{"product_id":"in-my-power-letter-writing-and-communications-in-early-america-paperback-softback-9780812221817","title":"In My Power; Letter Writing and Communications in Early America (Paperback \/ softback) 9780812221817","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eIn My Power\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eLetter Writing and Communications in Early America\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eKonstantin Dierks (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780812221817\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 31 August 2011\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e376 pages, 20 illus.\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 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\u003cp\u003e\"An admirably readable, wide-ranging, yet streamlined historical narrative that integrates letters into the American story and opens the way for others to do more nuanced work.\"-\u003ci\u003eAmerican Historical Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"The ambition and perspective of \u003ci\u003eIn My Power\u003c\/i\u003e command attention. Though the history of early America has been told and retold, it deserves this retelling.\"-\u003ci\u003eJournal of American History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eIn My Power\u003c\/i\u003e is ambitious and full of brilliant observations on a subject that has not until now received comprehensive treatment.\"-Toby Ditz, Johns Hopkins University\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn My Power\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of letter writing and communications in the creation of the British Empire and the formation of the United States. In an era of bewildering geographical mobility, economic metamorphosis, and political upheaval, the proliferation of letter writing and the development of a communications infrastructure enabled middle-class Britons and Americans to rise to advantage in the British Atlantic world.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEveryday letter writing demonstrated that the blessings of success in the early modern world could come less from the control of overt political power than from the cultivation of social skills that assured the middle class of their technical credentials, moral deserving, and social innocence. In writing letters, the middle class not only took effective action in a turbulent world but also defined what they believed themselves to be able to do in that world. Because this ideology of agency was extended to women and the youngest of children in the eighteenth century, it could be presented as universalized even as it was withheld from Native Americans and enslaved blacks.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhatever the explicit purposes behind letter writing may have been-educational improvement, family connection, business enterprise-the effect was to render the full terms of social division invisible both to those who accumulated power and to those who did not. The uncontested power that came from letter writing was, Konstantin Dierks provocatively argues, as important as racist violence to the rise of the white middle class in the British Atlantic world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePreface\u003cbr\u003e Introduction\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1: Communications and Empire\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2: Letter Writing and Commercial Revolution\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3: Migration and Empire\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4: Letter Writing and Consumer Revolution\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5: Revolution and War\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6: Universalism and the Epistolary Divide\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion\u003cbr\u003e Afterword: The Burden of Early American History\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eList of Abbreviations\u003cbr\u003e Notes\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":52555687592216,"sku":"9780812221817","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/in-my-power-letter-writing-and-communications-in-early-america-paperback-softback-9780812221817","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}