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William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
Winner:Pulitzer Prize -History (1996)
In this story of a frontier village in the early American Republic, Alan Taylor explores the lives of Judge William Cooper and the novelist James Fenimore Cooper - father and son. As frontier speculator, landlord, and politician, the father played a leading role in the conquest, resettlement, and environmental transformation of the early nation. Drawing upon his childhood memories of the New York frontier, the son created the historical fictions that made him the most popular, influential, and controversial American novelist of the early nineteenth century. Taylor makes it clear that in a rapidly changing nation William Cooper's development of Cooperstown and his son's creation of the village of Templeton in The Pioneers were different stages of a common effort, over two generations, to create, sustain, and justify a wealthy and powerful estate. Both sought that unity of social, economic, political, and cultural authority idealized in colonial America but at odds with the legacy of the American Revolution. William Cooper's Town combines biography, social history, and literary analysis. By breaching the barriers that separate political, social, and literary history, Taylor reveals the interplay of frontier settlement and narrative-making in the early American Republic. He examines how Americans resolved their revolution through the creation of new property, new power, and new stories along their extensive frontier.
Book Details
- Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Publish Date: Aug 27th, 1996
- Pages: 576
- Language: English
- Edition: Vintage Books - undefined
- Dimensions: 8.25in - 4.92in - 1.16in - 1.25lb
- EAN: 9780679773009
- Categories: • United States - Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)• United States - 19th Century• Historical
About the Author
Born and raised in Maine, Alan Taylor teaches American and Canadian history at the University of Virginia. His books include The Divided Ground, Writing Early American History, American Colonies, and William Cooper's Town, which won the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes for American history. He also serves as a contributing editor to The New Republic.
Praise for this book
"Marvelous....Taylor's intellectual grasp never fails."--The New Yorker