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Navigating Neutrality

Early American Governance in the Turbulent Atlantic

Sandra A Moats author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Virginia Press

Published:30th Oct '21

Should be back in stock very soon

Navigating Neutrality cover

Navigating Neutrality explores the unexpected role George Washington’s 1793 Neutrality Proclamation played in energizing the U.S. government’s constitutional responsibilities to support and promote America’s commercial and sovereign interests. Designed to avoid warfare as Great Britain and France battled in the Atlantic during the French Revolutionary Wars, neutrality encompassed a wide range of issues, including diplomacy, law, defense, commerce, and domestic politics.

Proclaiming neutrality proved easier than enforcing it. American citizens eagerly accepted lucrative French privateering commissions, and Britain retaliated by attacking American ships, cargos, and sailors. In response, Washington and his cabinet formulated policies to enforce neutrality across all three branches of the government and around the globe. Maritime citizens, stranded in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, especially came to appreciate the government’s rescue efforts. As Sandra Moats shows, enforcing neutrality galvanized all three branches of the nascent U.S. government, serving as a manifesto of the young nation’s quest to be respected in its independence and helping to build a U.S. government capable of supporting its global aspirations.

Clearly written, this book argues that more than a single policy of the Washington administration, neutrality during the French Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s was a guiding principle that helped to build an economically independent and politically sovereign United States. An original and important contribution to our understanding of early American state-building and political development. "—Denver Brunsman, George Washington University, author of The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

ISBN: 9780813946443

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 333g

224 pages