American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795 - Hardcover

Larson, Edward J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393882209 ISBN 13: 9780393882209

Publisher: WW Norton & Co, 2023

Synopsis

A powerful history that reveals how the twin strands of liberty and slavery were joined in the founding of the United States

The United States was born of liberty and slavery. Sparked by denunciations of British designs to enslave Americans, the Revolutionary movement was led by men who themselves owned enslaved Blacks. The widely noted contradictions played out from the early protests of 1765, through independence and the Revolutionary War, and on into the Constitutional Convention and the first administration of a slave-owning president.

Edward J. Larson’s beautifully written, deeply researched narrative captures the historical significance and personal poignance of these major events. He engages questions that have entered public debate, such as whether the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution adopted by northern and southern states already dividing over slavery fatally compromised? Washington emerges as a military liberator who was especially insistent on the capture of his fugitives, whose voices join those of other Black Americans as the most convincing of all on the urgency of liberty.

About this title

About the Author

Edward J. Larson is the author of many acclaimed works in American history, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Summer for the Gods. He is University Professor of History at Pepperdine University, and lives with his family near Los Angeles, California.

Edition details

• Publisher: WW Norton & Co
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393882209
• ISBN 13: 9780393882209
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416