• Complain

Horn - 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy

Here you can read online Horn - 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. City: Jamestown (Va.);United States;Virginia;Jamestown, year: 2018, publisher: Basic Books, genre: Politics. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover
  • Book:
    1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Basic Books
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2018
  • City:
    Jamestown (Va.);United States;Virginia;Jamestown
  • Rating:
    4 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 80
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Jamestown -- The great reforms -- First Africans -- Commonwealth -- Tumult and liberty -- Inequality and freedom.;1619 offers a new interpretation of the significance of Jamestown in the long trajectory of American history. Jamestown, the cradle of American democracy, also saw the birth of our nations greatest challenge: the corrosive legacy of slavery and racism that have deepened and entrenched stark inequalities in our society. After running Jamestown under martial law from 1610-1616, the Virginia Company turned toward representative government in an effort to provide settlers with more control over their own affairs and more incentive to invest further in the colony. In late July 1619, the newly-formed General Assembly gathered to introduce just Laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people. It was the first legislature in America, and history has cast it as the foundation of American freedom and democracy. From that moment on, propertied white colonists became accustomed to freedoms that would have been unthinkable in England. But those very freedoms also permitted the wholesale and largely unchecked exploitation of poor white laborers and non-European peoples. More than nine-tenths of all those arriving in Virginia at this time were brought in some form of servitude or labor contract. This is a pattern we recognize all too well in modern American society-opportunities are not shared, inequality is rampant, racism is systemic. We would like to think these are problems that can be solved by expanding representative democracy; Jamestown teaches us, instead, that these are problems have long been created and encouraged by American democracy. Casting a skeptical eye on deeply-cherished myths, 1619 will be essential reading for anyone struggling to understand the paradox of American freedom.--Provided by publisher.

1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
cover Copyright 2018 by James Horn Hachette Book Group supports the right to free - photo 1

Copyright 2018 by James Horn

Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

Basic Books

Hachette Book Group

1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

www.basicbooks.com

First Edition: October 2018

Published by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Basic Books name and logo is a trademark of the Hachette Book Group.

The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Horn, James P. P., author.

Title: 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy / James Horn.

Other titles: One thousand six hundred nineteen | Sixteen nineteen | Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy

Description: First edition. | New York: Basic Books, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018001108| ISBN 9780465064694 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781541698802 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Jamestown (Va.)History17th century. | Jamestown (Va.)Politics and government17th century. | ColonistsVirginiaJamestownHistory17th century. | African AmericansVirginiaJamestownHistory17th century. | SlaveryVirginiaHistory17th century. | DemocracyUnited StatesHistory.

Classification: LCC F234.J3 H65 2018 | DDC 975.5/425102dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001108

ISBNs: 978-0-465-06469-4 (hardcover), 978-1-5416-9880-2 (ebook)

E3-20180828-JV-NF

For Sally, Liz, Ben, and Alice, with love

F RONTISPIECE The General Assembly was the first representative governing body - photo 2

F RONTISPIECE The General Assembly was the first representative governing body in America, convened at Jamestown, July 30August 4, 1619. John Porys Report of the Proceedings of the General Assembly. Permission from the National Archives, UK.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be.

Thomas Jefferson

F OR THE CONVENIENCE OF THE READER, I HAVE ALTERED THE spelling and punctuation of historical passages to make them conform to modern conventions but have retained original capitalization to offer an impression of the original sources. No substantive changes of any sort have been made to direct quotations.

A LONG THE BANKS OF THE J AMES R IVER, V IRGINIA, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a few weeks of each other that would profoundly shape the course of history. Convened with little fanfare or formality, the first gathering of a representative governing body anywhere in the Americas, the General Assembly, met from July 30 to August 4 in the choir of the newly built church at Jamestown. Following instructions from the Virginia Company of London, the colonys financial backers, the meetings principal purpose was to introduce just Laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people. The assembly sat as a single body and was made up of the governor, Sir George Yeardley, his four councilors, and twenty-two burgesses chosen by the free, white, male inhabitants of every town, corporation, and large plantation throughout the colony.

No one in Virginia in 1619 or in the years following could have possibly grasped the importance of what had occurred. Settlers understood that the assembly allowed them to have a hand in governing themselves, but they were motivated more by opportunities to approve laws sent by the Virginia Company from London and to propose their own legislation rather than by abstract concepts of self-government or subjects rights and liberties. Equally, no documented discussion took place in the colony about the morality of owning and enslaving Africans. Deliberations in future general assemblies at Jamestown, as mirrored later in colonial legislatures

Yet the coincidence of the meeting of the first representative government and arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the summer of 1619 was portentous. Historians have argued that the rise of liberty and equality in America, Americas democratic experiment, was shadowed from its beginning by its dark obverse: slavery and racism. Slavery in the midst of freedom, Edmund Morgan writes, was the central paradox of the birth of America. The rapid expansion of opportunities for Europeans was made possible only by the enslavement and exploitation of African and Indian peoples. Non-Europeans were consigned to a permanent underclass excluded from the benefits of white society, while Europeans profited enormously from the fruits of the labors of those they oppressed. Arguably, then, 1619 marks the inception of the most important political development in American history, the rise of democracy, and the emergence of what would in time become one of the nations greatest challenges: the corrosive legacy of racial stereotypes that continues to afflict our society today.

Picture 3

D ESPITE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 1619 AND SURROUNDING years, this period is almost entirely unknown to the public. Insofar as any attention has been given to early Virginia, the

Owing to numerous setbacks, the Virginia colony struggled in its early years, leading the Company to introduce wholesale reforms in an effort to save the colony from collapse. Still largely an experimental period in Englands empire-building trajectory, the import of 1619 derives from the consequential philosophical and political assumptions that guided the reforms, though they in turn led to unforeseen and tragic outcomes that ultimately brought an end to the project. Instigated by the highly respected parliamentarian and leader of the Virginia Company, Sir Edwin Sandys (pronounced Sands), propertied white males in the colony were granted remarkable political freedoms as well as opportunities to share in the running of their own affairs. In addition, plans were put in place to promote a harmonious society where diverse peoples and religious groups would live together side by side in peace to their mutual benefit. Because so many influential parliamentary leaders were involved with the Company, proposals for Virginia were informed by the wide-ranging political debates taking place simultaneously at James Is court and in Parliament, which linked developments in the fledgling colony to domestic and international issues of momentous consequence. By 1619, the Virginia Company was recognized by many in high political circles as a laboratory for some of the most advanced constitutional thinking of the age.

Company leaders grounded their efforts to establish a godly and equitable society in the philosophical theory of the commonwealth. The term commonwealth, or the common weal, emerged in Europe in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and brought together a variety of political and economic precepts that highlighted the common good of the people. Particular emphasis was given to the importance of wise and noble rulers and mixed governmenta salutary balance of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracyas well as Christian morality, prosperity, and social well-being. Linked to Renaissance humanist ideas, statesmen and intellectuals believed that the application of rational approaches to government and social and economic organization would encourage the improvement of societies and the human condition. Where better to test these ideals than the New World? In Virginia, commonwealth theory guided the leaderships approach to every facet of the emerging colony, including government, the rule of law, protections for private property, the organization of the local economy, and relations with the Powhatans, the Indian peoples whose territories surrounded English settlements. The great reforms introduced in 1619, therefore, were all-encompassing, not directed simply toward the creation of a legislative body.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy»

Look at similar books to 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy»

Discussion, reviews of the book 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.