A Republic in Time

Temporality and Social Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America

Bibliographic Data

ID19903076
AuthorsThomas Allen (0000-0002-2972-7911, corresponding author), Thomas M Allen
Year2008
Pages296
Publication date2008-02-25
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueRepublic in Time (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity of North Carolina Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5149/9780807868171_allen
OpenAlexW4206571058
Open LibraryOL11294152M
ISBN9780807868171
LanguageEN
Citations received32

The development of the American nation has typically been interpreted in terms of its expansion through space, specifically its growth westward. This book posits time, not space, as the most significant territory of the young nation. It argues that beginning in the nineteenth century, the actual geography of the nation became less important, as Americans imagined the future as their true national territory. The book explores how transformations in the perception of time shaped American conceptions of democratic society and modern nationhood. It focuses on three ways of imagining time: the romantic historical time that prevailed at the outset of the nineteenth century; the geological “deep time” that arose as widely read scientific works displaced biblical chronology with a new scale of millions of years of natural history; and the technology-driven “clock time” that became central to American culture by century's end. The book analyzes cultural artifacts ranging from clocks and scientific treatises to paintings and literary narratives to show how Americans made use of these diverse ideas about time to create competing visions of American nationhood

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Democracy · Genealogy · Geography · Literature · Narrative · Natural (archaeology) · Political science · Politics · Romance · Sociology · Vision · Anthropology · Australian History and Society · History · Law · 19th century · American - General · American history: c 1800 to c 1900 · American literature · c 1800 to c 1900 · History - Military · History and criticism · History: American · Intellectual life · Material culture · Nationalism · Political aspects · politics and government · Social aspects · Social conditions · Social history · Space and time · Space and time in literature · Time; clocks; genre painting; geology; natural history; nationalism; United States of America; ninteenth century; John O'Sullivan; Thomas Jefferson; Emma Willard; Thomas Cole; Simon Willard; Chauncey Jerome; Henry Thoreau; David Beecher; Catherine Esther · united states · United States - 19th Century · United States - Revolutionary War · USA · War

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