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"Larson, John Lauritz"
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Whither the Early Republic
Penned by leading historians, the specially-commissioned essays ofWhither the Early Republicrepresent the most stimulating and innovative work being done on imperialism, environmental history, slavery, economic history, politics, and culture in the early Republic. The past fifteen years have seen a dramatic expansion in the scope of scholarship on the history of the early American republic.Whither the Early Republicconsists of innovative essays on all aspects of the culture and society of this period, including Indians and empire, the economy and the environment, slavery and culture, and gender and urban life. Penned by leading historians, the essays are arranged thematically to reflect areas of change and growth in the field. Throughout the book, preeminent scholars act as guides for students to their areas of expertise. Contributors include Pulitzer Prize-winner Alan Taylor, Bancroft Prize-winner James Brooks, Christopher Clark, Ted Steinberg, Walter Johnson, Patricia Cline Cohen, David Waldstreicher, and more. These essays, all originally commissioned to appear in a special issue of theJournal of the Early Republic, explore a diverse array of subjects: the struggles for control of North America; the economic culture of the early Republic; the interactions of humans with plants, climate, animals, and germs; the commodification of people; and the complex intersections of politics and culture.Whither the Early Republicoffers a wealth of tools for introducing a new generation of historians to the nature of the field and also to the wide array of possibilities that lie in the future for scholars of this fascinating period.
eBook
Laid waste! : the culture of exploitation in early America
\"This book is a historical synthesis of the culture of exploitation. It is also a lamentation of the qualities of America that led to current environmental crises. The author hopes to provoke and invite readers to engage in the difficult work of reimagining our modern world in more sustainable ways. Nature itself is resilient and the Earth will prevail, but we also would like to preserve the possibility of human life on this planet. This is a goal about which nature is utterly indifferent, but it was one of three in the hearts of the American founders. In Thomas Jefferson's hands the Lockean triad of \"life, liberty, and property\" was recast as \"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.\" That subtle difference implies so much more than mere survival or brutal domination; it suggests that wealth and power are not ends in themselves but means to something greater and deeply humane\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Engaging Historiography The Genie and the Troll
This essay reviews the efforts of modern historians to explain the rise and development of capitalism in the early United States. Often assumed to be synonymous with democracy and freedom, capitalism as a system of social and economic organization has presented historians with an interpretive dilemma—suggested by the allusion to \"the genie and the troll.\" The rich historiography from the 20th and early 21st centuries is surveyed here.
Journal Article
Internal improvement : national public works and the promise of popular government in the early United States
When the people of British North America threw off their colonial bonds, they sought more than freedom from bad government: most of the founding generation also desired the freedom to create and enjoy good, popular, responsive government. This book traces the central issue on which early Americans pinned their hopes for positive government action - internal improvement.
The nation's early republican governments undertook a wide range of internal improvement projects meant to assure Americans' security, prosperity, and enlightenment - from the building of roads, canals, and bridges to the establishment of universities and libraries. But competitive struggles eventually undermined the interstate and interregional cooperation required, and the public soured on the internal improvement movement. Jacksonian politicians seized this opportunity to promote a more libertarian political philosophy in place of activist, positive republicanism. By the 1850s, the United States had turned toward a laissez-faire system of policy that, ironically, guaranteed more freedom for capitalists and entrepreneurs than ever envisioned in the founders' revolutionary republicanism.
eBook
Why Is the Sky Falling?
For historians, common sense suggests an economy is the sum total of exchanges carried out by myriad actors in a certain place and time, together with their intersection with business and government institutions. For theoretical economists, an economy looks more like a thought experiment, an imaginary artifact, the behaviors, tendencies, and moods of which can be mapped, explained, and (with luck) predicted. Both answers are true, but the profound differences between them have joined historians and economists in a contentious tradition of misperceiving their respective enterprises.
Journal Article
Elegant Systems, Inelegant Institutions: Building, Designing, and Pursuing Perfection in the Age of Revolution
(Today we might diagnose Bowditch as some kind of savant, especially in light of the rigid social miscues and lack of impulse control or executive self-regulation he displayed throughout his adult life; in his day he was considered very smart and prickly.) Bowditch's mathematical studies carried him deep into what we know as calculus, where he began to develop approaches to actuarial probabilities and statistical differentiations that he promptly put to use developing compound interest tables, marine insurance risks, and life insurance tables. On the applied side he developed systems for Salem's East India Marine Society and for the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company of Boston. In this capacity we met Thornton's Bowditch ten years ago in a prize-winning article about the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company's ruthless approach to mortgages.1 In the present book he appears less nasty and more methodical, but in his obsessions we can see hints of Charles Dickens's future \"Gradgrind\" in the making. Cue the French Revolution, Burke's scathing attack on the same, and Paine's resulting intemperate assault on his old friend Edmund Burke (not to mention the whole British political system).
Journal Article
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
[...]sometime after 1800 we came to see a \"fortune\" as that cache of material riches that was \"made\" by an enterprising person who took nearly all the credit. [...]sated with accumulation, he proclaimed himself to be an impossible generative anomaly-a \"self-made man\"-and in doing so challenged all others to get off their dufis and do likewise.
Journal Article