John R. Van Atta – författare

Abolitionist, fanatic, terrorist, freedom fighter, alleged murderer—all of those labels fit John Brown. Yet he also qualified as a mid-nineteenth-century celebrity. Reserved only for a few, celebrity in Brown’s time was, in historian Carolyn Eastman’s words, a quality “of being well known, an attribute, a degree of popularity and fame—the state of being celebrated by others,” as Brown certainly was.  Brown’s lifespan covered most of the period between the Revolution and the Civil War, a time of the still-early beginnings of the United States. Only then had his kind of “celebrity” started to matter. From different economic and moral perspectives, politically aware Americans clashed over different visions for the future of the country. At that time, any disruptive figure might be taken as a barometer of the progress or the decline of the republic. A function of the widely varying newspapers and magazines of that day, celebrity offered Americans an angle of vision, happily or not, as to who they were or were becoming or believed themselves to be—as if by a mirror reflection.  In The Day They Hanged Old Brown, John Van Atta examines the creation of celebrity in John Brown’s time and how it differed from modern day perceptions. Yet, as applicable as the concept of celebrity is in this case, the story of Brown’s notoriety represents far more. To his admirers, Brown was not merely a celebrity; he was a hero and, after his sacrificial death, a martyr. Not all celebrities rise to such levels. This book traces the meaning of heroism and martyrdom—as well as the opposite side of that coin, villainy—and suggests that John Brown’s story and legacy helped to redefine these concepts for many Americans during the era of the Civil War, before modern historians began to deliberate him.

Few issues defined the period between American independence and the Mexican War more sharply than westward settlement and the role of the federal government in that expansion. In Securing the West, John R. Van Atta examines the visions of the founding generation and the increasing influence of ideological differences in the years after the peace of 1815. Americans expected the country to grow westward, but on the details of that growth they held strongly different opinions. What part should Congress play in this development? How much should public land cost? What of the families and businesses left behind, and how would society's institutions be established in the West? What of the premature settlers, the "squatters" who challenged the rule of law while epitomizing democratic daring? Taking a broad approach, Van Atta addresses three interrelated queries: First, how did competing economic beliefs and divergent cultural mandates influence the various outcomes of this broad debate over the means, timing, and purposes of settling the trans-Appalachian West?Second, what alternative visions of western society lay behind the battles among policy makers within the government and the interested parties who would sway them? Third, why did settlement of the West take such a different course in the end from that which the earliest leaders of the republic intended? This story explores dimensions of the federal lands question that other historians have minimized or left out entirely. Van Atta draws upon a range of sources known to have influenced the public discourse, including congressional debates, committee reports, and correspondence; editorial writings by the famous and unknown; and news coverage in various widely circulated newspapers and magazines of the period. Much of the attention focuses on Congress-the elected leaders who advocated divergent plans about western lands. In Congress, more than any other place, public leaders articulated basic concerns about the character, structure, direction, and destiny of society in the early United States.By 1830, many other important national concerns had become critically entangled with land disposition, creating points of ideological tension among rival regions, parties, and interests in the early years of the republic - particularly in Jacksonian America.

From the early days of the republic, American leaders knew that an unpredictable time bomb-the question of slavery-lay at the heart of national politics. An implicit understanding between North and South helped to keep the issue at bay: northern states, where slavery had been set on course for extinction via gradual emancipation, tacitly agreed to respect the property rights of southern slaveholders; in return, southerners essentially promised to view slave holding as a practical evil and look for ways to get rid of it. By 1819-1820, however, westward expansion had brought the matter to a head. As Thomas Jefferson wrote at the time, a nation dealing with the politically implacable issue of slavery essentially held the "wolf" by the ears-and could neither let go nor hang on forever. In Wolf by the Ears, John R. Van Atta discusses how the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War surfaced in the divisive fight over Missouri statehood. The first organized Louisiana Purchase territory to lie completely west of the Mississippi River and northwest of the Ohio, Missouri carried special significance for both pro- and anti-slavery advocates.Northern congressmen leaped out of their seats to object to the proposed expansion of the slave "empire," while slave-state politicians voiced outrage at the northerners' blatant sectional attack. Although the Missouri confrontation ultimately appeared to end amicably with a famous compromise that the wily Kentuckian Henry Clay helped to cobble together, the passions it unleashed proved vicious, widespread, and long lasting. Van Atta deftly explains how the Missouri crisis revealed the power that slavery had already gained over American nation building. He explores the external social, cultural, and economic forces that gave the confrontation such urgency around the country, as well as the beliefs, assumptions, and fears that characterized both sides of the slavery argument. Wolf by the Ears provides students in American history with an ideal introduction to the Missouri crisis while at the same time offering fresh insights for scholars of the early republic.

How Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders exemplified “manhood” and civic virtue.Below a Cuban sun so hot it stung their eyes, American troops hunkered low at the base of Kettle Hill. Spanish bullets zipped overhead, while enemy artillery shells landed all around them. Driving Spanish forces from the high ground would mean gaining control of Santiago, Cuba, and, soon enough, American victory in the Spanish-American War. No one doubted that enemy fire would claim a heavy toll, but these unusual citizen-soldiers and their unlikely commander—39-year-old Colonel Theodore Roosevelt—had volunteered for exactly this kind of mission.In Charging Up San Juan Hill, John R. Van Atta recounts that fateful day in 1898. Describing the battle’s background and its ramifications for Roosevelt, both personal and political, Van Atta explains how Roosevelt’s wartime experience prompted him to champion American involvement in world affairs. Tracking Roosevelt’s rise to the presidency, this book argues that the global expansion of American influence—indeed, the building of an empire outward from a strengthened core of shared values at home—connected to the broader question of cultural sustainability as much as it did to the increasing of trade, political power, and military might.At the turn of the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt personified American confidence. A New York City native and recovered asthmatic who spent his twenties in the wilds of the Dakota Territory, Roosevelt leapt into the war with Spain with gusto. He organized a band of cavalry volunteers he called the Rough Riders and, on July 1, 1898, took part in their charge up a Cuban hill the newspapers called San Juan, launching him to national prominence. Without San Juan, Van Atta argues, Roosevelt—whom the papers credited for the victory and lauded as a paragon of manhood—would never have reached a position to become president.

From the early days of the republic, American leaders knew that an unpredictable time bomb-the question of slavery-lay at the heart of national politics. An implicit understanding between North and South helped to keep the issue at bay: northern states, where slavery had been set on course for extinction via gradual emancipation, tacitly agreed to respect the property rights of southern slaveholders; in return, southerners essentially promised to view slave holding as a practical evil and look for ways to get rid of it. By 1819-1820, however, westward expansion had brought the matter to a head. As Thomas Jefferson wrote at the time, a nation dealing with the politically implacable issue of slavery essentially held the "wolf" by the ears-and could neither let go nor hang on forever. In Wolf by the Ears, John R. Van Atta discusses how the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War surfaced in the divisive fight over Missouri statehood. The first organized Louisiana Purchase territory to lie completely west of the Mississippi River and northwest of the Ohio, Missouri carried special significance for both pro- and anti-slavery advocates.Northern congressmen leaped out of their seats to object to the proposed expansion of the slave "empire," while slave-state politicians voiced outrage at the northerners' blatant sectional attack. Although the Missouri confrontation ultimately appeared to end amicably with a famous compromise that the wily Kentuckian Henry Clay helped to cobble together, the passions it unleashed proved vicious, widespread, and long lasting. Van Atta deftly explains how the Missouri crisis revealed the power that slavery had already gained over American nation building. He explores the external social, cultural, and economic forces that gave the confrontation such urgency around the country, as well as the beliefs, assumptions, and fears that characterized both sides of the slavery argument. Wolf by the Ears provides students in American history with an ideal introduction to the Missouri crisis while at the same time offering fresh insights for scholars of the early republic.