A People and its Soldiers: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775–1861

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo A. Herrera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Military Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
American Citizen ◽  
And Behavior

Military service was the vehicle by which American soldiers from the War of Independence through the Civil War demonstrated and defined their beliefs about the nature of American republicanism and how they, as citizens and soldiers, were participants in the republican experiment. This military ethos of republicanism, an ideology that was both derivative and representative of the larger body of American political beliefs and culture, illustrates American soldiers’ faith in an inseparable connection between bearing arms on behalf of the United States and holding citizenship in it. Patterns of thought and behavior within the ethos were not exclusively military traits, but were characteristic of the larger patterns within American political culture.

Beyond the Iconoclastic Republic

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Compulsory Military Service

This introduction traces antebellum American skepticism about public monuments to the distrust of standing armies that was central to the ideology of the American Revolution. The popularity of Independence Day illustrates the iconoclasm of the early republic, which paralleled a widespread resistance to compulsory military service. Remembrance of the Civil War vastly increased the number of public monuments in the United States. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, these memorials became a vehicle for the militarization of American culture.

3. The US rise to world power, 1776–1945

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter LaFeber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
World Power ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines how the United States evolved as a world power during the period 1776–1945. It first considers how Americans set out after the War of Independence to establish a continental empire. Thomas Jefferson called this an ‘empire for liberty’, but by the early nineteenth century the United States had become part of an empire containing human slavery. Abraham Lincoln determined to stop the territorial expansion of this slavery and thus helped bring about the Civil War. The reunification of the country after the Civil War, and the industrial revolution which followed, turned the United States into the world’s leading economic power by the early twentieth century. The chapter also discusses Woodrow Wilson’s empire of ideology and concludes with an analysis of U.S. economic depression and the onset of the Cold War.

Conclusions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Körner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Sudden Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
Stark Contrast

This book concludes with a discussion of the ways that America offered Italians an outlook on a wider range of possible futures, most of which were set in conditions that stood in stark contrast to Italy's own experiences. It examines the connection between the American Civil War and the Unification of Italy, noting how the Italians' experience of that war helped them to make the experience of their own Unification meaningful. It also describes the sudden change in Italian attitudes toward American modernity during the finesecolo, which coincided with the start of Italian mass migration to the United States. Finally, it considers how the assassination of Abraham Lincoln transformed political culture in the United States and views the event as a final example of cross-Atlantic exchange that illustrates how Italians explored what they knew about America for their own purposes, without having to imitate foreign prescriptions.

If We Are Not Citizens, Then What Are We?

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-38
Author(s):  
Brian Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Black Community ◽  
Military Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of

This chapter reviews the history of black military service in previous American wars, an analysis of which black Northerners relied on when they thought that about how to respond to the opportunity to serve in the Civil War. This chapter coves black activists’ antebellum rhetorical use of black service, black Northerners’ goal of bringing lived reality in the United States in line with the founding US ideal of equality, the history of black citizenship prior to the Civil War, and antebellum African Americans’ ideas about what, if any, duty black men possessed to fight for the United States in the event of war. This chapter also covers the expansion of slavery, the growth of the Northern black community, and the coming of the Civil War.

Political Culture

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Morone
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
American Politics ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
Marginal Groups ◽  
American Creed

This chapter examines the role of culture in American politics. It begins by asking, is there a distinctive American political culture? and exploring three answers: Yes, the traditional American culture (known as the American creed) is still going strong; no, the American creed has faded; and, finally, traditional accounts of American political culture were myths conconted by the powerful. It then discusses four major, overlapping cultural traditions: individualism/liberalism, community, the ascriptive tradition, and morality. The article argues that the United States had, and still has, a vibrant political culture, courtesy of generations of immigrants who bring new perspectives and marginal groups striving for legitimacy. As a result, the American political culture is a perpetual work in progress, constantly contested and continuously evolving.

scholarly journals Cultura política brasileira

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Edward Cyril Lynch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diagnosis Delay ◽  
The Real ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
The Military

 RESUMOTrata-se de uma introdução teórica ao pensamento político brasileiro, na forma didática de verbete, com a seguinte ementa: Política e cultura política brasileira - A cultura política europeia e seus grandes temas: autoridade, liberdade e igualdade. - A expansão colonial europeia e a conformação da cultura política periférica. - A cultura política iberoamericana e o tema do atraso. - A orientação modernizadora da cultura política brasileira. - A importação das instituições dos países cêntricos como indutor da modernização. - Os modelos cêntricos: Inglaterra, França e Estados Unidos. - A inefetividade institucional: a dicotomia país legal versus país real. - A percepção da defasagem entre instituições e realidade: três diagnósticos. - Primeiro diagnóstico: atraso do país legal em face do país real. - Segundo diagnóstico: inefetividade do país legal sobre o real. - Terceiro diagnóstico: adiantamento demasiado do país legal diante do real. - A frustração em torno da modernização institucional: o pedagogismo. - Reação à crise de legitimidade da política tradicional: as vanguardas modernizadoras. - As vanguardas burocráticas (1): o governante. - As vanguardas burocráticas (2): os militares. - As vanguardas burocráticas (3): a magistratura e o ministério público. - Ideologias políticas brasileiras. - Ideologias políticas (1): o nacional-estatismo. - Ideologias políticas (2). O liberalismo cosmopolita.ABSTRACTThis is a theoretical introduction to Brazilian political thought, in the didactic form of entry, with the following syllabus: Politics and Brazilian political culture. - European political culture and its major themes: authority, freedom and equality. - European colonial expansion and the configuration of peripheral political culture. - The Ibero-American political culture and the theme of backwardness. - The modernizing orientation of Brazilian political culture. – Importation of centric countries’s institutions as inductor of modernization. - The central models: England, France and the United States. - Institutional ineffectiveness: the legal country versus real country dichotomy. - The perception of the gap between institutions and reality: three diagnoses. - First diagnosis: delay of the legal country in relation to the real country. - Second diagnosis: ineffectiveness of the legal country over the real country. - Third diagnosis: excessive development of the legal country before the real country. - The frustration surrounding institutional modernization: pedagogism. - Reaction to the crisis of legitimacy of traditional politics: the modernizing vanguards. - The bureaucratic vanguards (1): the ruler. - The bureaucratic vanguards (2): the military. - The bureaucratic vanguards (3): the judiciary and public ministry. - Brazilian political ideologies. - Political ideologies (1): the national-statism. - Political ideologies (2). The cosmopolitan liberalism. 

scholarly journals Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency: U.S. Involvement in El Salvador's Civil War, 1979–92

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter C. Ladwig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The U.S

After a decade and a half of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. policymakers want to change their approach to COIN by providing aid and advice to local governments rather than directly intervening with U.S. forces. Both this strategy and U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine in general, however, do not acknowledge the difficulty of convincing clients to follow U.S. COIN prescriptions. The historical record suggests that, despite a shared aim of defeating an insurgency, the United States and its local partners have had significantly different goals, priorities, and interests with respect to the conduct of their counterinsurgency campaigns. Consequently, a key focus of attention in any future counterinsurgency assistance effort should be on shaping the client state's strategy and behavior. Although it is tempting to think that providing significant amounts of aid will generate the leverage necessary to affect a client's behavior and policies, the U.S. experience in assisting the government of El Salvador in that country's twelve-year civil war demonstrates that influence is more likely to flow from tight conditions on aid than from boundless generosity.

Transatlantic Contrafacta, Musical Formats, and the Creation of Political Culture in Revolutionary America

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 392-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
GLENDA GOODMAN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Revolutionary America ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The Revolution

AbstractThis article investigates Revolutionary-era American political culture through contrafacta of the British anthem “God Save the King.” Before, during, and after the Revolution the tune was frequently set with new lyrics that addressed political topics. The formats through which the song circulated (it was disseminated widely in manuscript and print), shaped the meaning and reception of these various contrafacta. Tracking “God Save the King” through the eighteenth century reveals how the United States remained connected to Britain, even when the lyrics—and the goals of the Revolution—repudiated that bond. Song versions also provide a musical map of the fragmenting political landscape of the early Republic. Ultimately, the diversity of the formats and the song versions reveal the ambivalent relationship between postcolonial United States and Britain, as well as the diversity of political culture within the United States.

The American Civil War Considered as a Bourgeois Revolution

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Davidson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Southern Society ◽  
Industrial Bourgeoisie ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe discussion of the American Civil War as a bourgeois revolution, reopened by John Ashworth’s recent work, needs to be based on a more explicit conceptualisation of what the category does, and does not, involve. This essay offers one such conceptualisation. It then deals with two key issues raised by the process of bourgeois revolution in the United States: the relationship between the War of Independence and the Civil War, and whether the nature of the South made conflict unavoidable. It then argues that the American Revolution is unique for two reasons: the non-feudal nature of Southern society and the fact that the Northern industrial bourgeoisie, unlike their European contemporaries, were still prepared to behave in a revolutionary way.

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