The Heart of the Commonwealth: Society and Political Culture in Worcester County, Massachusetts 1713-1861
Cambridge University Press
Edition: New Ed, 8/21/2008
EAN 9780521673396, ISBN10: 0521673399
Paperback, 472 pages, 23.4 x 15.6 x 2.7 cm
Language: English
One of the central controversies in our understanding of early America involves the place of republican and liberal thinking in polity and society. The Heart of the Commonwealth presents a synthetic view of the social grounding of republicanism and liberalism in Worcester Country, Massachusetts, from its settlement after the Peace of Utrecht to the eve of the Civil War, as this country's people passed through the formative fires of both national and industrial revolution. Drawing upon a wide range of sources and methods, the book examines the unfolding relationships among ideological discourse, political action, and the institutions and structures of everyday life. Most broadly, the book argues that a broad transition from a republican - or Harringtonian - consensus to a liberal - or Lockean - consensus was conditioned by countervailing episodes of insurgency, running from the Land Bank and the Great Awakening in the 1740s to the rise of political antislavery a century later.
List of illustrations and tables
Preface
Abbreviations used in the footnotes
Prologue
Part I. A Provincial World, 1713–1763
1. Institutions
towns, countries and class
2. Economy
class, property, credit, and the Land Bank
3. Awakening
orthodoxy, dissent, and a new social architecture
4. Politics
from popular insurgency to Shirley's consensus
Part II. The Revolution, 1763–1789
5. The popular gentry and the revolutionary crisis
6. The Baptists and the constitution
7. Conventions, regulation, and antifederalism
Part III. In the New Nation, 1789–1861
8. Party spirit
9. Economic transformation
10. Insurgencies
11. Antislavery
Epilogue
Appendices
Index.