From 1776, when Citizen
Tom Paine declared, “The birthday of a new world is at hand,” America was unique in world history. A nation suffused with the spirit of explorers, constantly replenished by immigrants, and informed by a continual influx of foreign ideas, it was the world’s first truly cosmopolitan civilization.In
Beyond the Revolution, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian William H. Goetzmann tells the story of America’s greatest thinkers and creators, from Paine and Jefferson to
Melville and
William James, showing how they built upon and battled one another’s ideas in the critical years between 1776 and 1900. An unprecedented work of intellectual history by a master historian, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of our national culture.
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Background Information
Thomas Paine wrote influential pamphlets during the American Revolution, which have inspired revolutionaries ever since. Herman Melville was a Massachusetts writer best remembered for his novel Moby Dick.
