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Chapter 1 - American Empire

from Part I - Fractured Foundations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

John Ernest
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
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Summary

“American Empire” explores how the interplay between imperialism and race shaped early American politics, literature, and culture. Through a series of close readings of works by Phillis Wheatley, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, William Apess, and James Fenimore Cooper, the essay shows how early American writers wrestled with the continuities and discontinuities between some of the most important concepts that shaped the young republic, in particular the tensions between democracy, empire, freedom, slavery, and race. These internal contradictions between the ideals espoused in political documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and The Federalist, and the policies of racial exploitation and dispossession that drove the nation’s expansionist economic agenda, would come to shape the most important literary works of the day. Writers like Wheatley, Crèvecœur, Apess, and Cooper would seek to make sense of those contradictions in their writings, a legacy that would carry on through the nineteenth century and into the current moment.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • American Empire
  • Edited by John Ernest, University of Delaware
  • Book: Race in American Literature and Culture
  • Online publication: 26 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108766654.003
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  • American Empire
  • Edited by John Ernest, University of Delaware
  • Book: Race in American Literature and Culture
  • Online publication: 26 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108766654.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • American Empire
  • Edited by John Ernest, University of Delaware
  • Book: Race in American Literature and Culture
  • Online publication: 26 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108766654.003
Available formats
×