• "A sophisticated, substantial, and groundbreaking
work that fills an enormous void on works about the United States
and 1848. Roberts presents a fresh and convincing explanation for
why the revolutions of 1848 mattered to Americans and to United
States history. By unearthing a fascinating trove of transatlantic
observations and connections, this book makes a substantial contribution
to transnational studies of American history."—Carl Guarneri,
author of America in the World: United States History in Global
Context
• "Distant Revolutions is the first book to
comprehensively treat American reactions to the European revolutions
of 1848. Roberts challenges the concept of American exceptionalism
by examining how the revolutions resonated in American culture and
affected American society and government. His research is impressive,
and his contributions are original and important."—Andre
Fleche, Castleton State College
|
Distant Revolutions:
1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism |
| |
| Timothy Mason Roberts |
| 288 pages, 6 x 9 |
| Cloth 978-0-8139-2799-2 • $40.00 |
| Jeffersonian
America |
| July 2009 |
 |
Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism
is a study of American politics, culture, and foreign relations
in the mid-nineteenth century, illuminated through the reactions
of Americans to the European revolutions of 1848. Flush from the
recent American military victory over Mexico, many Americans celebrated
news of democratic revolutions breaking out across Europe as a
further sign of divine providence. Others thought that the 1848
revolutions served only to highlight how America’s own revolution
had not done enough in the way of reform. Still other Americans
renounced the 1848 revolutions and the thought of trans-atlantic
unity because they interpreted European revolutionary radicalism
and its portents of violence, socialism, and atheism as dangerous
to the unique virtues of the United States.
When the 1848 revolutions failed to create stable democratic
governments in Europe, many Americans declared that their own
revolutionary tradition was superior; American reform would be
gradual and peaceful. Thus, when violence erupted over the question
of territorial slavery in the 1850s, the effect was magnified
among antislavery Americans, who reinterpreted the menace of slavery
in light of the revolutions and counter-revolutions of Europe.
For them a new revolution in America could indeed be necessary,
to stop the onset of authoritarian conditions and to cure American
exemplarism. The Civil War, then, when it came, was America’s
answer to the 1848 revolutions, a testimony to America’s
democratic shortcomings, and an American version of a violent,
nation-building revolution.
Timothy Mason Roberts is Assistant Professor
in the Department of History at Western Illinois University.
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