Studies in American Political Development

Sources Used In
Tales of the Early Republic

New Haven : Yale University Press, c1986- Current frequency: Semiannual, spring 1991-

For Copyright Notice, see end of text.

v11, Fall 1997

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John, Richard R., Government Institutions as Agents of Change: Rethinking American Political Development in the Early Republic, 1787-1835

Very good statement of the philosophy of the "New Institutional History" by author of Spreading the News the American postal system from Franklin to Morse.

Criticizes a tendency to see historic causation exclusively from the "bottom up", and in particular, to trace everything back to global phenomena, such as economics, class interests, ethnicity, interaction with the environment, etc.

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Copyright 1998 by Hal Morris, Hopatcong, NJ

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