The Nation Takes Shape: 1789-1837

by Marcus Cunliffe

Book Overview

Marcus Cunliffe, whom the Washington Post and Times Herald calls "a master historian capable of seeing his subject whole," has written a cogent and revealing study of America's first half-century under the federal Constitution. Bounded by the first Washington Administration and the last Jackson Administration, this is the period in which democracy grew and shaped the nation. It witnessed the launching of the federal government; the expansion of the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226126676
• ISBN13: 9780226126678
• Release Date: September 1960
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A Nation takes Shape, 1789-1837

Cunliffe, British Born, takes a look at the formatives years in the United States History. He tries to show the key aspects that brought the people a sense of nation. All Cunliffe's writing revolves around questions of nationhood, national identity, national peculiarity, national culture, national iconography, national tradition. He sees the nationality riddles as they must properly be seen: as Ultimately intelligible only in a comparative context. Cunliffe has the advantage of being able to look at the United states from a distance without the usually egocentrism that most American authors have about our own history.