Peter S. Onuf – författare

"Cayton and Onuf have tried to recapture a central place for region in our thinking while, at the same time, incorporating into their analysis the latest scholarship on gender, political behavior, etc. Theirs is a fine blending of the old and the new: old scholarship and new directions." —Malcolm J. Rohrbough"This is an ambitious work that . . . truly beongs on the 'must do' reading list of all midwestern and American historians." —American Historical Review" . . . an impressive interpretive work that will command the attention of regional historians and national scholars alike." —Illinois Historical Journal" . . . an excellent extended historiographic essay that seeks not only to locate the significance of the region created by the early land ordinance but also to raise issues for the historical examination of other regions of the country." —South Dakota History"What makes this book especially interesting and valuable is that it is informed by the post-modern scholar's view that knowledge can never be objective and eternally true; rather, it is subjective and socially constructed, shaped by the political, social, intellectual, and economic environments in which it is formed." —Western Illinois Regional Studies"The book's review of scholarship about the region is exhaustive, as well as brisk and lucid." —American Studies International" . . . a rigorous intellecutal analysis of the region's most important historiography." —Gateway Heritage" . . . an excellent book . . . " —The Annals of Iowa"What is impressive about this densely written work is the number of secondary works incorporated into the text and the importance of the authors' thesis of the considerable influence of happenings in the Midwest of the nineteenth century." —North Dakota History"There is . . . much to be praised in this book, and it will be frequently used and discussed by scholars of the early Midwest." —Journal of American History

This new edition of Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance, originally published in 1987, is an authoritative account of the origins and early history of American policy for territorial government, land distribution, and the admission of new states in the Old Northwest. In a new preface, Peter S. Onuf reviews important new work on the progress of colonization and territorial expansion in the rising American empire.

This new edition of Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance, originally published in 1987, is an authoritative account of the origins and early history of American policy for territorial government, land distribution, and the admission of new states in the Old Northwest. In a new preface, Peter S. Onuf reviews important new work on the progress of colonization and territorial expansion in the rising American empire.

From the onset of the Revolution in 1776 to the inauguration of the federal government in 1789, the American political culture was transformed. The movement for an effective continental republic is here linked to the groundswell for development and economic freedom set off by the Revolution. A Union of Interests reconstructs the discourse of American federalism, a discourse grounded in the debate over the role of government in the regulation of the economy. Cathy Matson and Peter Onuf integrate analyses of economic ideas and interests with many of the critical problems facing the union after the war such as jurisdictional disputes, threats of secession, and new prospects for frontier settlement. The revolutionary ideology that had justified the creation of sovereign states under the Articles of Confederation seemed increasingly ""artificial"" in light of the pressing need to create a ""natural,"" extended republic that would be truer to the changing circumstances of the American people. The authors demonstrate that the movement for the Constitution drew upon increasingly popular political-economic ideas that sought to reconcile the apparent conflicts between a national interest and the ""enlightened"" self-interest of citizens. A pivotal chapter argues that the Constitutional Convention was itself both a product of this broad public discussion about America's future and a contribution to it in which the founders debated the limits to which they should compromise their distinct goals to fit this emerging vision.

Even as Americans keep moving "all over the map" in the late twentieth century, they cherish memories of the places they come from. But where do these places-these regions-come from? What makes them so real? In this groundbreaking book a distinguished group of historians explores the concept of region in America, traces changes the idea has undergone in our national experience, and examines its meaning for Americans today. Far from diminishing in importance, the authors conclude, regional differences continue to play a significant role in Americans' self-image. Regional identity, in fact, has always been fed by the very forces that many people think threaten its existence today: a central government, an aggressive economy, and connections with places beyond regional boundaries. Calling into question widely held notions about how Americans came to differ from one another and explaining why those differences continue to flourish, this iconoclastic study-by scholars with differing regional ties-will refresh and redirect the centuries-old discussion over Americans' conceptions of themselves.

Historians have emphasized the founding fathers' statesmanship and vision in the development of a more powerful union under the federal constitution. In The Origins of the Federal Republic, Peter S. Onuf clarifies the founders' achievement by demonstrating with case studies of New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Virginia that territorial confrontations among the former colonies played a crucial role in shaping early concepts of statehood and union and provided the true basis of the American federalist system.

Celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson by offering the contemporary views of a number of historians on the third president and the architect of democracy. Jefferson's career, his testimony on slavery, his significance for civil rights, and more are assessed.

A discussion of the probability (shown by DNA tests) that Thomas Jefferson was the father of his slave Sally Hemings's children. The essays reflect the deeper questions the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings has raised about American history and national culture.

Thomas Jefferson believed that the American revolution was a transformative moment in the history of political civilization. He hoped that his own efforts as a founding statesman and theorist would help construct a progressive and enlightened order for the new American nation that would be a model and inspiration for the world. Peter S. Onuf's new book traces Jefferson's vision of the American future to its roots in his idealized notions of nationhood and empire. Onuf's unsettling recognition that Jefferson's famed egalitarianism was elaborated in an imperial context yields strikingly original interpretations of our national identity and our ideas of race, of westward expansion and the Civil War, and of American global dominance in the twentieth century.Jefferson's vision of an American "empire for liberty" was modeled on a British prototype. But as a consensual union of self-governing republics without a metropolis, Jefferson's American empire would be free of exploitation by a corrupt imperial ruling class. It would avoid the cycle of war and destruction that had characterized the European balance of power.The Civil War cast in high relief the tragic limitations of Jefferson's political vision. After the Union victory, as the reconstructed nation-state developed into a world power, dreams of the United States as an ever-expanding empire of peacefully coexisting states quickly faded from memory. Yet even as the antebellum federal union disintegrated, a Jeffersonian nationalism, proudly conscious of America's historic revolution against imperial domination, grew up in its place.In Onuf's view, Jefferson's quest to define a new American identity also shaped his ambivalent conceptions of slavery and Native American rights. His revolutionary fervor led him to see Indians as "merciless savages" who ravaged the frontiers at the British king's direction, but when those frontiers were pacified, a more benevolent Jefferson encouraged these same Indians to embrace republican values. African American slaves, by contrast, constituted an unassimilable captive nation, unjustly wrenched from its African homeland. His great panacea: colonization.Jefferson's ideas about race reveal the limitations of his conception of American nationhood. Yet, as Onuf strikingly documents, Jefferson's vision of a republican empire—a regime of peace, prosperity, and union without coercion—continues to define and expand the boundaries of American national identity.

George W. Bush and Al Gore were by no means the first presidential hopefuls to find themselves embroiled in a hotly contested electoral impasse. Two hundred years earlier, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams endured arguably the most controversial and consequential election in American history. As the result of an intensely divided party process - the Federalists and the Republicans each convinced that the other would destroy the new nation if in control - the electoral system produced a tie, throwing the final decision to a House vote. Focusing on the wide range of possible outcomes of the 1800-1801 melee, this collection of essays situates the American ""Revolution of 1800"" in a broad context of geopolitical and racial developments in the Atlantic world as a whole. In essays written expressly for this volume, leading historians of the period examine the electoral, social, and political outcome of Jefferson's election in discussions strikingly relevant in the aftermath of the 2000 election.

George W. Bush and Al Gore were by no means the first presidential hopefuls to find themselves embroiled in a hotly contested electoral impasse. Two hundred years earlier, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams endured arguably the most controversial and consequential election in American history. As the result of an intensely divided party process - the Federalists and the Republicans each convinced that the other would destroy the new nation if in control - the electoral system produced a tie, throwing the final decision to a House vote. Focusing on the wide range of possible outcomes of the 1800-1801 melee, this collection of essays situates the American ""Revolution of 1800"" in a broad context of geopolitical and racial developments in the Atlantic world as a whole. In essays written expressly for this volume, leading historians of the period examine the electoral, social, and political outcome of Jefferson's election in discussions strikingly relevant in the aftermath of the 2000 election.

In ""The Mind of Thomas Jefferson"", one of the foremost historians of Jefferson and his time, Peter S. Onuf, offers a collection of essays that seeks to historicize one of our nation's founding fathers. Challenging current attempts to appropriate Jefferson to serve all manner of contemporary political agendas, Onuf argues that historians must look at Jefferson's language and life within the context of his own place and time. In this effort to restore Jefferson to his own world, Onuf reconnects that world to ours, providing a fresh look at the distinction between private and public aspects of his character that Jefferson himself took such pains to cultivate. Breaking through Jefferson's alleged opacity as a person by collapsing the contemporary interpretive frameworks often used to diagnose his psychological and moral states, Onuf raises new questions about what was on Jefferson's mind as he looked toward an uncertain future. Particularly striking is his argument that Jefferson's character as a moralist is nowhere more evident, ironically, than in his engagement with the institution of slavery. At once reinvigorating the tension between past and present and offering a new way to view our connection to one of our nationis founders, ""The Mind of Thomas Jefferson"" helps redefine both Jefferson and his time and American nationhood.

Thomas Jefferson read Latin and Greek authors throughout his life and wrote movingly about his love of the ancient texts, which he thought should be at the core of America's curriculum. Yet at the same time, Jefferson warned his countrymen not to look to the ancient world for modern lessons and deplored many of the ways his peers used classical authors to address contemporary questions. As a result, the contribution of the ancient world to the thought of America's most classically educated Founding Father remains difficult to assess. This volume brings together historians of political thought with classicists and historians of art and culture to find new approaches to the difficult questions raised by America's classical heritage. The essays explore the classical contribution to different aspects of Jefferson’s thought and taste, as well as examining the significance of the ancient world to America in a broader historical context. The diverse interests and methodologies of the contributors suggest new ways of approaching one of the most prominent and contested of the traditions that helped create America's revolutionary republicanism.

A long-awaited work by one of the deans of Black studiesReginald Butler, the second director of UVA’s Carter G. Woodson Institute, wrote an influential and much-cited but never published dissertation at Johns Hopkins University that focused on community formation among the free Black population of Virginia. His innovative and meticulous research in county and state archives enabled him to reconstruct the ties that bound free Black Virginians to each other and their enslaved neighbors, as well as to white employers and officials.Butler showed that community formation emerged in response to an oppressive, often violent regime of racial domination, yet it also depended on the critical role free Black people played in the local economy and their ability to sustain reciprocally beneficial working relations with their white neighbors. By reconstructing the lived experience of free Black families and the community they created at the neighborhood level, Butler’s revelatory study offers still fresh perspectives on race and slavery in the formative decades of Virginian and American history. Now this seminal work finally sees the light of day, accompanied by several framing essays that properly situate Butler’s foundational scholarship on free Black Americans in this still-burgeoning field.

A long-awaited work by one of the deans of Black studiesReginald Butler, the second director of UVA’s Carter G. Woodson Institute, wrote an influential and much-cited but never published dissertation at Johns Hopkins University that focused on community formation among the free Black population of Virginia. His innovative and meticulous research in county and state archives enabled him to reconstruct the ties that bound free Black Virginians to each other and their enslaved neighbors, as well as to white employers and officials.Butler showed that community formation emerged in response to an oppressive, often violent regime of racial domination, yet it also depended on the critical role free Black people played in the local economy and their ability to sustain reciprocally beneficial working relations with their white neighbors. By reconstructing the lived experience of free Black families and the community they created at the neighborhood level, Butler’s revelatory study offers still fresh perspectives on race and slavery in the formative decades of Virginian and American history. Now this seminal work finally sees the light of day, accompanied by several framing essays that properly situate Butler’s foundational scholarship on free Black Americans in this still-burgeoning field.

The preeminent historians of the founding era speak their mind on the anniversary of the United States' birthIn these powerful and personal essays, some of the most celebrated historians of the American Revolutionary era reflect on the meaning of 1776 to the nation in 2026, offering fresh insights and food for thought on every page. They tackle the most pressing topics that Americans debated in 1776 and continue to debate today: the meaning of democracy; the nature of information wars; immigration and the rights and obligations of citizenship; race and slavery; public health; the various and conflicting legacies of the founders; and the shifting nature of commemoration itself. Like the Revolutionary generation they know so well, on some issues these scholarly authorities find themselves largely in accord; on others they vehemently disagree. This is historical debate at its most urgent.Contributors: Allison Bigelow * T. H. Breen * Katherine Carté * Lindsay M. Chervinsky * Marlene L. Daut * Andrew M. Davenport * Christa Dierksheide * Lauren Duval * Joanne B. Freeman * Annette Gordon-Reed * Eliga H. Gould * Patrick Griffin * Nicholas Guyatt * Ricardo A. Herrera * Woody Holton * Brendan McConville * Michael A. McDonnell * Peter S. Onuf * Robert G. Parkinson * Teresa R. Pollak * John A. Ragosta * Bertrand Van Ruymbeke * Rosemarie Zagarri

This series includes a representative selection of the most interesting and influential journal articles on revolutionary and early national America. The essays in these volumes show that the revolutionary era was an extraordinarily complex “moment” when the broad outlines of national history first emerged. Yet if the “common cause” brought Americans together, it also drove them apart: the Revolution, historians agree, was as much a civil war as a war of national liberation. And, given the distinctive colonial histories of the original members of the American Union, it is not surprising that the war had profoundly different effects in different parts of the country. This series has been designed to reveal the multiplicity of these experiences in a period of radical political and social change.

This series includes a representative selection of the most interesting and influential journal articles on revolutionary and early national America. The essays in these volumes show that the revolutionary era was an extraordinarily complex "moment" when the broad outlines of national history first emerged. Yet if the "common cause" brought Americans together, it also drove them apart: the Revolution, historians agree, was as much a civil war as a war of national liberation. And, given the distinctive colonial histories of the original members of the American Union, it is not surprising that the war had profoundly different effects in different parts of the country. This series has been designed to reveal the multiplicity of these experiences in a period of radical political and social change.

Fifty years after signing the Declaration of Independence, John Adams reassured the nation from his deathbed, “Thomas Jefferson survives”. Unaware that Jefferson had died hours earlier, Adams was in a larger sense correct: Jefferson had been immortalised in the American imagination. Today, Jefferson has effectively become a partisan talisman—jettisoned by the left for his moral failings, embraced and repurposed by the right as an avatar of white nationalism. Dissatisfied with the reductive clichés that now define Jefferson’s legacy, Peter S. Onuf and Francis D. Cogliano restore the founding father to his historical context, elucidating how Jefferson’s understanding of history shaped his responses to the crises of his time, how he conceived of the physical entity that became the United States and how he articulated a new national identity in 1776. Through their search for understanding, Onuf and Cogliano demonstrate not only why Jefferson matters but how his wisdom can be applied today.Peter S. Onuf and Annette Gordon-Reed’s “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” was praised as:"An important book…[R]ichly rewarding. It is full of fascinating insights about Jefferson." —Gordon S. Wood, The New York Review of Books“A fresh and layered analysis...” –Peter Baker, The New York Times Book Review

The essays in Empire and Nation challenge facile assumptions about the "exceptional" character of the republic's founding moment, even as they invite readers to think anew about the complex ways in which the Revolution reshaped both American society and the Atlantic world. How did events and ideas from elsewhere in the British empire influence development in the thirteen American colonies? And what was the effect of the American Revolution on the wider Atlantic world? In Empire and Nation, leading historians reconsider the American Revolution as a transnational event, with many sources and momentous implications for Ireland, Africa, the West Indies, Canada, and Britain itself. The opening section of the book situates the origins of the American Revolution in the commercial, ethnic, and political ferment that characterized Britain's Atlantic empire at the close of the Seven Years' War. The empire experienced extraordinary changes, ranging from the first stirrings of nationalism in Ireland to the dramatic expansion of British rule in Canada, Africa, and India.The second part focuses on the rebellion of the thirteen colonies, touching on slavery and ethnicity, the changing nature of religious faith, and ideas about civil society and political organization. Finally, contributors examine the changes wrought by the American Revolution both within Britain's remaining imperial possessions and among the other states in the emerging "concert of Europe."

This book analyzes Thomas Jefferson's conception of American nationhood in light of the political and social demands facing the post-Revolutionary Republic in its formative years.

This book analyzes Thomas Jefferson's conception of American nationhood in light of the political and social demands facing the post-Revolutionary Republic in its formative years.

Thomas Jefferson is still presented today as an enigmatic figure, despite being written about more than any other Founding Father. Lauded as the most articulate voice of American freedom, even as he held people in bondage, Jefferson is variably described as a hypocrite, an atheist and a simple-minded proponent of limited government. Now, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and leading Jefferson scholar team up to present an absorbing and revealing character study that finally clarifies the philosophy of Jefferson. The authors explore what they call the "empire" of Jefferson’s imagination—his expansive state of mind born of the intellectual influences and life experiences that led him into public life as a modern avatar of the enlightenment, who often likened himself to an ancient figure—"the most blessed of the patriarchs".

Agrarian; confident champion of freedom and uneasy slaveholder; advocate of a government strictly limited to the needs of his time - Thomas Jefferson remains a force in our political and social thought. Part of the continuing interest in him comes of curiosity about a statesman as withdrawn and elusive in personality as he was clear and eloquent in words. Recent DNA evidence that he probably fathered one or more children by one of his slaves deepens the mystery about him. The greater question has to do with his pronouncements about the nature and foundations of liberty, so direct and simple in expression.In this anthology of Jefferson's writings, Peter Onuf begins with an Introduction entitled, "Making Sense of Jefferson," which is then followd by 86 selections from a variety of documents: letters, official papers, public addresses, and opinions, including an extensive selection from Notes on the State of Virginia, making this an ideal reader for a variety of venues.

One of U.S. history’s most eminent figures, Thomas Jefferson is as elusive as he is revered. The Private Jefferson opens a window onto the third president’s inner life by exploring the single largest cache of Thomas Jefferson’s private papers, held--to the surprise of many--at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Essays by Peter S. Onuf (""The State of the World: Thomas Jefferson’s Political Vision""), Andrea Wulf (""Revolutionary Gardens: Jefferson, Politics, and Plants""), and Henry Adams (""The Architectural Jefferson: The Draftsman and His Ideals"") underscore aspects of Jefferson’s character--his unusual creativity and less frequently studied perspectives on the world--rather than retelling the well-known achievements of his political career. The qualities that come to the forefront are, instead, the principles, passions, and faith that suffused his actions as a statesman, including his love of the natural world as well as his lifelong effort to find a balance between his role on an international stage and his need for a domestic retreat, a reverie for study and experimentation.Generously illustrated with full color reproductions of architectural drawings, letters, and other manuscripts, this volume is published as a companion to the exhibition The Private Jefferson: From the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Both exhibition and book celebrate the society’s 225th year.

One of U.S. history’s most eminent figures, Thomas Jefferson is as elusive as he is revered. The Private Jefferson opens a window onto the third president’s inner life by exploring the single largest cache of Thomas Jefferson’s private papers, held--to the surprise of many--at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Essays by Peter S. Onuf (""The State of the World: Thomas Jefferson’s Political Vision""), Andrea Wulf (""Revolutionary Gardens: Jefferson, Politics, and Plants""), and Henry Adams (""The Architectural Jefferson: The Draftsman and His Ideals"") underscore aspects of Jefferson’s character--his unusual creativity and less frequently studied perspectives on the world--rather than retelling the well-known achievements of his political career. The qualities that come to the forefront are, instead, the principles, passions, and faith that suffused his actions as a statesman, including his love of the natural world as well as his lifelong effort to find a balance between his role on an international stage and his need for a domestic retreat, a reverie for study and experimentation.Generously illustrated with full color reproductions of architectural drawings, letters, and other manuscripts, this volume is published as a companion to the exhibition The Private Jefferson: From the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Both exhibition and book celebrate the society’s 225th year.

How did events and ideas from elsewhere in the British empire influence development in the thirteen American colonies? What was the effect of the American Revolution on the wider Atlantic world? In Empire and Nation, leading historians reconsider the American Revolution as a transnational event, with many sources and momentous implications for Ireland, Africa, the West Indies, Canada, and Britain itself. The opening section situates the origins of the American Revolution in the commercial, ethnic, and political ferment that characterized Britain's Atlantic empire at the close of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). The empire then experienced extraordinary changes, ranging from the first stirrings of nationalism in Ireland to the dramatic expansion of British rule in Canada, Africa, and India. The second part focuses on the rebellion of the thirteen colonies-touching on slavery and ethnicity, the changing nature of religious faith, and ideas about civil society and political organization. Finally, contributors examine the changes wrought by the American Revolution both within Britain's remaining imperial possessions and among the other states in the emerging "concert of Europe."The essays in Empire and Nation challenge facile assumptions about the "exceptional" character of the republic's founding moment, even as they invite readers to think anew about the complex ways in which the Revolution reshaped both American society and the Atlantic world.