American Visions

May 1, 2023

In the early 1800s, as the United States expanded westward toward its Manifest Destiny, with growing enslavement, growing attacks on Indigenous peoples, growing conflict with new immigrants, and wars with neighboring countries, voices of dissent and transformation still flourished. So argues the National Humanities Medal--winning Ayers, citing Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, Samuel Morse, Henry David Thoreau, and biracial Pequod activist William Apess as examples. Prepub Alert.

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August 1, 2023
A journey through the early-19th-century cultural and political visions that "shaped the volatile new nation." Distinguished historian Ayers, a winner of the Bancroft and Lincoln prizes and recipient of a National Humanities Medal, looks to "evoke the nation's highest ideals of equality and mutual respect in the face of the nation's failings." He draws on an extensive array of journalists, orators, composers, novelists, naturalists, painters, entertainers, poets, sculptors, and composers who, in different ways, addressed the moral and political tensions attendant to social justice. The history unfolds in chronological segments, with each chapter ranging across themes and the visionaries who embraced them. In a typical chapter, Ayers explores immigration, the California Gold Rush, women's rights, spiritualism, polygenesis, American literature, and the Greek Slave, a famous statue by Hiram Powers. Included in the chapter are biographical sketches of Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Louis Agassiz, Susan Fennimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, and Margaret Fuller, among others. The book includes not only people familiar to us from general histories of the period--e.g., Henry David Thoreau, Sojourner Truth, Andrew Jackson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Andrew Jackson, Dorothea Dix, John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed)--but also historical figures that may be unfamiliar to general readers, including Black abolitionist and writer Maria Stewart, who "urged her fellow Black Americans to prepare for God's deliverance"; "self-taught portrait painter" George Catlin; Native American novelist Yellow Bird; and popular writer Lydia Marie Francis, author of The Frugal Housewife, a highly influential book that went through 33 editions. While Ayers' inquisitive meandering makes for pleasurable reading, his claim that "key elements of national life crystallized" during these decades, a claim that would have connected his historical sketches, is largely undeveloped. Clear throughout, though, is his impassioned commitment to racial, gender, and religious tolerance. A richly illustrative defense of the role of ideas in the crafting of America's national character.

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August 14, 2023
In this agile study, historian Ayers (Southern Journey) profiles people in early- and mid-19th-century America whose “visions” (“imagined paths between things as they are and what they might become”) influenced the character and development of the new nation. The large cast of eccentrics, outsiders, and radicals includes Black Hawk, a leader of the Indigenous Sauk people who challenged the power of the U.S. government and penned an autobiography that revealed his scorn for the selfishness and acquisitiveness of Americans, and transcendentalist writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who offered up “a strange but powerful critique” of their country that dismissed traditional politics and business in favor of a “democracy of spirit independent of any church or creed.” The most consequential visionaries, according to Ayers, were the abolitionists. By the 1850s, the North and South’s “incompatible social orders,” which had been revealed by these visionaries, including Frederick Douglass, led to increasingly violent conflicts between Americans, culminating in the Civil War. Ayers concludes that the war’s outcome proved the power of “a vision... in the face of disheartening history.” Ayers skillfully handles the huge cast of characters, drawing intriguing parallels between them. It’s an illuminating exploration of American political history. Illus.

October 1, 2023
In his eighth book, historian Ayers eloquently explains how "key elements" of American life, politics, and culture "crystallized" between 1800 and 1860. He describes a complex time crowded with people, facts, and events and veering "in unexpected directions." Ayers succeeds in providing both detail and the big picture. The chronological format, with topical chapters and clear overviews and summaries beginning and ending each chapter ensures that readers will not get lost in the ""confusion"" of the nation's ""lurching history."" Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Cole stand out from the many individuals Ayers portrays, and he offers information about them not found elsewhere. The illustrations, paintings, and early photographs bring topics into focus. Ayers frankly describes the marginalization of and great harm done to women, African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants. He also chronicles how men and women fought against these problems, some making positive change in their lifetimes, while others laid the groundwork for future reforms. Ayers' accurate, balanced, and compelling history proves that progress is possible and that patriotism can be rooted in the complicated truths about the past.

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