: Peter Thompson, Peter S. Onuf
: State and Citizen British America and the Early United States
: University of Virginia Press
: 9780813933504
: 1
: CHF 74.60
:
: Geschichte
: English
Pointing the way to a new history of the transformation of British subjectsinto American citizens, State and Citizen challenges the presumption that theearly American state was weak by exploring the changing legal and political meaning of citizenship. The volume's distinguished contributors cast new light on the shift from subjecthood tocitizenship during the American Revolution by showing that the federal state played a much greaterpart than is commonly supposed.Going beyond master narratives-celebratoryor revisionist-that center on founding principles, the contributors argue that geopoliticalrealities and the federal state were at the center of early American political development. Thevolume's editors, Peter Thompson and Peter S. Onuf, bring together political science andhistorical methodologies to demonstrate that citizenship was a political as well as a legal concept. The American state, this collection argues, was formed and evolved in a more dialecticalrelationship between citizens and government authority than is generally acknowledged. Suggestingpoints of comparison between an American narrative of state development-previously thought tobe exceptional-and those of Europe and Latin America, the contributors break fresh ground byinvestigating citizenship in its historical context rather than by reference only to its capacity toconfer privileges.