American States of Nature - The Origins of Independence, 1761-1775 (Hardcover)

American States of Nature transforms our understanding of the American Revolution and the early makings of the Constitution. The journey to an independent United States generated important arguments about the existing condition of Americans, in which rival interpretations of the term "state of nature" played a crucial role. "State of nature" typically implied a pre-political condition and was often invoked in support of individual rights to property and self-defense and the right to exit or to form a political state. It could connote either a paradise, a baseline condition of virtue and health, or a hell on earth. This mutable phrase was well-known in Europe and its empires. In the British colonies, "state of nature" appeared thousands of times in juridical, theological, medical, political, economic, and other texts from 1630 to 1810. But by the 1760s, a distinctively American state-of-nature discourse started to emerge. It combined existing meanings and sidelined others in moments of intense contestation, such as the Stamp Act crisis of 1765-66 and the First Continental Congress of 1774. In laws, resolutions, petitions, sermons, broadsides, pamphlets, letters, and diaries, the American states of nature came to justify independence at least as much as colonial formulations of liberty, property, and individual rights did. In this groundbreaking book, Mark Somos focuses on the formative decade and a half just before the American Revolution. Somos' investigation begins with a 1761 speech by James Otis that John Adams described as "a dissertation on the state of nature," and celebrated as the real start of the Revolution. Drawing on an enormous range of both public and personal writings, many rarely or never before discussed, the book follows the development of America's state-of-nature discourse to 1775. The founding generation transformed this flexible concept into a powerful theme that shapes their legacy to this day. No constitutional history of the Revolution can be written without it.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	April 2019
Authors:	Mark Somos (Senior Visiting Research Fellow)
Dimensions:	243 x 167 x 33mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	416
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-046285-7
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political science & theory Books > Law > Jurisprudence & general issues > Legal history Books > Humanities > History > American history > 1800 to 1900 Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Military history Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > Revolutions & coups Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations > Civil war Books > History > American history > 1800 to 1900 Books > History > History of specific subjects > Military history
LSN:	0-19-046285-X
Barcode:	9780190462857

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