The United States, 1783–1861: Britain's Honorary Dominion?

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
British Empire ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Related Notion ◽  
Cultural Themes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Politics ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
British Culture

This essay reinterprets the evolution of the United States between 1783 and 1861 from the perspective of imperial history. The established literature on this period focuses on the national story, and particularly on the struggle to achieve liberty and democracy. Historians of empire, however, routinely distinguish between formal and effective independence and evaluate the often halting progress of ex-colonial states in achieving a substantive transfer of power. Considered from this angle, the dominant themes of the period were the search for viability and development rather than for liberty and democracy. The article illustrates this proposition by re-evaluating the political, economic, and cultural themes that are central to the history of the period. The argument in each case is that the United States remained dependent on Great Britain to an extent that greatly limited her effective independence. The standard controversies of domestic political history, notably the battle between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian visions of the state, are recast as differing strategies for achieving real and permanent independence. Strategies for achieving economic development made practical politics of competing arguments for protection and free trade, but failed to release the economy from its dependence on the British market and British capital. Attempts to create an independent national identity were compromised by the continuing influence of British culture and by the related notion of Anglo-Saxonism, on which prevailing policies of assimilation relied. In all these respects, the United States was an unexceptional ex-colonial state, and indeed closely followed the trajectory of other colonies of white settlement that were classified as dominions within the British Empire. The United States, however, was a dependent state that failed in 1861, and its struggle for independence had to be renewed after the Civil War.

Mexico-US Relations from Independence to the Present

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Keller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The 19Th Century

Relations between the United States and Mexico have rarely been easy. Ever since the United States invaded its southern neighbor and seized half of its national territory in the 19th century, the two countries have struggled to establish a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. Over the two centuries since Mexico’s independence, the governments and citizens of both countries have played central roles in shaping each other’s political, economic, social, and cultural development. Although this process has involved—even required—a great deal of cooperation, relations between the United States and Mexico have more often been characterized by antagonism, exploitation, and unilateralism. This long history of tensions has contributed to the three greatest challenges that these countries face together today: economic development, immigration, and drug-related violence.

ATHEISM AND POLYGENESIS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: CHARLES BRADLAUGH'S RACIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 835-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
NATHAN G. ALEXANDER
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
British Empire ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of

This article examines a previously unexplored chapter in the history of atheism: its close links with nineteenth-century racial anthropology. These links are apparent especially in many atheists’ interest in polygenesis, the theory that human races had separate origins, in contrast to the orthodox Christian doctrine of monogenesis that said all races descended from Adam and Eve. The article's focus is Charles Bradlaugh (1833–91), arguably the most important British atheist of the era, representing the radical working-class, secularist movement that emerged in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. The article charts the ways Bradlaugh and other atheists used the research on polygenesis from leading scientific racists in both Britain and the United States to critique Christianity. It also explores some of the contradictions of this use, namely the ways polygenesis clashed with Darwinism and a longer chronology of the age of the Earth. Finally, the article explores how polygenist ideas informed Bradlaugh's imperial worldview and notes that, despite his acceptance of polygenesis, Bradlaugh was a supporter of the rights of nonwhites in the British Empire, particularly in India.

‘The Actors Are Come Hither’: Shakespeare Productions by Travelling Companies in Asia

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kobayashi Kaori
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theatre Companies ◽  
History Of

In 1882, a critic of the journal Theatre noted that ‘the theatrical life of the present day might be described as a round of glorified strolling. The ‘circuits’ of Bristol, Norwich, and York of the last century are now replaced by those of the United States, South Africa, India, and Australia, and a modern actor thinks as little of a season in Melbourne or New York as his grandfather did of a week’s ‘starring’ in Edinburgh.’ Yet the story of how these Western theatre companies reached audiences in the faraway lands of the British Empire and Asia is still relatively untold. In this article Kaori Kobayashi explores in detail some itineraries around the turn of the twentieth century of these travelling companies, many of them relatively obscure, showing that the companies had a particular and significant impact on the development of Shakespearean performance and interpretation in the East. In essence, it is impossible to understand the rise of ‘Asian Shakespeare’ without also grasping how Western touring companies helped shape the East’s engagement with the West’s most canonical dramatist. Kaori Kobayashi is Professor of English at Nagoya City University, author of The Cultural History of The Taming of The Shrew (in Japanese, 2007), and editor of Shakespeare Performance Studies in Japan (in Japanese, 2010).

Warehouses on wheels

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 648-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dara Orenstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Market ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Spatial Form ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Border

A typical depiction of a logistics corporation is a study in bright lights and blurred lines against a static landscape of territorial sovereignty. It celebrates—as in the slogan touted by the freight-carrier DHL—“logistics without borders.” This article demystifies that promise of borderlessness by explaining how the nation-state has played a lead role in facilitating the circulation of capital and in making the world safe for logistics. Specifically, I revisit two underappreciated milestones in the history of the United States: first, how Congress followed in the path of the British Empire and, in 1846, authorized the spatial form of the bonded warehouse; and second, how it went further and, in 1870, supplemented the bonded warehouse with a bonded railcar, or “warehouse on wheels.” The latter step in particular, I argue, laid a foundation for the networked geography of supply-chain capitalism. Congress permitted the bonded railcar to bypass customs clearance at ports on the seacoast and to move “directly” to ports in the interior. This protocol helped merchants expedite deliveries and generate liquidity via duty deferral, and, equally if not more importantly, it helped boosters on the urban frontiers of the Great West lure investment and spur development via the world market. What was “radical” about this innovation, as commentators noted at the time, was that it mobilized not only commodity capital but also, in effect, the national border.

The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume III

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
The United States ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
Negative Identity ◽  
Constitutional Identity

The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume III considers the Dissenting traditions of the United Kingdom, the British Empire, and the United States in the nineteenth century. It provides an overview of the historiography on Dissent while making the case for seeing Dissenters in different Anglophone connections as interconnected and conscious of their genealogical connections. The nineteenth century saw the creation of a vast Anglo-world in which Anglophone Dissent reached its apogee. Featuring contributions from a team of leading scholars, this collection presents Dissent as a political and constitutional identity, which was often only strong where a dominant Church of England existed to dissent against, but also as a cluster of distinctive attitudes to Scripture, spirituality, and culture which persisted even as they changed in different settings. The volume illustrates that in most parts of that Anglo-world the later nineteenth century was marked by a growing enthusiasm for the moral and educational activism of the state, which plays against the idea of Dissent as a static, purely negative identity.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document