Marcus Cunliffe, whom the Washington Post and Times Herald calls "a master historian capable of seeing his subject whole," has written a cogent and revealing study of America’s first half-century under the federal Constitution. Bounded by the first Washington Administration and the last Jackson Administration, this is the period in which democracy grew and shaped the nation. It witnessed the launching of the federal government; the expansion of the frontier; the establishment of a party system; the enunciation of a foreign policy; the manufacture of the symbols of nationalism; and the forging of the arguments of sectionalism. Most important, Mr. Cunliffe writes, "the American character seems to have been formed in essence within a generation of George Washington’s accession to the Presidency." 

CONTENTS:
I. "Half a Century of Progress"
II. The Union Defined: Government, Politics, and Law
III. The World Outside: Foreign Policy
IV. The West: Territorial and Agricultural Expansion
V. Commerce and Industry
VI. Nationalism and Sectionalism
VII. Conservatism and Democracy
VIII. The American Character
Bibliographical Note
Important Dates
Index