Notions of democracy and nationhood constitute the pivotal legacy of the
American Revolution, but to understand their development one must move beyond a purely American
context. Citizens of a Common Intellectual Homeland explores the simultaneous
emergence of modern concepts of democracy and the nation on both sides of the Atlantic during
the age of revolutions. Armin Mattes argues that in their origin the two concepts were
indistinguishable because they arose from a common revolutionary impulse directed against the
prevailing hierarchical political and social order. The author shows how the reconceptualization
of democracy and the nation, which resulted from this revolutionary impulse, received its
decisive form from the French Revolution. Although the French Revolution was instrumental in
redefining the two terms, however, neither were these changes confined to France, nor did the
new meanings merely radiate from France to other countries. To illustrate
the transatlantic emergence of these ideas, Mattes considers the works of pairs of prominent
intellectual contemporaries--one in America and the other in Europe--each writing on a
common topic. The thinkers and topics include Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke on the transatlantic
revolutions, John Adams and Friedrich von Gentz on the mixed constitution, James Madison and
Immanuel Kant on perpetual peace, and Thomas Jefferson and Destutt de Tracy on the nation.
Mattes's approach highlights the significant impact that the French Revolution had on the
evolution of thought in the period, demonstrating that the emergence and early development of
modern concepts of democracy and the nation in America were intimately tied to revolutionary
events and processes in the larger Atlantic
world.Preparation of this volume has been supported by the
Thomas Jefferson Foundation.Jeffersonian
America