In the wake of American independence, it was clear that the new United States required novel political forms. Less obvious but no less revolutionary was the idea that the American people needed a new understanding of the self. Sensibility was a cultural movement that celebrated the human capacity for sympathy and sensitivity to the world. For individuals, it offered a means of self-transformation. For a nation lacking a monarch, state religion, or standing army, sensibility provided a means of cohesion. National independence and social interdependence facilitated one another. What Sarah Knott calls 'the sentimental project' helped a new kind of citizen create a new kind of government. Knott paints sensibility as a political project whose fortunes rose and fell with the broader tides of the Revolutionary Atlantic world.Moving beyond traditional accounts of social unrest, republican and liberal ideology, and the rise of the autonomous individual, she offers an original interpretation of the American Revolution as a transformation of self and society.
| ISBN: | 9780807859186 |
| Publication date: | 28th February 2009 |
| Author: | Sarah Knott, Omohundro Institute of Early American History Culture |
| Publisher: | The University of North Carolina Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 338 pages |
| Series: | Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press |
| Genres: |
History of the Americas |
In the wake of American independence, it was clear that the new United States required novel political forms. Less obvious but no less revolutionary was the idea that the American people needed a new understanding of the self. Sensibility was a cultural movement that celebrated the human capacity for sympathy and sensitivity to the world. For individuals, it offered a means of self-transformation. For a nation lacking a monarch, state religion, or standing army, sensibility provided a means of cohesion. National independence and social interdependence facilitated one another. What Sarah Knott calls 'the sentimental project' helped a new kind of citizen create a new kind of government. Knott paints sensibility as a political project whose fortunes rose and fell with the broader tides of the Revolutionary Atlantic world.Moving beyond traditional accounts of social unrest, republican and liberal ideology, and the rise of the autonomous individual, she offers an original interpretation of the American Revolution as a transformation of self and society.
Sensibility and the American Revolution features in the following genres: History of the Americas
Sensibility and the American Revolution is available in Paperback
Sensibility and the American Revolution was written by Sarah Knott, Omohundro Institute of Early American History Culture and published by The University of North Carolina Press
Sensibility and the American Revolution has 338 pages