Books in the The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in American History and Culture series

Beginning with controversies related to British and French attacks on U.S. neutral trade in 1805, this book looks at crucial developments in national politics, public policy, and foreign relations from the perspective of New England Federalists. Through its focus on the partisan climate in Congress that appeared to influence federal statutes, New England Federalists: Widening the Sectional Divide in Jeffersonian America sets out to explain, in their own words, why Federalists, especially those often deemed extreme or radical by contemporaries and historians alike, escalated a campaign to repeal the Constitution's three-fifths clause (which included slaves in the calculation for congressional representation and votes in the Electoral College) while encouraging violations of federal law and advocating northern secession from the Union. Unlike traditional interpretations of early nineteenth-century politics that focus on Jeffersonian political economy, this study brings the impetus for Federalist obstructionism and sectionalism into sharp relief. Federalists who became the sole defenders of New England's economic independence and free labor force, later issued calls for northerners to unite against the spread of slavery and southern control of the central government. Along with controversies that placed sectional harmony in jeopardy, this work links themes in Federalist opposition rhetoric to the important antislavery arguments that would flourish in antebellum culture and politics.

Reformers, almost by definition, claim the moral high ground because they see abuse and malpractice and want to abolish it. But when their perceptions become clouded, the high ground can quickly turn into quicksand. This work examines the Riggs war, a case of acute "government overreach," and the perpetrators involved.

The American Way of Life is a cultural history of the American Way of Life (or more simply the American Way). The book argues that since the term was popularized in the 1930s, the American Way has served as the primary guiding mythology or national ethos of the United States.

George Bronson Rea, Propagandist is a biography that reveals what led a controversial journalist, publisher, engineer, spy, lobbyist, blackmailer, and fortune hunter to go from exposing yellow journalism during the Spanish-American War to becoming a propagandist advocating for the Japanese takeover of Manchuria.