Synopses & Reviews
In 1782, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur wrote, “What then, is the American, this new man? He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced.” In casting aside their European mores, these pioneers, de Crèvecoeur implied, were the very embodiment of a new culture, society, economy, and political system. But to what extent did manliness shape early America's character and institutions? And what roles did race, ethnicity, and class play in forming masculinity?
Thomas A. Foster and his contributors grapple with these questions in New Men, showcasing how colonial and Revolutionary conditions gave rise to new standards of British American manliness. Focusing on Indian, African, and European masculinities in British America from earliest Jamestown through the Revolutionary era, and addressing such topics that range from slavery to philanthropy, and from satire to warfare, the essays in this anthology collectively demonstrate how the economic, political, social, cultural, and religious conditions of early America shaped and were shaped by ideals of masculinity.
Contributors: Susan Abram, Tyler Boulware, Kathleen Brown, Trevor Burnard, Toby L. Ditz, Carolyn Eastman, Benjamin Irvin, Janet Moore Lindman, John Gilbert McCurdy, Mary Beth Norton, Ann Marie Plane, Jessica Choppin Roney, and Natalie A. Zacek.
Review
“In lucid prose, the contributors map the contours of early American manhood from first encounters through the Revolution, and from the marriage bed to the battlefield. The results demonstrate the continuing vitality of gender as a category of analysis as well as the fascinating, sometimes terrifying dynamism of the colonial Atlantic world.”
“With New Men, Foster ushers in a new era in masculinity studies. Both historically precise and analytically astute, these essays provide multiple meditations on masculinity before the birth of the nation.”
“The essays published here provide fresh perspectives on time-honored topics from the settlement of Jamestown to revolutionary political rhetoric along with provocative insights from new topics such as dreams, desire, and dangerous men in the early modern world. Some essays will provoke wonderful classroom discussions, while others offer important points of departure for future scholarship. All of them are worth reading.”
“This impressive collection of essays is one of the best books in print on the history of manliness. It covers a broad range of times, places and topics, and it does so at a consistently high level of interest and insight. As a result, New Men will make a great choice for courses on masculinity or early America.”
Review
“With New Men, Foster ushers in a new era in masculinity studies. Both historically precise and analytically astute, these essays provide multiple meditations on masculinity before the birth of the nation.”
-Michael Kimmel,author of Manhood in America
Review
“The essays published here provide fresh perspectives on time-honored topics from the settlement of Jamestown to revolutionary political rhetoric along with provocative insights from new topics such as dreams, desire, and dangerous men in the early modern world. Some essays will provoke wonderful classroom discussions, while others offer important points of departure for future scholarship. All of them are worth reading.”
-Anne Lombard,author of Making Manhood: Growing Up Male in Early New England
Review
“This impressive collection of essays is one of the best books in print on the history of manliness. It covers a broad range of times, places and topics, and it does so at a consistently high level of interest and insight. As a result, New Men will make a great choice for courses on masculinity or early America.”
-E. Anthony Rotundo,author of American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era
Review
"A fascinating social history of women's rights, centered on a lengthy and discouraging series of constitutional confrontations .... a remarkably complete accounting of a historical trail that shape us all .... Law, Gender, and Injustice is an elegant example of the very best in feminist theorizing."-Patricia J. Williams,Women's Review of Books
Review
"Requisite for establishing women's legal history as a field. . . . Hoff's work is pivotal for both its conceptualization of the issues and its periodization of the field. . . . In contending with law as it was as well as with law as it is and ought to be, Hoff not only synthesizes recent scholarship, but she also charts new territory especially with regard to a chronological framework."-Norma Basch,The Journal of Women's History
Review
"Joan Hoff's legal history of U.S. women is a provocative, comprehensive, and realistic reinterpretation of women's legal status during the entire period of U.S. history. The book is sure to stimulate controversial reassessments of women's experience with the legal system."-Mary Frances Berry,Geraldine R. Segal Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
Review
"A brilliant, original, and thought-provoking book must reading for anyone interested in the full emancipation of women."-Ms. Magazine,
Synopsis
In this widely acclaimed landmark study, Joan Hoff illustrates how women remain second- class citizens under the current legal system and questions whether the continued pursuit of equality based on a one-size-fits-all vision of traditional individual rights is really what will most improve conditions for women in America as they prepare for the twenty-first century. Concluding that equality based on liberal male ideology is no longer an adequate framework for improving women's legal status, Hoff's highly original and incisive volume calls for a demystification of legal doctrine and a reinterpretation of legal texts (including the Constitution) to create a feminist jurisprudence.
About the Author
Thomas A. Foster is associate professor of history at DePaul University, in Chicago, and author of Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America and the editor of Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America (NYU Press, 2007).
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