Review "This grand work peels back the layers of the troubled and very long 'Revolutionary settlement' in New York's Columbia County.... Brook has made the opaque brilliant and, in the process, highlighted useful interpretive frameworks for scholars of early America. . . . Essential."
-CHOICE
Review
"In remarkable detail, Brooke mines the archives to balance his portrait between the perspectives of the wealthy landowners . . . and the disenfranchised. . . . Will be valuable to students of history and political theory and others interested in America's early days."
-Library Journal
Review
"John Brooke's
Columbia Rising is a tour de force. Consolidating and developing some of the most compelling themes in recent scholarship on the early republic, Brooke brings the "public sphere" down to earth, offering a deeply grounded approach to the study of political culture and history that will transform the field.
Columbia Rising is a magnificent achievement."
-Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia
Review
"Brooke's magisterial command of the lives of a host of characters, some obscure and others not so obscure, makes for compelling reading."
-William and Mary Quarterly
Review
"Inspiring . . . . Brooke's book will hopefully provide a framework for future scholars to test as they seek to understand the process by which Americans moved from the crisis of Revolution to the establishment of a relatively stable political system."
-Common-Place
Review
"An important contribution to our ongoing effort to understand nation-building at the turn of the eighteenth century. It offers crucial lessons for the present as well."
-American Historical Review
Review
"This is a work sure to provoke a reexamination of the early republic's notions of citizenship, consent, and social membership, and the legacy of the American Revolution."
-Journal of American History
Review
and#8220;A thoughtful meditation on how we know the past.and#8221;and#8212;New Books in Native American Studies
Review
"Newman's book makes an important contribution to the study of Colonial and early America because it provides readers with new perspectives on understanding the interactions between historical records and representations."and#8212;S. A. Klein, CHOICE
Review
andquot;[On Records] raises new questions that could bring together scholars with differing access to sources and result in studies that would have a fundamental bearing on the understanding of colonial encounters and confrontations on issues such as land, memory, and the meaning of history. It could perhaps also lead to new and different glimpses of a past that once was.andquot;andmdash;Gunlog Fur, American Historical Review
Review
andquot;This book demands reading and rereading. Newman's point-counterpoint approach to each case study invites readers to question and challenge not only long-held assumptions about the nature of documentary evidence but also the intriguing conclusions his research offers.andquot;andmdash;Dawn Marsh Riggs, Journal of American History
Review
"For those looking for an insightful and thought-provoking engagement with questions of literacy, textuality and memory in early America, On Recordsand#160;has much to offer."and#8212;Hilary Wyss, William and Mary Quarterly
Review
"In Newman's study, the question of American origins is a semantic dance, one that oscillates between the original record and the representation of that record, which often takes on an even greater importance through its status as a "symbolic substitution" for that original."and#8212;Sarah Rivett, American Literary Historyand#160;
Review
"Llewellyn Castle is an accomplishment that contributes much to our understanding of a social reform movement that stretched from London to Kansas, while reminding us that even lost and forgotten "footnotes" can inform us about larger historical trends."and#8212;Charles Delgadillo, Kansas History
Review
andquot;Llewellyn Castle revives the history of a community and group. . . . It will be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of scholars in a variety of fields.andquot;andmdash;Michelle D. Tiedje, Nebraska History
Review
andquot;Llewellyn Castle is a surprisingly epic history of the cooperative political and economic world view that spanned the nineteenth century and formed the bedrock of the Anglo-American radical tradition.andquot;andmdash;Adam-Max Tuchinsky, Journal of American History
Review
and#8220;
Llewellyn Castle will be quite important to specialists in regional history, British history, and communal studies. . . . [This is] scholarship at its finest.and#8221;and#8212;Timothy Miller, author of
The Quest for Utopia in Twentieth-Century America, 1900and#8211;1960 and#160;
Review
andldquo;Gary Entzandrsquo;s discussion of the Populistsandrsquo; subtreasury plan . . . represents an original and path-breaking analysis and [is] a real contribution to the historiography of American populism.andrdquo;andmdash;Jim Bisset, author of
Agrarian Socialism in America and#160;
and#160;
Review
andldquo;Butterfieldandrsquo;s The Making of Tocquevilleandrsquo;s America is a landmark analysis of the rise of associational civil life in the early American republic. Where the eighteenth-century origins of popular civil society were clearly grounded in sensibility and sociability, Butterfield demonstrates with great force and clarity that a new associational framework of legal rights and procedural formality rapidly emerged in the wake of the Revolution. His analysis solves the problem that Tocqueville struggled to explain in the 1830s: why Americans were simultaneously an individualistic and collectivist people.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;The Making of Tocquevilleandrsquo;s America offers a new argument about the development of civil society, grounded in deep, impressive archival research. By examining how courts sought to make sense of voluntary associationsandrsquo; authority over members, Butterfield argues that the emphasis in existing scholarly literature on community and sociability has missed the mark. This book will be widely reviewed, often cited, and help further an important conversationandrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Butterfieldand#39;s important new study illuminates the extraordinary new world Alexis de Tocqueville encountered on his American travelsandmdash;and could not adequately explain.and#160;The associational impulse that the great French visitor found so astonishing was not the spontaneous expression of the American andlsquo;character,andrsquo; but instead grew out of law-minded membersandrsquo; struggles to reconcile individual autonomy and collective action.and#160;Deeply researched, persuasively argued, and beautifully written, The Making of Tocquevilleandrsquo;s America is a remarkable achievement: it will transform the way we think about the legal and civic culture of the early American republic.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Brooke explores the struggle within the young American nation over the extension of social and political rights after the Revolution. By closely examining the formation and interplay of political structures and civil institutions in the upper Hudson Valley, Brooke traces the debates over who should fall within and outside of the legally protected category of citizen. The story of Martin Van Buren threads the narrative, since his views profoundly influenced American understandings of consent and civil society and led to the birth of the American party system. Brooke's analysis of the revolutionary settlement as a dynamic and unstable compromise over the balance of power offers a window to a local struggle that mirrored the nationwide effort to define American citizenship.
Synopsis
"This grand work peels back the layers of the troubled and very long 'Revolutionary settlement' in New York's Columbia County…. Brook has made the opaque brilliant and, in the process, highlighted useful interpretive frameworks for scholars of early America. . . . Essential."
-CHOICE "In remarkable detail, Brooke mines the archives to balance his portrait between the perspectives of the wealthy landowners . . . and the disenfranchised. . . . Will be valuable to students of history and political theory and others interested in America's early days."
-Library Journal "John Brooke's Columbia Rising is a tour de force. Consolidating and developing some of the most compelling themes in recent scholarship on the early republic, Brooke brings the "public sphere" down to earth, offering a deeply grounded approach to the study of political culture and history that will transform the field. Columbia Rising is a magnificent achievement."
-Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia
Synopsis
In
Columbia Rising, Bancroft Prize-winning historian John L. Brooke explores the struggle within the young American nation over the extension of social and political rights after the Revolution. By closely examining the formation and interplay of political structures and civil institutions in the upper Hudson Valley, Brooke traces the debates over who should fall within and outside of the legally protected category of citizen.
The story of Martin Van Buren--kingpin of New York's Jacksonian "Regency," president of the United States, and first theoretician of American party politics--threads the narrative, since his views profoundly influenced American understandings of consent and civil society and led to the birth of the American party system. Brooke masterfully imbues local history with national significance, and his analysis of the revolutionary settlement as a dynamic and unstable compromise over the balance of power offers an ideal window on a local struggle that mirrored the nationwide effort to define American citizenship.
Synopsis
Bridging the fields of indigenous, early American, memory, and media studies,
On Records illuminates the problems of communication between cultures and across generations. Andrew Newman examines several controversial episodes in the historical narrative of the Delaware (Lenape) Indians, including the stories of their primordial migration to settle a homeland spanning the Delaware and Hudson Rivers, the arrival of the Dutch and the first colonial land fraud, William Pennand#8217;s founding of Pennsylvania with a Great Treaty of Peace, and the and#8220;infamousand#8221; 1737 Pennsylvania Walking Purchase.
As Newman demonstrates, the quest for ideal recordsand#8212;authentic, authoritative, and objective, anchored in the past yet intelligible to the presentand#8212;has haunted historical actors and scholars alike. Yet without and#8220;proof,and#8221; how can we know what really happened? On Records articulates surprising connections among colonial documents, recorded oral traditions, and material and visual cultures. Its comprehensive, probing analysis of historical evidence yields a multifaceted understanding of events and reveals new insights into the divergent memories of a shared past.
Synopsis
In 1869 six London families arrived in Nemaha County, Kansas, as the first colonists of the Workingmenand#8217;s Cooperative Colony, later fancifully renamed Llewellyn Castle by a local writer. These early colonists were all members of Britainand#8217;s National Reform League, founded by noted Chartist leader James Bronterre Oand#8217;Brien. As working-class radicals they were determined to find an alternative to the grinding poverty that exploitative liberal capitalism had inflicted on Englandand#8217;s laboring poor. Located on 680 acres in northeastern Kansas, this collectivist colony jointly owned all the land and itsand#160;natural resources, with individuals leasing small sections to work. The money from these leases was intended for public works and the healthcare and education of colony members.
The colony floundered after just a few years and collapsed in 1874, but its mission and founding ideas lived on in Kansas. Many former colonists became prominent political activists in the 1890s, and the colonyand#8217;s ideals of national fiscal policy reform and state ownership of land were carried over into the Kansas Populist movement.
Based on archival research throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, this history of an English collectivist colony in Americaand#8217;s Great Plains highlights the connections between British and American reform movements and their contexts.
Synopsis
Alexis de Tocqueville famously said that Americans were and#147;forever forming associationsand#8221; and saw in this evidence of a new democratic sociabilityand#151;though that seemed to be at odds with the distinctively American drive for individuality. Yet Kevin Butterfield sees these phenomena as tightly related: in joining groups, early Americans recognized not only the rights and responsibilities of citizenship but the efficacy of the law. A group, Butterfield says, isnand#8217;t merely the people who join it; itand#8217;s the mechanisms and conventions that allow it to function and, where necessary, to regulate itself and its members. Tocqueville, then, was wrong to see associations as the training grounds of democracy, where people learned to honor one anotherand#8217;s voices and perspectivesand#151;rather, they were the training grounds for increasingly formal and legalistic relations among people. They were where Americans learned to treat one another impersonally.
Synopsis
Alexis de Tocqueville was among the first to draw attention to Americansandrsquo; propensity to form voluntary associationsandmdash;and to join them with a fervor and frequency unmatched anywhere in the world. For nearly two centuries, we have sought to understand how and why early nineteenth-century Americans were, in Tocquevilleandrsquo;s words, andldquo;forever forming associations.andrdquo; In
The Making of Tocquevilleandrsquo;s America, Kevin Butterfield argues that to understand this, we need to first ask: what did membership really
mean to the growing number of affiliated Americans?
Butterfield explains that the first generations of American citizens found in the concept of membershipandmdash;in churches, fraternities, reform societies, labor unions, and private business corporationsandmdash;a mechanism to balance the tension between collective action and personal autonomy, something they accomplished by emphasizing law and procedural fairness. As this post-Revolutionary procedural culture developed, so too did the legal substructure of American civil society. Tocqueville, then, was wrong to see associations as the training ground for democracy, where people learned to honor one anotherandrsquo;s voices and perspectives. Rather, they were the training ground for something no less valuable to the success of the American democratic experiment: increasingly formal and legalistic relations among people.
About the Author
Gary R. Entz is a historian who previously taught at McPherson College in Kansas. He currently teaches at Nicolet College in Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Mormon History and Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Great Plains and in edited volumes.