Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté. Image fixe : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Van Atta, John Robert
Titre(s) : Securing the West [Texte imprimé] : politics, public lands, and the fate of the old republic, 1785-1850 / John R. Van Atta
Publication : Baltimore : Johns Hopkins university press, 2014
Description matérielle : xiii, 294 pages : maps ; 24 cm
Collection : Reconfiguring American political history
Lien à la collection : Reconfiguring American political history
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references and index
Few issues defined the period between American independence and the Mexican War more
sharply than westward settlement and the role of the federal government in that expansion.
In Securing the West, John R. Van Atta examines the visions of the founding generation
and the increasing influence of ideological differences in the years after the peace
of 1815. Americans expected the country to grow westward, but on the details of that
growth they held strongly different opinions. What part should Congress play in this
development? How much should public land cost? What of the families and businesses
left behind, and how would society's institutions be established in the West? What
of the premature settlers, the "squatters" who challenged the rule of law while epitomizing
democratic daring? Taking a broad approach, Van Atta addresses three interrelated
queries: First, how did competing economic beliefs and divergent cultural mandates
influence the various outcomes of this broad debate over the means, timing, and purposes
of settling the trans-Appalachian West? Second, what alternative visions of western
society lay behind the battles among policy makers within the government and the interested
parties who would sway them? Third, why did settlement of the West take such a different
course in the end from that which the earliest leaders of the republic intended? This
story explores dimensions of the federal lands question that other historians have
minimized or left out entirely. Van Atta draws upon a range of sources known to have
influenced the public discourse, including congressional debates, committee reports,
and correspondence; editorial writings by the famous and unknown; and news coverage
in various widely circulated newspapers and magazines of the period. Much of the attention
focuses on Congress--the elected leaders who advocated divergent plans about western
lands. In Congress, more than any other place, public leaders articulated basic concerns
about the character, structure, direction, and destiny of society in the early United
States. By 1830, many other important national concerns had become critically entangled
with land disposition, creating points of ideological tension among rival regions,
parties, and interests in the early years of the republic--particularly in Jacksonian
America
Sujet(s) : Gouvernement fédéral -- États-Unis -- Histoire
Expansion territoriale -- États-Unis -- Histoire
États-Unis (ouest) -- Jusqu'à 1848
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9781421412757 (hardcover) (alk. paper). - ISBN 9781421412764 (erroné) (electronic).
- ISBN 1421412756 (hardcover) (alk. paper). - ISBN 1421412764 (erroné) (electronic)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb44232968k
Notice n° :
FRBNF44232968
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
