Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
- The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
- The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume i
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Enlightenment and Culture
- Part II The British Colonies
- 5 The Revolution in British America: General Overview
- 6 The Myth of “Salutary Neglect”: Empire and Revolution in the Long Eighteenth Century
- 7 The British Atlantic on the Eve of American Independence
- 8 Cities and Citizenship in Revolution
- 9 The Other British Colonies
- 10 The Participation of France and Spain
- 11 Britain, Ireland, and the American Revolution, c. 1763–1785
- 12 A Contest of Wills: The Spectrum and Experience of Political Violence in the American Revolution
- 13 Recovering Loyalism: Opposition to the American Revolution as a Good Idea
- 14 White Women and the American Revolution
- 15 Blacks in the British Colonies
- 16 Life, Land, and Liberty: The Native Americans’ Revolution
- 17 Shaping the Constitution
- 18 Reform and Rebellion in Spanish America at the Time of the American Revolution
- 19 International Warfare and the Non-British Caribbean
- 20 Interpreting a Symbol of Progress and Regression: European Views of America’s Revolution and Early Republic, 1780–1790
- Index
20 - Interpreting a Symbol of Progress and Regression: European Views of America’s Revolution and Early Republic, 1780–1790
from Part II - The British Colonies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2023
- The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
- The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
- The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume i
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I Enlightenment and Culture
- Part II The British Colonies
- 5 The Revolution in British America: General Overview
- 6 The Myth of “Salutary Neglect”: Empire and Revolution in the Long Eighteenth Century
- 7 The British Atlantic on the Eve of American Independence
- 8 Cities and Citizenship in Revolution
- 9 The Other British Colonies
- 10 The Participation of France and Spain
- 11 Britain, Ireland, and the American Revolution, c. 1763–1785
- 12 A Contest of Wills: The Spectrum and Experience of Political Violence in the American Revolution
- 13 Recovering Loyalism: Opposition to the American Revolution as a Good Idea
- 14 White Women and the American Revolution
- 15 Blacks in the British Colonies
- 16 Life, Land, and Liberty: The Native Americans’ Revolution
- 17 Shaping the Constitution
- 18 Reform and Rebellion in Spanish America at the Time of the American Revolution
- 19 International Warfare and the Non-British Caribbean
- 20 Interpreting a Symbol of Progress and Regression: European Views of America’s Revolution and Early Republic, 1780–1790
- Index
Summary
European writers in the 1780s praised the American Revolution and the creation of America’s Constitutional Republic as modern historical examples of human progress and the advance of human rights. These themes shaped the pro-American writings of authors who remained in Europe as well as those who crossed the Atlantic to make direct observations. Optimistic Europeans thus emphasized the emerging nation’s political progress in constructing constitutions and representative governments, social progress in fostering personal freedoms and commercial expansion, cultural progress in establishing enlightened education and religious tolerance, and moral progress in creating virtuous citizens and national leaders. But these same writers also condemned the new American nation for defending the regressive, rights-denying system of enslaved labor and for promoting new economic inequalities or consumerism. A critical narrative about the regressive, unenlightened aspects of the new society in the United States showed that European theorists understood how structural dangers threatened the new republic, even as they celebrated its revolutionary achievements. They feared that social contradictions within the new nation would undermine its political ideals and its more democratic social aspirations.
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- The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions , pp. 519 - 541Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023