Culture and Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution
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A01=Michal Jan Rozbicki
abolition
American Revolution
aristocracy
Author_Michal Jan Rozbicki
axiom
Category=NHK
Category=NHWF
Category=NHWR
critical theory
cultural
description
egalitarianism
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethics
Federalists
founders
founding fathers
freedom
hierarchy
ideological concept
interpretation
liberty
merit
metaphor
Michel Foucault
objective
political
principle
Samuel Adams
Sir William Gooch
slavery
spiritual
symbol
virtue
Product details
- ISBN 9780813934136
- Weight: 413g
- Dimensions: 149 x 226mm
- Publication Date: 20 Mar 2013
- Publisher: University of Virginia Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In his new book, Michal Jan Rozbicki undertakes to bridge the gap between the political and the cultural histories of the American Revolution. Through a careful examination of liberty as both the ideological axis and the central metaphor of the age, he is able to offer a fresh model for interpreting the Revolution. By establishing systemic linkages between the histories of the free and the unfree, and between the factual and the symbolic, this framework points to a fundamental reassessment of the ways we think about the American Founding.
Rozbicki moves beyond the two dominant interpretations of Revolutionary liberty—one assuming the Founders invested it with a modern meaning that has in essence continued to the present day, the other highlighting its apparent betrayal by their commitment to inequality. Through a consistent focus on the interplay between culture and power, Rozbicki demonstrates that liberty existed as an intricate fusion of political practices and symbolic forms. His deeply historicised reconstruction of its contemporary meanings makes it clear that liberty was still understood as a set of privileges distributed according to social rank rather than a universal right. In fact, it was because the Founders considered this assumption self-evident that they felt confident in publicising a highly liberal, symbolic narrative of equal liberty to represent the Revolutionary endeavour. The uncontainable success of this narrative went far beyond the circumstances that gave birth to it because it put new cultural capital—a conceptual arsenal of rights and freedoms—at the disposal of ordinary people as well as political factions competing for their support, providing priceless legitimacy to all those who would insist that its nominal inclusiveness include them in fact.
Rozbicki moves beyond the two dominant interpretations of Revolutionary liberty—one assuming the Founders invested it with a modern meaning that has in essence continued to the present day, the other highlighting its apparent betrayal by their commitment to inequality. Through a consistent focus on the interplay between culture and power, Rozbicki demonstrates that liberty existed as an intricate fusion of political practices and symbolic forms. His deeply historicised reconstruction of its contemporary meanings makes it clear that liberty was still understood as a set of privileges distributed according to social rank rather than a universal right. In fact, it was because the Founders considered this assumption self-evident that they felt confident in publicising a highly liberal, symbolic narrative of equal liberty to represent the Revolutionary endeavour. The uncontainable success of this narrative went far beyond the circumstances that gave birth to it because it put new cultural capital—a conceptual arsenal of rights and freedoms—at the disposal of ordinary people as well as political factions competing for their support, providing priceless legitimacy to all those who would insist that its nominal inclusiveness include them in fact.
Michal Jan Rozbicki is the author of The Complete Colonial Gentleman: Cultural Legitimacy in Plantation America (Virginia). He teaches early American history at Saint Louis University, USA.
