Mastering America

Mastering America recounts efforts of "proslavery nationalists" to navigate the nineteenth-century geopolitics of imperialism, federalism, and nationalism and to articulate themes of American mission in overtly proslavery terms. At the heart of this study are spokesmen of the Southern "Master Class" who crafted a vision of American destiny that put chattel slavery at its center. Looking beyond previous studies of the links between these "proslavery nationalists" and secession, the book sheds new light on the relationship between the conservative Unionism of the 1850s and the key formulations of Confederate nationalism that arose during war in the 1860s. Bonner's innovative research charts the crucial role these men and women played in the development of American imperialism, constitutionalism, evangelicalism, and popular patriotism.

Author: Robert E. Bonner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 05/01/2009
Pages: 370
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.80h x 5.90w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780521541770

About the Author
Bonner, Robert E.: - Robert Bonner earned his A.B. at Princeton University and his PhD at Yale University. He has held teaching positions at the University of Southern Maine, Michigan State University, and Amherst College, and currently teaches at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Colors and Blood: Flag Passions of the Confederate South (2002) and The Soldier's Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the American Civil War (2006), as well as articles in Journal of Southern History, Civil War History, and Reviews in American History.