Böcker av Cynthia A. Kierner

When hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and other disasters strike, we count our losses, search for causes, commiserate with victims, and initiate relief efforts. Amply illustrated and expansively researched, Inventing Disaster explains the origins and development of this predictable, even ritualized, culture of calamity over three centuries.

Much has been written about the "southern lady," that pervasive and enduring icon of antebellum regional identity. But how did the lady get on her pedestal-and were the lives of white southern women always so different from those of their northern...

Kierner vividly recreates the history of four generations of Livingstons and sheds new light on the development of both the elite ideology they represented and of the wider culture of early America.

With annotated footnotes, this work explores the debate over manners, morals, and cultural authority in the decades following American Revolution. It also includes an introduction that provides readers with a background on life and politics in the United States in 1787, when Americans were in the midst of nation-building.