Democratic dissent & the cultural fictions of antebellum America
By: Stephen John Hartnett.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 230
Subjects: Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Democracy -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Propaganda -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Antislavery movements -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Capitalism -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Slavery -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Identity (Psychology) -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century; National characteristics, American; United States -- Politics and government -- 1845-1861; United States -- Territorial expansion -- History -- 19th century
Other titles: Democratic dissent and the cultural fictions of antebellum America
Description: "In this study, Stephen John Hartnett explores the "cultural fictions" that accompanied and undergirded public debates in antebellum America regarding abolition and capitalism, race and slavery, manifest destiny and empire, and representation and self-making.".

"Drawing on a rich array of persuasive materials - including speeches and debates, novels and poems, newspaper articles and advertisements, daguerreotypes and paintings, protest pamphlets, reform manifestos, and scientific reports - Hartnett investigates how cultural fictions were presented, how they reflected or exploited larger cultural norms, and why some were more persuasive than others."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-220) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Acknowledgments vii; title: Introduction: Cultural Fictions and the Rhetorical; title: Work of Humble Irony I; title: I. The Dialectics of Assent and Dissent, Yankee Ingenuity,; title: and the Rhetorical Politics of Abolitionism I; title: 2. Proslavery Cultural Fictions, White Fear, and the; title: Rhetoric of Serious Evils 40; title: 3. Senator Robert Walker's Letter on Texas Annexation,; title: The South in Danger, and the Rhetoric of Manifest; title: Destiny 93; title: 4. Whitman's Pose, the Daguerreotype, and the Dialectics; title: of Commodification, Self-Making, and Democracy I32; title: Conclusion: The Paradoxes of Democratic; title: Representation 173; title: Notes 183; title: Index 221.