Columbia Rising

“In remarkable detail, Brooke mines the archives to balance his portrait between the perspectives of the wealthy landowners . . . and the disenfranchised. . . . Will be valuable to students of history and political theory and others interested in America’s early days.” — Library Journal

“This grand work peels back the layers of the troubled and very long 'Revolutionary settlement' in New York’s Columbia County. . . . Brooke has made the opaque brilliant and, in the process, highlighted useful interpretive frameworks for scholars of early America. . . . Essential.” — CHOICE

“An important contribution to our ongoing effort to understand nation-building at the turn of the eighteenth century. It offers crucial lessons for the present as well.” — American Historical Review

“Brooke’s magisterial command of the lives of a host of characters, some obscure and others not so obscure, makes for compelling reading.” — William and Mary Quarterly

“Inspiring . . . . Brooke’s book will hopefully provide a framework for future scholars to test as they seek to understand the process by which Americans moved from the crisis of Revolution to the establishment of a relatively stable political system.” — Common-Place

“A welcome contribution to the cultural history of the early American republic.” — Essays In History

“This is a work sure to provoke a reexamination of the early republic’s notions of citizenship, consent, and social membership, and the legacy of the American Revolution.” — Journal of American History

“Through their impeccable scholarship, Levine and Wilson effectively locate Whitfield as a significant figure. . . . A valuable resource for engaging with and rethinking nineteenth-century African American literary thought in order to include James M. Whitfield.” — Resources for American Literary Study

“A masterful work. . . . Brooke’s research is impressive.” — Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians

“John Brooke’s Columbia Rising is a tour de force. Consolidating and developing some of the most compelling themes in recent scholarship on the early republic, Brooke brings the 'public sphere' down to earth, offering a deeply grounded approach to the study of political culture and history that will transform the field. Columbia Rising is a magnificent achievement.” — Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia