Among the Powers of the Earth

One way to become a successful revisionist is to stand the conventional wisdom of a subject on its head. Eliga H. Gould manages this feat in his study of the foreign relations of the emerging American republic between the Seven Years' War and the Monroe Doctrine. Most overviews of this period stress how the American colonists sundered the ties that had bound them to the British Empire and the Old World of Europe to establish—and then vindicate—an autonomous and independent nation. But Gould's argument is that “independence” could only have meaning to the extent that Great Britain and other European colonial powers were willing to accept the claims that Americans made for their nationhood. Viewed from that perspective, early American foreign relations were driven by the need to win such acceptance—or, as Gould puts it, they embodied a quest for “treaty-worthiness” on the part of the new republic because inclusion in an international community constituted by the “law of nations” was an important guarantee for survival in a hostile and unstable world (p. 11

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• Imperial Confusion

  Patrick Griffin, Patrick R Griffin•The Journal of Imperial &…•2021

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