{"title":"Series: American Beginnings, 1500-1900","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"flowers-guns-and-money-by-lindsay-schakenbach-regele-9780226829623","title":"Flowers, Guns, and Money","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA fascinating historical account of a largely forgotten statesman, who pioneered a form of patriotism that left an indelible mark on the early United States.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJoel Roberts Poinsett’s (1779–1851) brand of self-interested patriotism illuminates the paradoxes of the antebellum United States. He was a South Carolina investor and enslaver, a confidant of Andrew Jackson, and a secret agent in South America who fought surreptitiously in Chile’s War for Independence. He was an ambitious Congressman and Secretary of War who oversaw the ignominy of the Trail of Tears and orchestrated America’s longest and costliest war against Native Americans, yet also helped found the Smithsonian. In addition, he was a naturalist, after whom the poinsettia—which he appropriated while he was serving as the first US ambassador to Mexico—is now named.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs Lindsay Schakenbach Regele shows in \u003ci\u003eFlowers, Guns, and Money\u003c\/i\u003e, Poinsett personified a type of patriotism that emerged following the American Revolution, one in which statesmen served the nation by serving themselves, securing economic prosperity and military security while often prioritising their own ambitions and financial interests. Whether waging war, opposing states’ rights yet supporting slavery, or pushing for agricultural and infrastructural improvements in his native South Carolina, Poinsett consistently acted in his own self-interest. By examining the man and his actions, Schakenbach Regele reveals an America defined by opportunity and violence, freedom and slavery, and nationalism and self-interest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46855770964204,"sku":"9780226829623","price":49.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780226829623.jpg?v=1759276548"},{"product_id":"a-great-and-rising-nation-by-michael-a-verney-9780226819921","title":"A Great and Rising Nation","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Great and Rising Nation\u003c\/i\u003e illuminates the unexplored early decades of the United States’ imperialist naval aspirations.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eConventional wisdom holds that, until the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States was a feeble player on the world stage, with an international presence rooted in commerce rather than military might. Michael A. Verney’s \u003ci\u003eA Great and Rising Nation\u003c\/i\u003e flips this notion on its head, arguing that early US naval expeditions, often characterized as merely scientific, were in fact deeply imperialist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCircling the globe from the Mediterranean to South America and the Arctic, these voyages reflected the diverse imperial aspirations of the new republic, including commercial dominance in the Pacific World, religious empire in the Holy Land, proslavery expansion in South America, and diplomatic prestige in Europe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs Verney makes clear, the United States had global imperial aspirations far earlier than is commonly thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000520687852,"sku":"9780226819921","price":75.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20427493482268.jpg?v=1763280611"},{"product_id":"a-hercules-in-the-cradle-by-max-m-edling-9780226829364","title":"A Hercules in the Cradle","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eExplores the origin and evolution of American public finance and shows how the nation’s rise to great-power status in the nineteenth century rested on its ability to go into debt.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTwo and a half centuries after the American Revolution, the United States stands as one of the greatest powers on earth and the undoubted leader of the western hemisphere. This stupendous evolution was far from a foregone conclusion at independence. The conquest of the North American continent required violence, suffering, and bloodshed. It also required the creation of a national government strong enough to go to war against, and acquire territory from, its North American rivals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eA Hercules in the Cradle\u003c\/i\u003e, Max M. Edling argues that the federal government’s abilities to tax and borrow money, developed in the early years of the republic, were critical to the young nation’s ability to wage war and expand its territory. He traces the growth of this capacity from the time of the founding to the aftermath of the Civil War, including the funding of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEdling maintains that the Founding Fathers clearly understood the connection between public finance and power: a well-managed public debt was a key part of every modern state. Creating a debt would always be a delicate and contentious matter in the American context, however, and statesmen of all persuasions tried to pay down the national debt in times of peace. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000520851692,"sku":"9780226829364","price":66.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20521923482268.jpg?v=1763280696"},{"product_id":"banking-on-slavery-by-sharon-ann-murphy-9780226825137","title":"Banking on Slavery","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA sobering excavation of how deeply nineteenth-century American banks were entwined with the institution of slavery.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s now widely understood that the fullest expression of nineteenth-century American capitalism was found in the structures of chattel slavery. It’s also understood that almost every other institution and aspect of life then was at least entangled with—and often profited from—slavery’s perpetuation. Yet as Sharon Ann Murphy shows in her powerful and unprecedented book, the centrality of enslaved labour to banking in the antebellum United States is far greater than previously thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBanking on Slavery\u003c\/em\u003e sheds light on precisely how the financial relationships between banks and slaveholders worked across the nineteenth-century South. Murphy argues that the rapid spread of slavery in the South during the 1820s and ’30s depended significantly upon southern banks’ willingness to financialise enslaved lives, with the use of enslaved individuals as loan collateral proving central to these financial relationships. She makes clear how southern banks were ready—and, in some cases, even eager—to alter time-honoured banking practices to meet the needs of slaveholders. In the end, many of these banks sacrificed themselves in their efforts to stabilise the slave economy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMurphy also details how banks and slaveholders transformed enslaved lives from physical bodies into abstract capital assets. Her book provides an essential examination of how our nation’s financial history is more intimately intertwined with the dehumanising institution of slavery than scholars have previously thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000552243436,"sku":"9780226825137","price":75.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20479653482268.jpg?v=1763283955"},{"product_id":"planters-merchants-and-slaves-by-trevor-burnard-9780226639246","title":"Planters, Merchants, and Slaves","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs with any enterprise involving violence and lots of money, running a plantation in early British America was a serious and brutal enterprise. In the contentious \u003cem\u003ePlanters, Merchants, and Slaves\u003c\/em\u003e, Burnard argues that white men did not choose to develop and maintain the plantation system out of virulent racism or sadism, but rather out of economic logic because—to speak bluntly—it worked.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese economically successful and ethically monstrous plantations required racial divisions to exist, but their successes were measured in gold, rather than skin or blood. Sure to be controversial, this book is a major intervention in the scholarship on slavery, economic development, and political power in early British America, mounting a powerful and original argument that boldly challenges historical orthodoxy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000706580716,"sku":"9780226639246","price":66.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/18620743482268.jpg?v=1763299124"},{"product_id":"promise-to-pay-by-katie-a-moore-9780226835839","title":"Promise to Pay","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn incisive account of the crucial role money played in the formation and development of British North America.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePromise to Pay\u003c\/em\u003e follows America's first paper money—the \"bills of credit\" of British North America—from its seventeenth-century origins as a means of war finance to its pivotal role in catalysing the American Revolution. Katie A. Moore combs through treasury records, account books, and the bills themselves to tell a new story of money's origins that challenges economic orthodoxy and mainstream histories.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePromise to Pay\u003c\/em\u003e shows how colonial governments imposed paper bills on settler communities through existing labour and kinship relations, their value secured by thousands of individual claims on the public purse—debts—and the state's promise to take them back as payment for taxes owed. Born into a world of hierarchy and deference, early American money eroded old social ties and created new asymmetries of power, functioning simultaneously as a ticket to the world of goods, a lifeline for those on the margins, and a tool of imperial domination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGrounded in sustained engagement with scholarship from multiple disciplines, \u003cem\u003ePromise to Pay\u003c\/em\u003e breathes new life into old debates and offers an incisive account of the centrality of money in the politics and conflicts of empire, community, and everyday life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000712118508,"sku":"9780226835839","price":66.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20586673482268.jpg?v=1763299840"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/series-american-beginnings-1500-1900.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}