Lloyd S. Kramer – författare

The third volume of this widely acclaimed series continues the story of Lafayette's role in the military, diplomatic, and political aspects of the French-American alliance as seen through the letters of Lafayette and his correspondents on both sides of the Atlantic.Among the recipients of Lafayette's letters are George Washington, the Comte de Vergennes, Samuel Adams, the Comte de Rochambeau, the Baron van Steuben, Beajamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Nathanael Greene, and Thomas Jefferson. At times, Lafayette appears to be as proud, ambitious, and headstrong as his detractors have claimed. More often, he emerges as a mature and judicious leader, one who carried great weight as a principal architect of French-American cooperation. The letters also show his ability to understand American attitudes toward military and civil authority, and they indicate his realistic comprehension of strategy, tactics, and logistics.The volume is divided into five parts, each of which is introduced by a headnote summarizing Lafayette's main activities and the broader context of revolutionary events of the period. It makes clear the tensions and disharmonies between the allies that developed during the months of military inaction and fiscal difficulties, and gives us a rare look at the human side of the military effort at its highest levels.

This text traces the wide-ranging influence of Lafayette's public and personal life, including his contributions to the emergence of nationalist ideologies in Europe and America, his extensive connection with liberal political theorists, and his close friendships with prominent writers. Lloyd Kramer argues that Lafayette's experiences reveal how public figures can symbolize the aspirations of a society as a whole.

Examining the history of nationalism's pervasive influence on modern politics and cultural identities, Lloyd Kramer discusses how nationalist ideas gained emotional and cultural power after the revolutionary upheavals in the late eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Nationalism in Europe and America analyzes the multiple historical contexts and intellectual themes that have shaped modern nationalist cultures, including the political claims for national sovereignty, the emergence of nationalist narratives in historical writing and literature, the fusion of nationalism and religion, and the overlapping conceptions of gender, families, race, and national identities. Kramer emphasizes the similarities in American and European nationalist thought, showing how European ideas about land, history, and national destiny flourished in the United States while American ideas about national independence and political rights reappeared among European nationalists and also influenced the rise of anticolonial nationalisms in twentieth-century Asia and Africa. By placing nationalist ideas and conflicts within the specific, cross-cultural framework of Atlantic history and extending his analysis to the twentieth-century world wars, Kramer offers readers a thoughtful perspective on nationalism's enduring political and cultural importance throughout the modern world. |Kramer discusses how nationalist ideas gained emotional and cultural power after the revolutionary upheavals in the late eighteenth-century Atlantic world. By placing nationalist ideas and conflicts within the specific, cross-cultural framework of Atlantic history and extending his analysis to the twentieth-century world wars, Kramer offers readers a thoughtful perspective on nationalism's enduring political and cultural importance throughout the modern world.

Traveling to Unknown Places presents a compelling, incisive analysis of how French and American writers reshaped their personal and collective identities as they traveled in foreign countries after the social upheavals of the eighteenth-century Atlantic revolutions. Delving into the experiences of renowned figures like Flora Tristan and Margaret Fuller alongside lesser-known postrevolutionary travelers, this book illuminates how cross-cultural encounters pushed writers to redefine their views of nationality, language, race, slavery, gender, religion, science, and political ideologies.Lloyd Kramer deftly demonstrates how unsettling journeys challenged cultural preconceptions and fostered introspective writings that transcended geographical boundaries. By interweaving the perspectives of women and men whose travels led them far beyond their youthful social origins, Kramer unveils a rich tapestry of evolving selfhood, ambition, and political consciousness across the Atlantic world. Each traveler's experience was unique, but long journeys connected all these nineteenth-century writers with others who had traveled before; and trips into unknown, distant cultures also carried travelers toward previously unknown places within themselves.