Securing the Commonwealth
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€62.99
A01=Jennifer J. Baker
American literature/writing
American Revolution
Author_Jennifer J. Baker
Banking
Benjamin Franklin
Category=DS
Colonial America
Community
Early Republic
Economics in literature
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Paper money
Product details
- ISBN 9780801879722
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 06 Mar 2006
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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The British colonies in America and the early American republic relied heavily on borrowing and paper currency for trade, a matter of both practical and abstract moral concern for many at the time. In Securing the Commonwealth Jennifer Baker considers how this economic circumstance affected writers' perceptions of the process by which a new polity and society were being built, as well as their understanding of their own literary activity, which was also based on the exchange of intangible value in paper form. Monetary speculation came to be seen by many as a model for imaginative writing, both kinds of paper seeking to support the as-yet not fully realized potential of the new nation. Baker divides her book into three sections, on the colonial, revolutionary, and early republican eras, and addresses authors including Equiano, Crevecoeur, Edward Taylor, Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, Ryoall Tyler, Charles Brockden Brown, Judith Sargent Murray; among other influences, she engages with contemporary critics such as Patrick Brantlinger and Marc Shell, as well as with the recent trend of New Economic Criticism.
Jennifer J. Baker is an assistant professor of English at New York University.
