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9781421438979 | |
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From Captives to Consuls
Three Sailors in Barbary and Their Self-Making across the Early American Republic, 1770-1840
The three subjects of this collective biography both reflected and helped refine evolving American concepts of liberty, identity, race, masculinity, and nationhood. Time and again, Goodin reveals, O'Brien, Cathcart, and Riley uncovered opportunities in their adversity. They variously found advantage first in the Revolution as privateers, then in captivity by writing bestselling captivity narratives and successfully framing their ordeal as a qualification for coveted government employment. They even used their modest fame as ex-captives to become diplomats, get elected to state legislatures, and survey the nation's territorial expansions in the South and West. Their successful self-interested pursuit of opportunities offered by the expanding American empire, Goodin argues, constitutes what he calls "the invisible hand of American nation building."
Goodin shows how these ordinary men, lacking the genius of a Benjamin Franklin or Alexander Hamilton, depended on sheer luck and adaptability in their quest for financial independence and public recognition. Drawing on archival collections, newspapers, private correspondence, and government documents, From Captives to Consuls sheds new light on the significance of ordinary individuals in guiding early American ideas of science, international relations, and what it meant to be a self-made man.
About the Author
Reviews
"Brilliantly researched and accessibly written, From Captives to Consuls examines the extraordinary careers of three ordinary Americans to provide an illuminating meditation on the limits and possibilities of self-making in the early American republic."—Lawrence Peskin, Morgan State University, author of Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public, 1785–1816
"Perhaps the best book on the American encounter with the Barbary States—but that is selling it short. Goodin has with clarity and skill reshaped our understanding of early American history. This superbly researched and written exploration of the creation of American identity examines the lives of three extraordinary figures to illuminate their world, and ours."—Robert J. Allison, Suffolk University, author of The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776–1815
"From Captives to Consuls is simultaneously a rousing tale of three mariners captured by corsairs and held to ransom and a thoughtful and innovative study of how national identity was forged through personal experience. An ambitious addition to the growing literature on the United States in the Atlantic World and to our understanding of how personal, national, and transnational histories connect."—Ian Tyrrell, University of New South Wales, author of Reforming the World: The Creation of America's Moral Empire
Hardback | |
September 15, 2020 | |
9781421438979 | |
English | |
224 | |
13 b&w illus. | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
1 Pounds (US) | |
1 Pounds (US) | |
$49.95 USD, £37.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Electronic book text | |
October 16, 2020 | |
9781421438986 | |
9781421438979 | |
English | |
224 | |
13 b&w illus. | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$49.95 USD, £37.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Other Titles from Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company of Philadelphia
To Her Credit
Revolutionary Networks
The Fabric of Empire
Other Titles in HISTORY / Maritime History & Piracy
Eastward of Good Hope
Inside the US Navy of 1812–1815
Sailor Song
Other Titles in History of the Americas
The Silent Shore
Brazil in the Global Nuclear Order, 1945–2018
FDR in American Memory