The Genesis Of America: US Foreign Policy And The Formation Of National Identity, 1793–1815

Description

The Genesis of America investigates the ways in which US foreign policy contributed to the formation of an American national consciousness. Interpreting American nationalism as a process of external demarcation, Jasper M. Trautsch argues that, for a sense of national self to emerge, the US needed to be disentangled from its most important European reference points: Great Britain and France. As he shows, foreign-policy makers could therefore promote American nationalism by provoking foreign crises and wars with these countries, hereby creating external threats that would bind the fragile union together. By reconstructing how foreign policy was thus used as a nation-building instrument, Trautsch provides an answer to the puzzling question of how Americans - lacking a shared history and culture of their own and justifying their claim for independent nationhood by appeals to universal rights - could develop a sense of particularity after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. Cover......Page 1 Half-title page......Page 3 Series page......Page 4 Title page......Page 5 Copyright page......Page 6 Dedication......Page 7 Contents......Page 9 List of Figures......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 11 Note on Citations......Page 14 List of Abbreviations......Page 15 Introduction......Page 17 1 Political Ideologies and American Identity in the Era of the French Revolution......Page 54 2 Foreign Policies of Unneutrality and the Jay Treaty......Page 87 3 Federalists and the Origins of the Quasi-War......Page 123 4 Disentangling America from France......Page 147 5 Republicans and the Origins of the War of 1812......Page 184 6 Disentangling America from Great Britain......Page 231 Conclusion......Page 271 Bibliography......Page 286 Index......Page 320