{"product_id":"american-states-of-nature-the-origins-of-independence-1761-1775-hardcover","title":"American States of Nature: The Origins of Independence, 1761-1775 - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMark Somos\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAmerican States of Nature \u003c\/em\u003etransforms our understanding of the American Revolution and the early makings of the Constitution. The journey to an independent United States generated important arguments about the existing condition of Americans, in which rival interpretations of the term \"state of nature\" played a crucial role. \"State of nature\" typically implied a pre-political condition and was often invoked in support of individual rights to property and self-defense and the right to exit or to form a political state. It could connote either a paradise, a baseline condition of virtue and health, or a hell on earth. This mutable phrase was well-known in Europe and its empires. In the British colonies, \"state of nature\" appeared thousands of times in juridical, theological, medical, political, economic, and other texts from 1630 to 1810. But by the 1760s, a distinctively American state-of-nature discourse started to emerge. It combined existing meanings and sidelined others in\u003cbr\u003emoments of intense contestation, such as the Stamp Act crisis of 1765-66 and the First Continental Congress of 1774. In laws, resolutions, petitions, sermons, broadsides, pamphlets, letters, and diaries, the American states of nature came to justify independence at least as much as colonial formulations of liberty, property, and individual rights did. In this groundbreaking book, Mark Somos focuses on the formative decade and a half just before the American Revolution. Somos' investigation begins with a 1761 speech by James Otis that John Adams described as \"a dissertation on the state of nature,\" and celebrated as the real start of the Revolution. Drawing on an enormous range of both public and personal writings, many rarely or never before discussed, the book follows the development of America's state-of-nature discourse to 1775. The founding generation transformed this flexible concept into a powerful theme that shapes their legacy to this day. No constitutional history of the\u003cbr\u003eRevolution can be written without it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMark Somos\u003c\/strong\u003e is Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow and Senior Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and co-editor-in-chief of \u003cem\u003eGrotiana\u003c\/em\u003e. He is the author of \u003cem\u003eSecularisation and the Leiden Circle\u003c\/em\u003e, co-editor (with László Kontler) of \u003cem\u003eTrust and Happiness in the History of European Political Thought\u003c\/em\u003e, and co-author (with Dániel Margócsy and Stephen Joffe) of \u003cem\u003eThe Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 424\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.2 x 9.3 x 6.4 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 01, 2019\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50967703716146,"sku":"9780190462857","price":186.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0961\/1608\/0946\/files\/cqCAX1KW8h9780190462857.webp?v=1773255066","url":"https:\/\/deskinlawfirm.com\/products\/american-states-of-nature-the-origins-of-independence-1761-1775-hardcover","provider":"DLF Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}