North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era - Softcover

Grant, Susan-Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0700614257 ISBN 13: 9780700614257

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 2000

Synopsis

In most studies of nationalism, the United States is curiously ignored or is examined only during its colonial and republican periods. But it was the Civil War, argues Susan-Mary Grant, that truly formed the American nation by unifying the states once and for all, abolishing slavery, and setting the country on the path to modernity. In light of this, says Grant, the antebellum period was the crucial phase of American national construction. In North Over South, Grant offers an original and controversial interpretation of a much discussed but poorly understood period of American history. Despite the attention generally given to Southern nationalism, Grant focuses on what Northerners thought about the South and how their beliefs created a distinct outlook: a Northern nationalism based on opposition to things Southern.

Grant identifies Northern views of the South between 1830 and 1856 and examines how they developed, how they changed, and how they were used by the Republican Party in its first national election campaign. She demonstrates that the Republicans employed negative images of the South to transform Northern regionalism into a self-styled "American nationalism"—at the same time transforming the South into a region antithetical to the nation.

In support of this thesis, Grant examines attitudes toward the South expressed by writers, travelers, and politicians. Focusing on works of such prominent writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Cullen Bryant, and Horace Mann, she shows that the North used the South as a negative point of reference against which to define its own—hence American—identity, effectively excluding the South from full participation in the process of American national construction.

This provocative study links the process of national construction in America with recent studies of European nationalism and fills a gap in the historiography of North-South relations. One of the first scholars to relate new theories of national construction to America, Grant shows that the United States has more in common with the European experience than is often acknowledged and offers a unique and illuminating perspective on the process of American nation-building. Her book will be required reading for anyone interested in antebellum America and the origins of the Civil War.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan-Mary Grant is a lecturer in U.S. history at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK and cofounder of British American Nineteenth Century Historians.

From Library Journal:

Generations of American historians have analyzed Southern nationalism as a major causative factor in the coming of the Civil War. Now British historian Grant (U.S. history, Univ. of Newcastle-upon-Tyne) offers an original and controversial interpretation: she postulates that a series of often conflicting ideological forces were at work that made Northern nationalism an equally potent force in the development of the American character during the antebellum period. In this thought-provoking, intellectual historical examination, Grant focuses on what Northerners thought about the South and how their beliefs created a distinct outlook based on opposition to things Southern. Relying heavily on primary sources, she includes attitudes toward the South by molders of public opinion such as politicians, writers, travelers, and educators, analyzing why both positive and negative images of the South existed in the antebellum Northern mind, particularly within the nascent Republican Party. According to Grant, "It became obvious that northerners were increasingly using the South to define, first, a northern ideology and second, an American identity." The South was therefore excluded from the full process of American national identity construction. This truly original and controversial study is recommended for academic libraries and large public Civil War collections.ACharles C. Hay III, Eastern Kentucky Univ. Libs., Richmond
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0700614257
• ISBN 13: 9780700614257
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264