Freedom just around the corner : a new American history, 1585-1828

Presents a global interpretation of the history of the United States, in a narrative that offers new details and insights into such topics as the nation's successes and its structures of law, business, and politics. A powerful reinterpretation of the founding of America by a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian. The creation of the United States of America is the central event of the past four hundred years," states Walter McDougall in his preface to Freedom Just Around the Corner. With this statement begins McDougall's most ambitious, original, and uncompromising of histories. McDougall marshals the latest scholarship and writes in a style redolent with passion, pathos, and humour in pursuit of truths often obscured in books burdened with political slants. With an insightful approach to the nearly 250 years spanning America's beginnings, McDougall offers his readers an understanding of the uniqueness of the "American character" and how this character has shaped the wide ranging course of historical events. McDougall explains that Americans have always been in a unique position of enjoying "more opportunity to pursue their ambitions䳨an any other people in history." Throughout Freedom Just Around the Corner the character of the American people shines, a character built out of a freedom to indulge in the whole panoply of human behaviour. The genius behind the success of the United States is founded on the complex, irrepressible American spirit. A grand narrative rich with new details and insights about colonial and early national history, Freedom Just Around the Corner is the first instalment of a trilogy that will eventually bring the story of America up to the present day, a story epic, bemusing, and brooding. This powerful reinterpretation of United States history is remarkable not only for its scholarship and historical breadth, but also in its assertion that the success of the country depends in a large part on the unique American character, which has shaped so many historic events. In the first of a projected three-volume series, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Walter A. McDougall argues that the creation of the United States is the central event in the last four hundred years of world history. Freedom Just Around the Corner masterfully chronicles the earliest years of this nation, revealing that the genius behind the success of the United States is not based on the works and ideas of one person, but rather on the complex, irrepressible American spirit. A professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, Walter A. McDougall is the author of many books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heavens and the Earth and Let the Sea Make a Noise..., Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1877, and Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History: 1585-1828. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage children. “The chapter on the framing of the Constitution should be required reading ... Walter McDougall is a historian with a masterful grasp of his subject.” — Claude Crowley, Fort Worth Star-Telegram American archetypes : what some great novels tell us about ourselves -- Saint George and the dragon : the original spirits of English expansion -- Planters, patroons, and puritans : the Chesapeake, New Netherlands, and New England, 1607-1660 -- Barbadians, Yorkers, and Quakers : the Carolinas, Middle Colonies, and New England, 1660-1689 -- Papists, witches, scofflaws, and preachers : colonists at war, business, and prayer, 1689-1740 -- Germans, four sorts of Britons, and Africans : peoples and cultures of the thirteen colonies to 1750 -- Soldiers, speculators, and savages : the French and Indian Wars turn Britain into the enemy, 1740-1763 -- Sons of Liberty and "two-bottle" tyrants : why independence became an imperative, 1763-1775 -- Patriots, Tories, slackers, and spies : the not-so-United States, hustling to be born, 1776-1783 -- Federalists, antis, vestals, and victims : the brilliant coups that begat the Constitution, 1783-1790 -- Master builders, party men, and a rogue : freemasonry, republicanism, and America's future, 1791-1800 -- Reluctant nationalists, eager imperialists : having fashioned a state, Americans turn into a nation, 1801-1815 -- Engineers, pioneers, peddlers, and Democrats : the rise of the West, 1816-1828 -- Travelers : apotheosis and apocalypse in American culture, c. 1830. A powerful reinterpretation of the founding of America by a Pulitzer Prize — winning historian. The creation of the United States of America is the central event of the past four hundred years," states Walter McDougall in his preface to Freedom Just Around the Corner . With this statement begins McDougall's most ambitious, original, and uncompromising of histories. McDougall marshals the latest scholarship and writes in a style redolent with passion, pathos, and humour in pursuit of truths often obscured in books burdened with political slants. With an insightful approach to the nearly 250 years spanning America's beginnings, McDougall offers his readers an understanding of the uniqueness of the "American character" and how this character has shaped the wide ranging course of historical events. McDougall explains that Americans have always been in a unique position of enjoying "more opportunity to pursue their ambitions䳨an any other people in history...