The Republic in Print

"In the beginning, all the world was America."& mdash;John Locke

Offers a history of the early republic and its antebellum aftermath. Challenging the idea that print culture created a sense of national connection among different parts of the early American union, this book reveals the early republic as a series of local and regional reading publics with distinct political and geographical identities.

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsPreface: A View from the Capitol: The Unfinished Work of US Nation Building 1. U.S. Print Culture: The Factory of Fragments Part One - The Book's Two Bodies: Print Culture and National Founding, 1776-1789 2. Disseminating Common Sense: Thomas Paine and the Scene of Revolutonary Print Culture3. The Republic in Print: Ratification as Material Text, 1787-1788 Part Two: The Nation in Fragments: Federal Representation and its Discontents, 1787-1789 4. Virtual Nation: State-Based Identity and Federalist Fantasy5. Metrobuilding: The Production of Federalist Space Part Three: The Overextended Republic: Slavery, Abolition, and National Space, 1790-1870 6. Abolitionist Nation: The Space of Organized Abolition, 1790-18407. Slavery on the Move: From Fugitive Slave to Virtual Citizen Conclusion: The Due Process of Nationalism