Nothing Says “Democracy” Like a Visit from the Queen: Reflections on Empire and Nation in Early American Histories

The more interesting escape from the dangers of literary antiquarianism, the more appealingly large "so what" questions, may be generated for them by contemporary theorists (as in the heyday of Jacques Derrida) rather than by a patriotic public or by early modern historians. Since the rise...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of American history (Bloomington, Ind.) Ind.), 2008-12, Vol.95 (3), p.764-781
Main Authors: Grasso, Christopher, Wulf, Karin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
American literature
American studies
Archaeology
Colonialism
Colonies
Cultural change
Cultural history
Culture
Democracy
Historians
History
History instruction
Literary history
Narratives
Native American studies
Political history
Scholars
United States history
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The more interesting escape from the dangers of literary antiquarianism, the more appealingly large "so what" questions, may be generated for them by contemporary theorists (as in the heyday of Jacques Derrida) rather than by a patriotic public or by early modern historians. Since the rise of the new cultural history, historians have been trying, as literary scholars do, to attend to modes of representation and to connect such modes to the material world unearthed by historical archaeologists and mapped by social historians. [...]we know quite a lot about how the British - and the setders - governed the colonies. [...]scholars in the field may now be more fully dedicated to what our colleague James Axtell called for long ago: "serv[ing] not only as American colonial historians, but historians of colonial America. [...]Thomas Bender firmly attached the early period to the later history of the United States. [...]chapter 1 is tided "The Ocean World and the Beginnings of American History."
ISSN:0021-8723
1945-2314
1936-0967
DOI:10.2307/27694379