Culture and Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution.

Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. A Critique of Self-Evident Liberty -- 2. British Legacies -- I. Privilege at the Heart of Freedom -- II. The Marriage of Rights and Inequality -- 3. The Transmission of Restricted Liberty to Colonial America -- I. Reproducing the Old World Order in the Provinces -- II. Fear of Levelling and Licentiousness -- III. Property and the Cult of Liberty -- 4. The Revolution -- I. A Radical Script for a Preservationist Struggle -- II. The Universalization of the Language of Freedom -- III. Delegitimizing Pedigreed Advantage -- IV. Inventing Patriotic Traditions -- V. Constituting the People -- VI.Equality as the Future of America -- 5. The Sway of Symbolic Power -- I. Captains of the Ship of Progress -- II. The Meaning of Representation -- III. Claims of Liberty Claim Their Authors -- 6. Usurpers and Dupes: The Backlash -- I. Revolutionary Vocabulary against Revolutionary Government -- II. Party Struggles and the Expansion of Liberty -- III. The Ruling Class: A Crisis of Identity -- IV. The Useful Mob -- V. A People's Aristocracy -- Conclusion: Liberty and the Web of Culture -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y.

The uncontainable success of this narrative went far beyond the circumstances that gave birth to it because it put new cultural capital--a conceptual arsenal of rights and freedoms--at the disposal of ordinary people as well as political factions competing for their support, providing priceless legitimacy to all those who would insist that its nominal inclusiveness include them in fact.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.