Final Draft
Paperback back cover copy
Shelf category: History/American History
The Longman History of America Series
General Editor: Mark White
THE NEW REPUBLIC is the first title to be published in an ambitious new series of ten volumes covering American history from pre-colonial times up to the contemporary period. The titles will blend traditional political and diplomatic topics with social themes that have concerned historians in recent decades.
The General Editor, Mark White, is a Lecturer in American History at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.
The New Republic: The United States of America 1789-1815
Reginald Horsman
The series is launched with Reginald Horsman's powerful and comprehensive survey of the early years of the American Republic from 1789 to 1815. During this period the federal government had to prove that the Constitution drafted in 1787 could and would work and that republicanism was capable of existing over a vast and diverse area stretching from Maine to Georgia and the eastern seaboard to the Mississippi River. George Washington, and his successors Adams, Jefferson and Madison, also faced a number of external threats with England and Spain challenging the Northwest and Southwest borders and France renewing its ambitions in the Mississippi Valley.
A major strength of the book is that the coverage of the traditional topics about the shaping of the new government and crisis in foreign policy is combined with chapters on race, slavery, the economy and westward expansion. In doing so, the author reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of the government and society that came into being after the Revolution.
Key features include:
- Combines extensive research with the best recent scholarship on the period
- A balanced account of the contributions of the leading personalities
- Impressive coverage is given to questions of race and territorial expansion
- Chapter One provides a concise and lucid account of the state of American politics and society in 1789
- Extensive chapter bibliographies
The work will be welcomed by students studying the early republic as well as general readers interested in a stimulating and informative account of the early years of the American nation.
Reginald Horsman has recently retired from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has written extensively on the history of the early republic and related areas and this is his twelfth book.

Abbreviations, Introduction, l. The United States in 1789, 2. The Shaping of Government, 3. Neutral Rights, 4. The Rise of Political Parties, 6. The Adams Administration, 6. The Economy, 7. The Advance of Settlement, 8. Jefferson in Power, 9. Race and Slavery, 10. Louisiana and the Politics of Expansion, 1l. Foreign Trials, 12. The Failure of Economic Coercion, 13. The Coming of War, 14. The Invasion of Canada, 16. Crisis, Conclusion, Guide to Further Reading, Index

Reginald Horsman has recently retired from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has written extensively on the history of the early republic and related areas and this is his twelfth book.