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    Civic Gifts: Voluntarism and the Making of the American Nation-State
    Unavailable
    Civic Gifts: Voluntarism and the Making of the American Nation-State
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    Civic Gifts: Voluntarism and the Making of the American Nation-State
    Ebook731 pages10 hours

    Civic Gifts: Voluntarism and the Making of the American Nation-State

    By Elisabeth S. Clemens

    ()

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In Civic Gifts, Elisabeth S. Clemens takes a singular approach to probing the puzzle that is the United States. How, she asks, did a powerful state develop within an anti-statist political culture? How did a sense of shared nationhood develop despite the linguistic, religious, and ethnic differences among settlers and, eventually, citizens? Clemens reveals that an important piece of the answer to these questions can be found in the unexpected political uses of benevolence and philanthropy, practices of gift-giving and reciprocity that coexisted uneasily with the self-sufficient independence expected of liberal citizens Civic Gifts focuses on the power of gifts not only to mobilize communities throughout US history, but also to create new forms of solidarity among strangers. Clemens makes clear how, from the early Republic through the Second World War, reciprocity was an important tool for eliciting both the commitments and the capacities needed to face natural disasters, economic crises, and unprecedented national challenges. Encompassing a range of endeavors from the mobilized voluntarism of the Civil War, through Community Chests and the Red Cross to the FDR-driven rise of the March of Dimes, Clemens shows how voluntary efforts were repeatedly articulated with government projects.  The legacy of these efforts is a state co-constituted with, as much as constrained by, civil society.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateApr 17, 2020
    ISBN9780226670973
    Unavailable
    Civic Gifts: Voluntarism and the Making of the American Nation-State

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