{"product_id":"against-self-reliance-the-arts-of-dependence-in-the-early-united-states-hardback-9780812247039","title":"Against Self-Reliance; The Arts of Dependence in the Early United States (Hardback) 9780812247039","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eAgainst Self-Reliance\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eThe Arts of Dependence in the Early United States\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eWilliam Huntting Howell (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780812247039\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 15 April 2015\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e312 pages, 19 illus.\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.622 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eAgainst Self-Reliance\u003c\/i\u003e is a remarkably original book and an impassioned critique of liberalism. Howell makes a compelling argument that imitation and emulation occupied a central place in the emergence of the United States. This alternative story has, he suggests, important implications for the way we view our world. His analysis crackles with urgency.\" (Catherine Kelly, University of Oklahoma) \"Modern Americans often describe their nation as founded on principles of political and economic individualism: a democratic culture of self-made men and women.\u003ci\u003eAgainst Self-Reliance\u003c\/i\u003e revisits the founding period to tell a different story. Focusing on the overlapping domains of politics, religion, science, education, and literature, Howell reveals the priorities of imitation, emulation, and cultural dependence on the eve and in the wake of American Independence. In this fine literary and cultural history, both historians and critics will find something new.\" (Eric Slauter, University of Chicago)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIndividualism is arguably the most vital tenet of American national identity: American cultural heroes tend to be mavericks and nonconformists, and independence is the fulcrum of the American origin story. But in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a number of American artists, writers, and educational philosophers cast imitation and emulation as central to the linked projects of imagining the self and consolidating the nation. Tracing continuities between literature, material culture, and pedagogical theory, William Huntting Howell uncovers an America that celebrated the virtues of humility, contingency, and connection to a complex whole over ambition and distinction.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAgainst Self-Reliance\u003c\/i\u003e revalues and rethinks what it meant to be repetitive, derivative or pointedly generic in the early republic and beyond. Howell draws on such varied sources as Benjamin Franklin's programs for moral reform, Phillis Wheatley's devotional poetry, David Rittenhouse's coins and astronomical machines, Benjamin Rush's psychological and political theory, Susanna Rowson's schoolbooks, and the novels of Charles Brockden Brown and Herman Melville to tease out patterns of dependence in early America. With its incisive critique of America's storied heroic individualism, \u003ci\u003eAgainst Self-Reliance\u003c\/i\u003e argues that the arts of dependence were-and are-critical to the project of American independence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction: Imitation Is Suicide\u003cbr\u003e PART I. COPY-WRITING\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. \u003ci\u003eImitatio Franklin\u003c\/i\u003e, or the American Example\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. Phillis Wheatley's Dependent Harmonies\u003cbr\u003e PART II. EMULATION AND ETHICS\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Reproducing David Rittenhouse\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. The Republican Girl and the Spirit of Emulation\u003cbr\u003e PART III. CRITIQUES AND AFFIRMATIONS\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5. The Horrors of the Republican Machine\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6. The Copyist \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52559187149080,"sku":"9780812247039","price":41.89,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/against-self-reliance-the-arts-of-dependence-in-the-early-united-states-hardback-9780812247039","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}