A01=Eran Shalev
Abraham Lincoln
Antebellum
astronomy
Author_Eran Shalev
Benjamin Franklin
Bonnie Blue Flag
Category=NHK
celestial
celestial harmony
civil war
clockwork universe
Confederacy
Confederate flag
constellation
constellation of luminaries
constellations
constitution
cosmology
cosmos
Cowpens flag
Early Republic
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
federalism
firmament
flag
galaxy
George Washington
gravity
heavens
independence
Jefferson Davis
keywordssolar system
light polloution
light pollution
Lone Star Republic
moon
music of the spheres
new American constellation
Newtonian physics
North Star
orbit
orrery
planets
political astronomy
revolution
revolutionary money
secession
sectionalism
solar system
space
speheres of influence
spheres of influence
Star Spangled Banner
stardom
stars
Stars and Bars
stra
sun
Sun King
superstar
Vexillology
Product details
- ISBN 9780813953847
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 12 Nov 2025
- Publisher: University of Virginia Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Examining the cosmic conceit at the heart of early American political rhetoric
Why does the American flag use stars to represent the states? In The Star-Spangled Republic, Eran Shalev answers this and many other questions, considering the cosmic imagery - so familiar today but so peculiar on reflection - that suffused the United States' early political culture. In this comprehensive study, Shalev uncovers how 'political astronomy' - the discussion and representation of politics through astronomical models, allusions, and metaphors - reflected and facilitated the emerging worldview that enabled Americans to justify and find meaning in the country's new democratic modes of governance and its federal system. No other scholar has looked at American political rhetoric through this lens in so doing, Shalev is able to explain in fascinating detail how Americans turned away from the sun of heliocentric monarchy toward the night sky full of federated constellations, and to discover republicanism imprinted in the firmament.
Why does the American flag use stars to represent the states? In The Star-Spangled Republic, Eran Shalev answers this and many other questions, considering the cosmic imagery - so familiar today but so peculiar on reflection - that suffused the United States' early political culture. In this comprehensive study, Shalev uncovers how 'political astronomy' - the discussion and representation of politics through astronomical models, allusions, and metaphors - reflected and facilitated the emerging worldview that enabled Americans to justify and find meaning in the country's new democratic modes of governance and its federal system. No other scholar has looked at American political rhetoric through this lens in so doing, Shalev is able to explain in fascinating detail how Americans turned away from the sun of heliocentric monarchy toward the night sky full of federated constellations, and to discover republicanism imprinted in the firmament.
Eran Shalev is Professor of History at Haifa University and the author of Rome Reborn on Western Shores: Historical Imagination and the Creation of the American Republic (2009), and American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War.
