A pivotal chapter argues that the Constitutional Convention was itself both a product of this broad public discussion about America's future and a contribution to it in which the founders debated the limits to which they should compromise their distinct goals to fit this emerging vision.

A Union of Interests: Political and Economic Thought in Revolutionary America (American Political Thought)

University Press of Kansas

Even as Americans keep moving "all over the map" in the late twentieth century, they cherish memories of the places they come from. But where do these places-these regions-come from? What makes them so real? In this groundbreaking book a distinguished group of historians explores the concept of region in America, traces changes the idea has undergone in our national experience, and examines its meaning for Americans today. Far from diminishing in importance, the authors conclude, regional differences continue to play a significant role in Americans' self-image. Regional identity, in fact, has always been fed by the very forces that many people think threaten its existence today: a central government, an aggressive economy, and connections with places beyond regional boundaries. Calling into question widely held notions about how Americans came to differ from one another and explaining why those differences continue to flourish, this iconoclastic study-by scholars with differing regional ties-will refresh and redirect the centuries-old discussion over Americans' conceptions of themselves. "All Over the Map makes a distinctive and valuable contribution, and it does so at a critical moment in our thinking about regionalism. The essays have many virtues-they are exceedingly thoughtful and they are well informed. With writing that is wonderfully clear, the book is a delightful and important work for scholars as well as a wider audience. I would like to see it in the book shop at every National Park Service site across the U.S.A."-Michael Kammen, Cornell University

All Over the Map: Rethinking American Regions

Ayers, Edward L.

Nissenbaum, Stephen

Limerick, Patricia Nelson

Johns Hopkins University Press

The Origins of the Federal Republic: Jurisdictional Controversies in the United States, 1775-1787

Historians have emphasized the founding fathers' statesmanship and vision in the development of a more powerful union under the federal constitution. In The Origins of the Federal Republic, Peter S. Onuf clarifies the founders' achievement by demonstrating with case studies of New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Virginia that territorial confrontations among the former colonies played a crucial role in shaping early concepts of statehood and union and provided the true basis of the American federalist system.

University of Pennsylvania Press

Thomas Jefferson believed that the American revolution was a transformative moment in the history of political civilization. He hoped that his own efforts as a founding statesman and theorist would help construct a progressive and enlightened order for the new American nation that would be a model and inspiration for the world. Peter S. Onuf's new book traces Jefferson's vision of the American future to its roots in his idealized notions of nationhood and empire. Onuf's unsettling recognition that Jefferson's famed egalitarianism was elaborated in an imperial context yields strikingly original interpretations of our national identity and our ideas of race, of westward expansion and the Civil War, and of American global dominance in the twentieth century.
Jefferson's vision of an American "empire for liberty" was modeled on a British prototype. But as a consensual union of self-governing republics without a metropolis, Jefferson's American empire would be free of exploitation by a corrupt imperial ruling class. It would avoid the cycle of war and destruction that had characterized the European balance of power.
The Civil War cast in high relief the tragic limitations of Jefferson's political vision. After the Union victory, as the reconstructed nation-state developed into a world power, dreams of the United States as an ever-expanding empire of peacefully coexisting states quickly faded from memory. Yet even as the antebellum federal union disintegrated, a Jeffersonian nationalism, proudly conscious of America's historic revolution against imperial domination, grew up in its place.
In Onuf's view, Jefferson's quest to define a new American identity also shaped his ambivalent conceptions of slavery and Native American rights. His revolutionary fervor led him to see Indians as "merciless savages" who ravaged the frontiers at the British king's direction, but when those frontiers were pacified, a more benevolent Jefferson encouraged these same Indians to embrace republican values. African American slaves, by contrast, constituted an unassimilable captive nation, unjustly wrenched from its African homeland. His great panacea: colonization.
Jefferson's ideas about race reveal the limitations of his conception of American nationhood. Yet, as Onuf strikingly documents, Jefferson's vision of a republican empire--a regime of peace, prosperity, and union without coercion--continues to define and expand the boundaries of American national identity.

Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (Jeffersonian America)

Univ of Virginia Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Onuf, Peter S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Onuf, Peter S.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Onuf, Peter S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region (Midwestern History and Culture)

Statehood and union: A history of the Northwest Ordinance (Midwestern history and culture)

Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance

Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance

A Union of Interests: Political and Economic Thought in Revolutionary America

A Union of Interests: Political and Economic Thought in Revolutionary America (American Political Thought)

All Over the Map: Rethinking American Regions

The Origins of the Federal Republic: Jurisdictional Controversies in the United States, 1775-1787

The Origins of the Federal Republic: Jurisdictional Controversies in the United States, 1775-1787

Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (Jeffersonian America)