Overview

From journalist and historian Richard Kreitner, a provocative, timely and eye-opening excavation of the most persistent idea in American history: these supposedly United States should be broken up. The novel and fiery thesis of Break It Up is simple: the United States has never lived up to its name--and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but as Break It Up shows, the seduction of secession wasn't limited to the South or the nineteenth century. With a scholar's command and a journalist's curiosity, Kreitner takes readers on a revolutionary journey through American history, revealing the power and persistence of disunion movements in every era and region. Each New England town after Plymouth was a secession from another; the thirteen colonies viewed their Union as a means to the end of securing independence, not an end in itself; George Washington feared separatism west of the Alleghenies; Aaron Burr schemed to set up a new empire; John Quincy Adams brought a Massachusetts town's petition for dissolving the United States to the floor of Congress; and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison denounced the Constitution as a pro-slavery pact with the devil. From the cold civil war that pits partisans against one another to the modern secession movements in California and Texas, the divisions that threaten to tear America apart today have centuries-old roots in the earliest days of our Republic. Richly researched and persuasively argued, Break It Up will help readers make fresh sense of our fractured age.

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9781549189449

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If you thought disunion was an invention of the slave South and is long dead and buried, think again. In Break It Up, Richard Kreitner offers a powerful revisionist account of the troubled history of the American nation, showing how secessionist movements have made their appearance at numerous times, and in numerous parts of the country. They are again proliferating today - a reflection of our polarized politics and culture and our failure to make the existing Union benefit all Americans. -- Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kreitner effectively cleans the window that stands between us and our history--or what we believed about our history...richly researched, revelatory, disturbing, and essential to those wandering in the mists of American myth. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

If you thought disunion was an invention of the slave South and is long dead and buried, think again. In Break It Up, Richard Kreitner offers a powerful revisionist account of the troubled history of the American nation, showing how secessionist movements have made their appearance at numerous times, and in numerous parts of the country. They are again proliferating today - a reflection of our polarized politics and culture and our failure to make the existing Union benefit all Americans. -- Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kreitner effectively cleans the window that stands between us and our history--or what we believed about our history...richly researched, revelatory, disturbing, and essential to those wandering in the mists of American myth. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Richly researched, revelatory, disturbing, and essential to those wandering in the mists of American myth. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Information

Richard Kreitner is a contributing writer to The Nation. He is the author of Booked: A Traveler's Guide to Literary Locations Around the World. Adam Verner is a stage, film, television, and voice actor and an Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator. He holds a BS in theater arts from Bradley University and an MFA from Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

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