The North’s Colonial Empire
The Setting Postcolonial studies have been all the rage for many decades. A great number of contributors to the field have come from India and their work wrestles (in part) with the socio-psychological situation of… »
Hate the South Week
‘Just a post, just a post, just a post on a blog, just a post, just a post, and the war has begun’ (To the tune of “Sloth,” Fairport Convention, ca. 1978) General Uncivil Background… »
Ludwell Johnson: Master Southern Historian
Life and Work Why Read Ludwell Johnson? Both Ludwell Johnson’s style of work and choice of subject matter strongly recommend him to our consideration. As a working historian he is calm and measured, with… »
German Federalism as Punishment or Fiction
Is Germany Sovereign? In the wake of revelations of pervasive NSA snooping in Germany, Germans have been asking whether or not their country is actually sovereign. In a country filled with foreign armies since 1945,… »
John Taylor of Caroline: Liberal, Radical, and Reactionary
Part V of a Five Part Series. Part I, II, III, and IV. 1. Taylor as a Liberal “Individualist” Taylor writes that society not made up of individuals is a pointless abstraction: ‘Society exclusively of… »
John Taylor on War, Peace, and Imperial War Finance
Part IV of a Five Part Series. Part I, Part II, Part III 1. War Finance Disillusioned by the policies of his Republican allies, who had leapt unprepared into the War of 1812, Taylor writes:… »
The Political Economy of John Taylor of Caroline
Part III of a Five Part Series. Part I, Part II. 1. Republicanism and Liberalism Revisited As noted previously, 18th-century Anglo-American opposition writers employed several political languages. One of these, classical republicanism, asserted reciprocal causal… »
John Taylor on Federal and Constitutional Questions
Part II of a Five Part Series. Part I 1. Liberalism Taylor stood on liberal ground in holding that men were a mixture of good and evil. Self-interest was the only real constant in human… »
John Taylor: Republicanism, Liberty, and Union
Part 1 of a Five Part Series 1. The Relevance of John Taylor John Taylor of Caroline (1753-1824) has a secure, if minor, place in the history of American political thought. Charles A. Beard considered… »
State Sovereignty and Centralism in 19th-Century Argentina
Introduction: Centers and Peripheries A look at the early history of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata — a political structure ancestral (partly) to the modern-day Argentine nation-state — reveals many interesting… »
