Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2161449
K. Jones
from, white Europe. Despite Verney’s insights into the American imperial machine, the benefits of this system for white people are little explicated. Sometimes the discussion hints at middleand upperclass enthusiasm for imperialism, though beyond exploring popular engagement Verney does not extrapolate the economic rewards of empire for these classes and is comfortable with leaning on his bibliography for such claims. More could also be said on competing conceptions of empire within the United States. The culmination of Verney’s account tells us how the U.S. secured the respect of other imperial nations, particularly through Arctic exploration and the search for Sir John Franklin, but there is little acknowledgement of dissent, at times tantalizingly hinted at, against a U.S. eager to spread its mastery across the globe. What is nonetheless clear, whatever refuge one took in empire, it was only available to those who were white, and though Verney explores various imperial motivations there emerges a shared and dynamic framework that made sense of the world through a white gaze. Whether the pretensions were genteel or democratic, scientific or commercial, proslavery or antislavery, Verney’s account of antebellum maritime exploration offers a novel and intriguing investigation into an American collective imagination that was fundamentally imperial.
来自白色欧洲。尽管Verney对美国的帝国机器有深刻的见解，但这种制度对白人的好处却很少被阐明。有时，讨论暗示了中上层阶级对帝国主义的热情，尽管除了探索大众参与之外，Verney并没有推断帝国对这些阶级的经济回报，并且很乐意依靠他的参考书目来证明这种说法。在美国内部，关于帝国的不同概念也有很多可说的。凡尼的故事的高潮部分告诉我们，美国是如何获得其他帝国主义国家的尊重的，尤其是通过北极探险和寻找约翰·富兰克林爵士(Sir John Franklin)，但书中几乎没有承认反对美国渴望在全球范围内扩张其统治地位的异议，这些异议有时会引人入胜地暗示出来。尽管如此，显而易见的是，无论一个人在帝国中得到了什么庇护，它只适用于那些白人，尽管凡尼探索了各种帝国动机，但还是出现了一个共享的、动态的框架，通过白人的目光来理解世界。无论这些主张是文雅的还是民主的，是科学的还是商业的，是支持奴隶制的还是反对奴隶制的，凡尼对战前海上探险的描述，都为美国人的集体想象提供了一种新颖而有趣的调查，这种想象基本上是帝国主义的。
{"title":"Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South","authors":"K. Jones","doi":"10.1080/14664658.2022.2161449","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14664658.2022.2161449","url":null,"abstract":"from, white Europe. Despite Verney’s insights into the American imperial machine, the benefits of this system for white people are little explicated. Sometimes the discussion hints at middleand upperclass enthusiasm for imperialism, though beyond exploring popular engagement Verney does not extrapolate the economic rewards of empire for these classes and is comfortable with leaning on his bibliography for such claims. More could also be said on competing conceptions of empire within the United States. The culmination of Verney’s account tells us how the U.S. secured the respect of other imperial nations, particularly through Arctic exploration and the search for Sir John Franklin, but there is little acknowledgement of dissent, at times tantalizingly hinted at, against a U.S. eager to spread its mastery across the globe. What is nonetheless clear, whatever refuge one took in empire, it was only available to those who were white, and though Verney explores various imperial motivations there emerges a shared and dynamic framework that made sense of the world through a white gaze. Whether the pretensions were genteel or democratic, scientific or commercial, proslavery or antislavery, Verney’s account of antebellum maritime exploration offers a novel and intriguing investigation into an American collective imagination that was fundamentally imperial.","PeriodicalId":41829,"journal":{"name":"American Nineteenth Century History","volume":"23 1","pages":"312 - 313"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46834871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2179386
Harriet Coombs
ABSTRACT The notion of racial unity among poor whites conceals as much as it reveals about white society in the antebellum period. This article examines the extent to which the notion of “whiteness” united white Southern men across racial lines and muted class divisions in this period. Central to the discussion is a reconsideration of poor whites’ connection to slavery as a group of society positioned at the bottom of the Southern social order.
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Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2161447
Mike Williams
{"title":"A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early U.S. Republic","authors":"Mike Williams","doi":"10.1080/14664658.2022.2161447","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14664658.2022.2161447","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41829,"journal":{"name":"American Nineteenth Century History","volume":"23 1","pages":"310 - 312"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47115901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-11DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2071310
Natalie Zacek, Matthew Mason
Published in American Nineteenth Century History (Vol. 23, No. 1, 2022)
发表于《美国十九世纪历史》(Vol. 23, No. 1, 2022)
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Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2133763
T. Lockley
ABSTRACT The Vesey conspiracy was the largest in North America, yet historians have failed to establish the wider contexts for how white authorities responded to the plot. This article points to a conspiracy in Camden, South Carolina, in 1816 to argue that many of the responses to Vesey derived from participants' knowledge of Camden. In particular, those representing Charleston in the state legislature gained first-hand knowledge of the plot and several later became key actors in the Vesey trials. The Camden conspiracy in 1816 thus established the wider socio-political context for the unfolding of the Vesey trials in 1822.
{"title":"Foreshadowing Vesey: the Camden slave conspiracy of 1816","authors":"T. Lockley","doi":"10.1080/14664658.2022.2133763","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14664658.2022.2133763","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Vesey conspiracy was the largest in North America, yet historians have failed to establish the wider contexts for how white authorities responded to the plot. This article points to a conspiracy in Camden, South Carolina, in 1816 to argue that many of the responses to Vesey derived from participants' knowledge of Camden. In particular, those representing Charleston in the state legislature gained first-hand knowledge of the plot and several later became key actors in the Vesey trials. The Camden conspiracy in 1816 thus established the wider socio-political context for the unfolding of the Vesey trials in 1822.","PeriodicalId":41829,"journal":{"name":"American Nineteenth Century History","volume":"23 1","pages":"185 - 201"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49399641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2120233
Michael Hill
the misalignment between the realities of American trade (and its reliance on opium) and American political rhetoric surrounding the First Opium War (1839–1842). This is powerful stuff and the best expression of Norwood’s idea of “political economy.” Minor errors like referring anachronistically to “Oregon Territory” instead of “the Oregon Country” distract slightly from an enjoyable and important chapter (p. 77). Given more space, Trading Freedommight have more fully unpacked some of its quips and reduced the risk of readers getting wrong impressions. The fleeting observation that diplomacy with China and the Sandwich Islands in 1842 formed “two expansions of US power in the Pacific in one,” for instance, begs for further explanation (p. 92). Had Americans shifted their view of China from “the Indies” to “the Pacific”? While the Chinese portion of Norwood’s source was in reaction to the British, the Hawaiian portion was a tepid response to a Hawaiian diplomatic mission seeking an affirmation of Hawaiian independence. At the same time, more space would allow for consideration of rival sea-to-sea visions like John Jacob Astor’s Astoria. The close timing of the Treaty of Wangxia in 1844 and the combination of the Oregon Treaty and the Mexican-American War in 1846–1848 seem like they should have caused a revolution, but not in Trading Freedom. Elsewhere, readers would benefit frommore elucidation instead of allusion. The “Propped-Open Door” in the title of Chapter Seven seems to be an allusion to John Hay’s “Open Door” policy, but why? Was the “irrepressible conflict” that Frederick Low suggested was coming between China and the West in the 1870s meant to be an echo of William Seward’s antebellum “irrepressible conflict,” or is the repeated phrasing a coincidence? The larger idea of the final three chapters, that the political-economic relationship between China and the United States changed in the later decades of the nineteenth century, is convincing. One wishes it were more complete. The California gold rush probably looms too large in the established narrative of anti-Chinese sentiment leading to the Chinese Exclusion Act (it is a long time from 1849 to 1882, after all), but the narrative in Trading Freedom overcorrects to the point that the gold rush barely registers. It is refreshing to see a discussion of the “Coolie trade” focusing on agricultural labor in the South instead of railroad labor in the West, but surely there should be room to discuss both. The final observation that a political abstraction of a “China trade” of obtaining Chinese goods gave way to an idea of a “China market” of selling American goods in China is appealing. One wishes there were space in the book to explore more fully the shifts in economy underlying the changing political rhetoric.
美国贸易(及其对鸦片的依赖)的现实与美国围绕第一次鸦片战争(1839-1842)的政治言论之间的错位。这是强有力的东西，也是诺伍德“政治经济学”思想的最佳表达。一些小错误，比如把“俄勒冈州领土”写成“俄勒冈州”，而不是“俄勒冈州”，会稍微分散读者对这本有趣而重要的章节的注意力(第77页)。如果有更多的篇幅，《自由交易》可能会更全面地展示它的一些妙语，并减少读者产生错误印象的风险。例如，有一种短暂的观察认为，1842年与中国和桑威奇群岛的外交关系构成了“美国在太平洋的两次扩张”，这需要进一步的解释(第92页)。美国人对中国的看法是否从“印度”转向了“太平洋”?诺伍德的资料来源中的中国部分是对英国的回应，而夏威夷部分则是对夏威夷外交使团寻求确认夏威夷独立的不温不火的回应。与此同时，更多的空间将允许考虑像约翰·雅各布·阿斯特(John Jacob Astor)的《阿斯托里亚》(Astoria)这样的海对海愿景。1844年的《望厦条约》和1846年至1848年的《俄勒冈条约》与美墨战争的结合似乎应该引起一场革命，但在贸易自由方面却没有。在其他地方，读者将受益于更多的阐明而不是典故。第七章标题中的“撑开的门”似乎暗指约翰·海的“开门”政策，但为什么呢?弗雷德里克·洛所说的19世纪70年代中国和西方之间的“不可抑制的冲突”是威廉·苏厄德战前“不可抑制的冲突”的呼应，还是重复的措辞只是巧合?最后三章更大的观点是，中美之间的政治经济关系在19世纪后几十年发生了变化，这是令人信服的。人们希望它更完整。加州淘金热在导致《排华法案》的反华情绪中可能过于突出(毕竟从1849年到1882年是很长一段时间)，但《贸易自由》的叙述过度纠正，以至于淘金热几乎没有记录。看到关于“苦力贸易”的讨论集中在南方的农业劳动力，而不是西部的铁路劳动力，这令人耳目一新，但肯定应该有讨论两者的空间。从政治上抽象的获取中国商品的“中国贸易”让位于在中国销售美国商品的“中国市场”，这一观点很有吸引力。人们希望书中有空间更全面地探讨政治辞令变化背后的经济变化。
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Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2120231
Michael D. Block
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Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2120227
Stephen T. Kissel
Another consistent thread that runs throughout this study is an emphasis on honor – whether that be personal, sectional, or national – as being vital to understanding Calhoun’s thought and behavior. Calhoun, according to Elder, viewed nearly everything in his life “through the lens of duty and obligation” (p. 320). Given the author’s previous work, particularly his 2016 book The Sacred Mirror: Evangelicalism, Honor, and Identity in the Deep South, 1790-1860, such an emphasis is perhaps predictable – but no less persuasive for being so. It is hard to findmeaningful faults with Calhoun: American Heretic, though the title of the book does at times jar against its contents. The picture Elder often paints of Calhoun is not really heretical at all and, indeed, there are plenty of moments where Calhoun’s thought on a variety of topics, such as democracy, race, and trade, seem to be either within or close to the mainstream of early to mid-nineteenth century white American values. As Elder notes at the end of the epilogue, even if we focus on Calhoun’s extreme (even by the standards of his own time) defense of slavery, we might ignore the fact that his description of the United States as “the government of the white man” was “possibly one of the least controversial things that he ever said” (p. 546). Though certainly arresting, the title does rather obfuscate the book’s overall portrayal of Calhoun. The book could also have given the reader more aids to help them on their journey through Calhoun’s complex life, such as images of Calhoun and other recurring characters, a map of his native South Carolina, and a genealogical chart of the family. It must, of course, be noted that these faults may lie more with the publisher than the author. In all, Robert Elder has given us a much-needed new look at the life, politics, and thought of John C. Calhoun. Engagingly written, consistently insightful, and multidimensional in its approach, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the political history of the U.S. during the first half of the nineteenth century, the society and culture of the U.S. South, or the wider history of ideas.
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Pub Date : 2022-05-04DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2022.2120248
M. Palen
This evidence helps to explain why Brazilians so willingly transitioned to free labor and embraced the view that it was the most economical form of labor. Economic historians have debated whether free labor actually was the most efficient, but Saba’s approach helps to explain why Brazilians embraced the ideology of free labor all the same because their interactions with the American North had convinced them of the system’s value. Saba also illustrates that, while these Brazilian intellectuals lauded American abolitionists and the free labor system they created, they for the most part rejected widespread political participation and the broader social justice agendas that Reconstruction in the United States addressed. In this sense, Brazilian modernizers considered the transition to free labor almost exclusively as a method to secure a low-cost working class rather than as a way to create a just society. That U.S.-based abolitionists shared this vision once again highlights the transnational nature of Brazil’s transition away from a slave labor force. While Saba’s book reveals the role played by elites and members of the intelligentsia in guiding Brazil’s transition to a free labor society, questions pertaining to the role played by the enslaved themselves or the poorer elements of Brazilian society in this transition still need to be explained. In the United States, large numbers of free African Americans, as well as religiously motivated reformers, pushed emancipation along and, in the process, pressured political leaders to do the same. Furthermore, the white working class periodically attacked slavery, believing that it threatened the status of their labor and trades. For these groups, the issue was not about becoming part of a wage labor proletariat but of becoming citizens with access to both prosperity and political power. The role of similar groups in Brazilian society remains yet to be addressed. In addition, more could have been said about the imperative of maintaining an elite-dominated society during a time of global emancipation. Brazil’s monarchy, along with its formal aristocracy, indicates that it was, overall, less democratic than the U.S. during the nineteenth century, making the end of slavery less politically consequential. Grappling with this difference would have added another important dimension to Saba’s otherwise very interesting and informative story of how Brazilian slave emancipation occurred more smoothly and less violently than the war induced demise of slavery in the United States.
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