Research Catalog
Calhoun : American heretic
- Title
- Calhoun : American heretic / Robert Elder.
- Author
- Elder, Robert, 1981-
- Publication
- New York : Basic Books, 2021.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 21-4116 | Schwarzman Building - Milstein Division Room 121 |
Details
- Description
- xiv, 640 pages; 25 cm
- Summary
- Describes the life of the American statesman and political theorist who served as Vice President under John Quincy Adams and argued in favor of slavery and laid the groundwork for the South to secede the Union.
- "A new biography of the intellectual father of Southern secession--the man who set the scene for the Civil War, and whose political legacy still shapes America today. John C. Calhoun is among the most notorious and enigmatic figures in American political history. First elected to Congress in 1810, Calhoun went on to serve as secretary of war and vice president. But he is perhaps most known for arguing in favor of slavery as a "positive good" and for his famous doctrine of "state interposition," which laid the groundwork for the South to secede from the Union--and arguably set the nation on course for civil war. Calhoun has catapulted back into the public eye in recent years, as some observers connected the strain of radical politics he developed to the tactics and extremism of the modern Far Right, and as protests over racial injustice have focused on his legacy. In this revelatory biographical study, historian Robert Elder shows that Calhoun is even more broadly significant than these events suggest, and that his story is crucial for understanding the political climate in which we find ourselves today. By excising Calhoun from the mainstream of American history, he argues, we have been left with a distorted understanding of our past and no way to explain our present"--
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- Informational works.
- Biography.
- Biographies.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 551-622) and index.
- Contents
- The people with no name -- Educations -- The science of law -- "I am your true lover, John C. Calhoun" -- "The road that all great nations have trod" -- "The great gun of the party" -- "Let us conquer space" -- Secretary of improvement and empire -- "To the western confines of the continent" -- "I am with the people, and shall remain so" -- "The impression, that I acted under the force of destiny" -- "There shall be at least one free state" -- "I think, I see my way clearly on the slave question" -- "It is our Thermopylae" -- "Dangerous and despotic doctrines" -- "The true and perfect voice of the people" -- "Thou art the man" -- "Ours is the government of the white man" -- The pillar of fire -- Epilogue.
- Call Number
- JFE 21-4116
- ISBN
- 9780465096442
- 0465096441
- LCCN
- 2020947717
- OCLC
- 1224586381
- Author
- Elder, Robert, 1981- author.
- Title
- Calhoun : American heretic / Robert Elder.
- Publisher
- New York : Basic Books, 2021.
- Edition
- First edition.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 551-622) and index.
- Local Note
- BIO OF U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, SEC. OF STATE, AND VICE PRESIDENT TO ADAMS & JACKSON.
- Chronological Term
- 1815-1861
- Research Call Number
- JFE 21-4116