In the decades after the United States formally declared its independence in 1776; Americans struggled to gain recognition of their new republic and their rights as citizens. None had to fight harder than the nation’s seamen; whose labor took them far from home and deep into the Atlantic world. Citizen Sailors tells the story of how their efforts to become American at sea in the midst of war and revolution created the first national; racially inclusive model of United States citizenship.Nathan Perl-Rosenthal immerses us in sailors’ pursuit of safe passage through the ocean world during the turbulent age of revolution. Challenged by British press-gangs and French privateersmen; who considered them Britons and rejected their citizenship claims; American seamen demanded that the U.S. government take action to protect them. In response; federal leaders created a system of national identification documents for sailors and issued them to tens of thousands of mariners of all races―nearly a century before such credentials came into wider use.Citizenship for American sailors was strikingly ahead of its time: it marked the federal government’s most extensive foray into defining the boundaries of national belonging until the Civil War era; and the government’s most explicit recognition of black Americans’ equal membership as well. This remarkable system succeeded in safeguarding seafarers; but it fell victim to rising racism and nativism after 1815. Not until the twentieth century would the United States again embrace such an inclusive vision of American nationhood.
#1057472 in Books 2013-09-23Original language:FrenchPDF # 1 9.46 x 1.30 x 6.57l; 1.55 #File Name: 0674072944384 pages
Review
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful. A New DynamicBy Randy J. EarleyWriting in the November 13; 2013 issue of National Review; Paul Rahe; professor of Western Heritage at Hillsdale College says that:"What Manent has in mind is ... a reconfiguration of "ancient political science;" which he persists in embracing "not because it is ancient but because it is political and it alone is wholly political; that is; it is wholly science of the government of humans by humans." He remains persuaded that he was correct in arguing in The City of Man that "modern political science; even in the most 'liberal' authors; such as Montesquieu; tends to make us the playthings of 'causes' that 'govern' us." One cannot defend self-government with a political science that is predicated on a denial of the human capacity for what the Greeks called praxis.The requisite reconfiguration of political science that Manent seeks is; he believes; ready to hand. It was; he argues; Cicero who; in the time of Caesar and Octavian; revised the political science of Aristotle for the purpose of understanding a res publica in the process of becoming what the Romans would in short order dub a principatus (the private possession of its princeps; or "first man")--and Augustine was the Roman statesman's greatest intellectual heir. In Manent's estimation; Rome's transformation was just the beginning; for it was followed by the founding of the Christian church; which was a city; or civitas--a new political form in its own right. In time; moreover; when the Reformation divided Europe; sapped the energy and authority of the Church; and left it in both Catholic and Protestant kingdoms to the mercy of the secular prince; there gradually emerged a fourth political form; the nation-state--which was possessed of a sovereignty that enabled it to absorb and dominate the Church and; in time; neuter it and consign it to civil society. With this nation-state; there came a revival of self-government by way of representative institutions.. . . Manent has written a book as challenging as Strauss's Natural Right and History; one in which he calls to judgment Strauss and his followers for neglecting the city of God and failing to articulate an adequate "science of Rome." In the process Manent has done a great public service: first; by forcing political philosophers to grapple with the erosion of self-government in the West and the gradual substitution of bureaucratic administration for political praxis; and; second; by demanding that they reconfigure the only political science that gives primacy to politics in such a manner as to take into consideration the succession of what he calls "political forms." What Cicero did for Rome in the time of Caesar and Octavian with his De Officiis and his De Republica and what Augustine did for the Civitas Dei with his magnum opus The City of God needs to be done for Europe and America in and after the age of the nation-state.Manent is right in intimating that we need to read Montesquieu with great care and to take seriously the criticism that he levels at classical political science; and to do so without succumbing to the propensity--fostered by all modern political and social science--for underestimating the scope left for human agency. He is correct as well in his insistence that we need to attend to the logic underpinning the succession of political forms; and the warning that he directs to his fellow Europeans about the dangers attendant on administrative centralization is not salutary solely for them: It applies with almost equal force to us. With the nation-state; man recovered in some measure what the ancient Greeks had discovered when they founded the city. To lose the res publica would be to lose our most precious heirloom."0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. like a primer or an accessible historyBy Daniel StrandI am not going to write a long review because any real review of this book would have to reckon with the immensity of the argument and erudition that Manent brings to this work. It is impressive; to say the least. His writing brims with insights and his engagement with the whole breadth of the Western political tradition is majestic. If you care about politics in the grand swear of history and want to be challenged to think more deeply this book is for you. If you want something else; like a primer or an accessible history; this is not the book for you.7 of 10 people found the following review helpful. Manent's study illumines how we have come to where we are in politicsBy Kenneth L. SmithThis volume is demanding of the reader; both in terms of history and philosophy; but well worth the effort. I recommend it to anyone willing to put the time in wrestling with its argument. His conclusion that the nation state is the most stable political structure among the alternatives is well put but disconcerting in terms of Europe's evident path.
