Download Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions AudioBook Free
In the first 19th century, the United States converted its idealistic gaze southward, imagining a legacy of revolution and republicanism it hoped would dominate the American hemisphere. From pulsing port metropolitan areas to Midwestern farms and Southern plantations, an adolescent country hailed Latin America's independence moves as glorious tropical reprises of 1776. Even as Latin Americans were gradually concluding slavery, US observers continued to be energized by the fact that their founding ideals were triumphing over European tyranny among their "sister republics". But as slavery became a violently divisive concern at home, goodwill toward antislavery revolutionaries waned. By the nation's 50th wedding anniversary, republican efforts abroad had turn into a scaffold after which many in america erected an ideology of white US exceptionalism that could haunt the geopolitical surroundings for generations. Marshaling groundbreaking research in four languages, Caitlin Fitz identifies this hugely significant, recently unacknowledged making point in US record.
