Our Sister Republics, Caitlin Fitz
Our Sister Republics, Caitlin Fitz
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Our Sister Republics
The United States in an Age of American Revolutions

Author: Caitlin Fitz

Narrator: Emily Durante

Unabridged: 9 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/05/2016

Synopsis

In the early nineteenth century, the United States turned its idealistic gaze southward, imagining a legacy of revolution and republicanism it hoped would dominate the American hemisphere. From pulsing port cities to Midwestern farms and southern plantations, an adolescent nation hailed Latin America's independence movements as glorious tropical reprises of 1776. Even as Latin Americans were gradually ending slavery, U.S. observers remained energized by the belief that their founding ideals were triumphing over European tyranny among their "sister republics." But as slavery became a violently divisive issue at home, goodwill toward antislavery revolutionaries waned. By the nation's fiftieth anniversary, republican efforts abroad had become a scaffold upon which many in the United States erected an ideology of white U.S. exceptionalism that would haunt the geopolitical landscape for generations. Marshaling groundbreaking research in four languages, Caitlin Fitz defines this hugely significant, previously unacknowledged turning point in U.S. history.

About Caitlin Fitz

Caitlin Fitz lives in Evanston, Illinois, where she is assistant professor of history at Northwestern University. She has received numerous honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship, an Andrew Mellon Fellowship, and Yale University's Egleston Historical Prize.

Reviews

Goodreads review by John on November 18, 2016

This was an impulse borrow from the "new releases" rack at the library. Fitz writes about a phenomenon of the Early Republic that we don't discuss much - Americans were really excited about the way revolution seemed to be spreading in the Western Hemisphere. Until the 1820s or so, Americans were so......more

Goodreads review by Luke on June 22, 2020

Really well done history, and written in a very accessible manner. I had no idea about the USA's interest in the Latin American independence revolutions of the early 1800s, and the author does a terrific job marshaling her argument. I think it's a great case study of how to work with limited archiva......more

Goodreads review by Dean on August 18, 2016

I was not familiar with this part of American history and diplomacy. Shows the change from America and Americans being sympatico with South American revolutionaries to being afraid of South American emancipations. That black, browns, and catholics were inferior to Americans. The Declaration of Indep......more

Goodreads review by Parker on February 20, 2017

Definitely some great anecdotes in here to animate a story about early US history that isn't widely known. The idea of using baby names and Fourth of July toasts gave an air of data-based history in a way that was largely successful and interesting. Still, for whatever reason I found it difficult to......more

Goodreads review by Lynn on February 16, 2025

This is a fascinating, well-written and very well researched book that explores how people in the US responded to independence movements in South America in the 1810-1830 period. At first they saw them as "sister republics" following the example of 1776. But opposition grew in the South as South Ame......more

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