OUP is publishing a new book on
national and state authority in the US constitution.
ABOUT THE BOOK
For most of the twentieth
century, the American founding has been presented as a struggle between social
classes over issues arising primarily within, rather than outside, the United
States. But in recent years, new scholarship has instead turned to the
international history of the American union to interpret both the causes and
the consequences of the US Constitution.
In Perfecting the Union, Max M.
Edling argues that the Constitution was created to defend US territorial
integrity and the national interest from competitors in the western borderlands
and on the Atlantic Ocean, and to defuse inter-state tension within the union.
By replacing the defunct Articles of Confederation, the Constitution profoundly
transformed the structure of the American union by making the national
government more effective. But it did not transform the fundamental purpose of
the union, which remained a political organization designed to manage
inter-state and international relations. And in contrast to what many scholars
claim, it was never meant to eclipse the state governments.
The Constitution created a
national government but did not significantly extend its remit. The result was
a dual structure of government, in which the federal government and the states
were both essential to the people's welfare. Getting the story about the
Constitution straight matters, Edling claims, because it makes possible a
broader assessment of the American founding as both a transformative event,
aiming at territorial and economic expansion, and as a conservative event,
aiming at the preservation of key elements of the colonial socio-political
order.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Max M. Edling is
Reader in Early American History at the King's College, London. He is the
author of A Revolution in Favor of Government: The Origin of the US
Constitution and the Making of the American State and A
Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Revisiting the
Critical Period
Chapter One: Peace Pact and
Nation, The Constitution as a Compact between States
Chapter Two: Union, Empowering a
New National Government
Chapter Three: Internal Police,
The Residual Power of the States
Chapter Four: Legislation, Implementing
the Constitution
Conclusion: Toward a New
Understanding of the Founding
Notes
Index
More info here
No comments:
Post a Comment