Among the powers of the earth
Subtitle: the American Revolution and the making of a new world empire
By: Eliga H. Gould
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambride, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 344
ISBN-13: 9780674046085
Subjects: History; Influence; Foreign relations; International status; Territorial expansion
Description: "For most Americans, the Revolution's main achievement is summed up by the phrase 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Yet far from a straightforward attempt to be free of Old World laws and customs, the American founding was also a bid for inclusion in the community of nations as it existed in 1776. America aspired to diplomatic recognition under international law and the authority to become a colonizing power itself. The Revolution was an international transformation of the first importance. To conform to the public law of Europe's imperial powers, Americans crafted a union nearly as centralized as the one they had overthrown, endured taxes heavier than any they had faced as British colonists, and remained entangled with European Atlantic empires long after the Revolution ended. No factor weighed more heavily on Americans than the legally plural Atlantic where they hoped to build their empire. Gould follows the region's transfiguration from a fluid periphery with its own rules and norms to a place where people of all descriptions were expected to abide by the laws of Western Europe -- 'civilized' laws that precluded neither slavery nor the dispossession of Native Americans."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: an entangled nation; title: On the margins of Europe; title: The law of slavery; title: An empire of peace; title: American independence; title: A slaveholding republic; title: The new world and the old; title: Epilogue: Mr. Monroe's peace.