Description
Book SynopsisCommoning customs and practices in the Revolutionary era offered non-elite actors a relationship to democratic power different from the representative democracy that would be institutionalized by the Framers in 1787. Commons Democracy uncovers the democratic spirit, ideals and practices created by ordinary folk in the early nation.
Trade Review"Nelson's Commons Democracy deserves the attention of a wide range of early republic scholars, especially those interested in literature, democracy, and the political practices of ordinary Americans. This vigorously argued book offers a coherent paradigm for understanding an important part of the early American democratic tradition. The field would do well to run with Nelson's framework and explore the full range of commons democracy in the early republic." -Reviews in History "Commons Democracy is an exhilarating and compelling account of early U.S. forms of participatory democracy that have largely disappeared from critical view behind the shadow of the dominant account of the Founders' creation of formal electoral democracy." -- -Elizabeth Maddock Dillon Northeastern University "Nelson's powerful rereading of the early republic's literary tradition is not just about getting the past right. She hopes that her depiction of the post-Revolutionary United States will help move us beyond what Garrett Hardin called the "Tragedy of the Commons" in 1968." -Journal of Social History "An important contribution, at a vital moment, to renewing appreciation of democracy as the awkward practice of sharing power to shape common existence." -- -Wendy Brown University of California, Berkeley "Nelson focuses in this book on a dynamic aspect of U.S. history, one that is already quite relevant in our own time and that promises to be increasingly so in the future." -- -John Ernest University of Delaware
Table of ContentsCommons Democracy: An Introduction One. Telling Stories: Vernacular versus Formal Democracy Two. Between Savagery and Civilization: The Whiskey Rebellion and a Democratic Middle Way Three. The Privatizing State: The Pioneers and the Closing of the Legal Commons Four. Settler Self-Governance: Democratic Politics on the Frontier Five. From Nothing to Start, Into Being: The Anti-Rent Wars, the Indian Question, and the Triumph of Liberalism Conclusion: "The Wayward Multitudinous People
