The American Counterrevolution: A Retreat from Liberty, 1783-1800

Larry E. Tise9780811701006, 081170100X

70 b/w illustrations & 6 x 9 . “This is a remarkable book painted on the broadest of canvasses and peopled with a splendidly realized cast of characters.” –Mary Kelley, Dartmouth College. “Never have I seen such a scale. . . . This is history written in the grand tradition.” –Randall Miller, Saint Joseph’s University Americans, thrilled with newly won independence in 1783, set out to create a new form of government, one in which equality for all would be the underpinning of society. Yet by 1800, voting rights remained accessible only to a landed aristocracy; slavery was codified in the Constitution; and women were no freer than they had been prior to the Revolution. The American Counterrevolution is an expansive study of this difficult period that traces our shift from the ideals of liberty to the politics of order. A refutation of virtually the entire historiography surrounding the outcomes of the Revolution, this epic narrative will change how we view American democracy. Larry E. Tise, the former executive director of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, is the author of the Herbert L. Feis Prize-winning Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1700-1840.