Most Popular Books by Peter S. Onuf

Historians have emphasized the founding fathers'' statesmanship and vision in the development of a more powerful union under the federal constitution. In The Origins of the Federal Republic, Peter S. Onuf clarifies the founders'' achievement by demonstrating with case studies of New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Virginia that territorial confrontations among the former colonies played a crucial role in shaping early concepts of statehood and union and provided the true basis of the American federalist system.

New York Times Bestseller Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle Finalist for the George Washington Prize Finalist for the Library of Virginia Literary Award A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection "An important book…[R]ichly rewarding. It is full of fascinating insights about Jefferson." —Gordon S. Wood, New York Review of Books Hailed by critics and embraced by readers, "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs" is one of the richest and most insightful accounts of Thomas Jefferson in a generation. Following her Pulitzer Prize–winning The Hemingses of Monticello¸ Annette Gordon-Reed has teamed with Peter S. Onuf to present a provocative and absorbing character study, "a fresh and layered analysis" (New York Times Book Review) that reveals our third president as "a dynamic, complex and oftentimes contradictory human being" (Chicago Tribune). Gordon-Reed and Onuf fundamentally challenge much of what we thought we knew, and through their painstaking research and vivid prose create a portrait of Jefferson, as he might have painted himself, one "comprised of equal parts sun and shadow" (Jane Kamensky).

Thomas Jefferson believed that the American revolution was atransformative moment in the history of political civilization. He hoped that hisown efforts as a founding statesman and theorist would help construct a progressiveand enlightened order for the new American nation that would be a model andinspiration for the world. Peter S. Onuf''s new book traces Jefferson''s vision of theAmerican future to its roots in his idealized notions of nationhood and empire.Onuf''s unsettling recognition that Jefferson''s famed egalitarianism was elaboratedin an imperial context yields strikingly original interpretations of our nationalidentity and our ideas of race, of westward expansion and the Civil War, and ofAmerican global dominance in the twentiethcentury. Jefferson''s vision of an American "empirefor liberty" was modeled on a British prototype. But as a consensual union ofself-governing republics without a metropolis, Jefferson''s American empire would befree of exploitation by a corrupt imperial ruling class. It would avoid the cycle ofwar and destruction that had characterized the European balance ofpower. The Civil War cast in high relief thetragic limitations of Jefferson''s political vision. After the Union victory, as thereconstructed nation-state developed into a world power, dreams of the United Statesas an ever-expanding empire of peacefully coexisting states quickly faded frommemory. Yet even as the antebellum federal union disintegrated, a Jeffersoniannationalism, proudly conscious of America''s historic revolution against imperialdomination, grew up in its place. In Onuf''s view, Jefferson''s quest to define a new American identity also shaped his ambivalentconceptions of slavery and Native American rights. His revolutionary fervor led himto see Indians as "merciless savages" who ravaged the frontiers at the Britishking''s direction, but when those frontiers were pacified, a more benevolentJefferson encouraged these same Indians to embrace republican values. AfricanAmerican slaves, by contrast, constituted an unassimilable captive nation, unjustlywrenched from its African homeland. His great panacea: colonization. Jefferson''s ideas about race revealthe limitations of his conception of American nationhood. Yet, as Onuf strikinglydocuments, Jefferson''s vision of a republican empire--a regime of peace, prosperity, and union without coercion--continues to define and expand the boundaries ofAmerican national identity.

This new edition of Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance, originally published in 1987, is an authoritative account of the origins and early history of American policy for territorial government, land distribution, and the admission of new states in the Old Northwest. In a new preface, Peter S. Onuf reviews important new work on the progress of colonization and territorial expansion in the rising American empire.

In The Mind of Thomas Jefferson, one of the foremost historians of Jefferson and his time, Peter S. Onuf, offers a collection of essays that seeks to historicize one of our nation''s founding fathers. Challenging current attempts to appropriate Jefferson to serve all manner of contemporary political agendas, Onuf argues that historians must look at Jefferson''s language and life within the context of his own place and time. In this effort to restore Jefferson to his own world, Onuf reconnects that world to ours, providing a fresh look at the distinction between private and public aspects of his character that Jefferson himself took such pains to cultivate. Breaking through Jefferson''s alleged opacity as a person by collapsing the contemporary interpretive frameworks often used to diagnose his psychological and moral states, Onuf raises new questions about what was on Jefferson''s mind as he looked toward an uncertain future. Particularly striking is his argument that Jefferson''s character as a moralist is nowhere more evident, ironically, than in his engagement with the institution of slavery. At once reinvigorating the tension between past and present and offering a new way to view our connection to one of our nation''s founders, The Mind of Thomas Jefferson helps redefine both Jefferson and his time and American nationhood.

This book analyzes Thomas Jefferson''s conception of American nationhood in light of the political and social demands facing the post-Revolutionary Republic in its formative years.

The limits of history -- Liberal society -- Civilized nations -- Moral persons -- Nation making -- Adam Smith, moral historian -- National destinies -- War and peace in the New World -- The North and the nation -- The South and the nation.

From the onset of the Revolution in 1776 to the inauguration of the federal government in 1789, American political culture was transformed. The movement for an effective continental republic is linked to economic freedom and development set off by the Revolution. A Union of Interests reconstructs the discourse of American federalism, a discourse grounded in the intense debate over the role of government in the regulation of the economy.

"Cayton and Onuf have tried to recapture a central place for region in our thinking while, at the same time, incorporating into their analysis the latest scholarship on gender, political behavior, etc. Theirs is a fine blending of the old and the new: old scholarship and new directions." —Malcolm J. Rohrbough "This is an ambitious work that . . . truly beongs on the ''must do'' reading list of all midwestern and American historians." —American Historical Review " . . . an impressive interpretive work that will command the attention of regional historians and national scholars alike." —Illinois Historical Journal " . . . an excellent extended historiographic essay that seeks not only to locate the significance of the region created by the early land ordinance but also to raise issues for the historical examination of other regions of the country." —South Dakota History "What makes this book especially interesting and valuable is that it is informed by the post-modern scholar''s view that knowledge can never be objective and eternally true; rather, it is subjective and socially constructed, shaped by the political, social, intellectual, and economic environments in which it is formed." —Western Illinois Regional Studies "The book''s review of scholarship about the region is exhaustive, as well as brisk and lucid." —American Studies International " . . . a rigorous intellecutal analysis of the region''s most important historiography." —Gateway Heritage " . . . an excellent book . . . " —The Annals of Iowa "What is impressive about this densely written work is the number of secondary works incorporated into the text and the importance of the authors'' thesis of the considerable influence of happenings in the Midwest of the nineteenth century." —North Dakota History "There is . . . much to be praised in this book, and it will be frequently used and discussed by scholars of the early Midwest." —Journal of American History

In this thought-provoking analysis of international relations, the authors relate the emergence of the modern state-societies to the experiments in constitution-making in the United States.

Between Sovereignty and Anarchy considers the conceptual and political problem of violence in the early modern Anglo-Atlantic, charting an innovative approach to the history of the American Revolution. Its editors and contributors contend that existing scholarship on the Revolution largely ignores questions of power and downplays the Revolution as a contest over sovereignty. Contributors employ a variety of methodologies to examine diverse themes, ranging from how Atlantic perspectives can redefine our understanding of revolutionary origins, to the ways in which political culture, mobilization, and civil-war-like violence were part of the revolutionary process, to the fundamental importance of state formation for the history of the early republic. The editors skillfully meld these emerging currents to produce a new perspective on the American Revolution, revealing how America--first as colonies, then as united states--reeled between poles of anarchy and sovereignty. This interpretation--gleaned from essays on frontier bloodshed, religion, civility, slavery, loyalism, mobilization, early national political culture, and war making--provides a needed stimulus to a field that has not strayed beyond the bounds of "rhetoric versus reality" for more than a generation. Between Sovereignty and Anarchy raises foundational questions about how we are to view the American Revolution and the experimental democracy that emerged in its wake. Contributors: Chris Beneke, Bentley University - Andrew Cayton, Miami University - Matthew Rainbow Hale, Goucher College - David C. Hendrickson, Colorado College - John C. Kotruch, University of New Hampshire - Peter C. Messer, Mississippi State University - Kenneth Owen, University of Illinois at Springfield - Jeffrey L. Pasley, University of Missouri, Columbia - Jessica Choppin Roney, Temple University - Peter Thompson, University of Oxford

"Published on the occasion of the exhibition The private Jefferson: from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, opened at the Society on January 29, 2016"--Title page verso.