Founding Fictions
by Jennifer R. Mercieca
University of Alabama Press, 2010
Cloth: 978-0-8173-1690-7 | Paper: 978-0-8173-5734-4 | eISBN: 978-0-8173-8355-8
Library of Congress Classification E302.1.M47 2010
Dewey Decimal Classification 973.2
ABOUT THIS BOOK
An extended analysis of how Americans imagined themselves as citizens between 1764 and 1845
Founding Fictions develops the concept of a “political fiction,” or a narrative that people tell about their own political theories, and analyzes how republican and democratic fictions positioned American citizens as either romantic heroes, tragic victims, or ironic partisans. By re-telling the stories that Americans have told themselves about citizenship, Mercieca highlights an important contradiction in American political theory and practice: that national stability and active citizen participation are perceived as fundamentally at odds.
Founding Fictions develops the concept of a “political fiction,” or a narrative that people tell about their own political theories, and analyzes how republican and democratic fictions positioned American citizens as either romantic heroes, tragic victims, or ironic partisans. By re-telling the stories that Americans have told themselves about citizenship, Mercieca highlights an important contradiction in American political theory and practice: that national stability and active citizen participation are perceived as fundamentally at odds.
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