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Imperial Pubs: British American Taverns as Spaces of Empire, 1700-1783
Scribner, Vaughn Paul
Scribner, Vaughn Paul
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Abstract
Imperial Pubs: British American Taverns as Spaces of Empire, 1700-1783 employs the North American tavern space to investigate how colonists connected with the British Empire, and in turn, understood their position(s) in local and global networks. Utilizing taverns as microcosms of colonial society, the dissertation argues that British American taverns were far more than small drinking establishments on the fringe of Empire--they were centers of Imperial connection, understanding, and ultimately contestation. Colonial taverngoers read tracts from London and beyond; consumed beverages made of products from around the world such as coffee, tea, chocolate, rum punch, and wine; conversed with foreigners and fellow Britons; sent and received transatlantic mail; booked trips to far off places; debated myriad cosmopolitan topics; penned politically charged manifestos; and attended balls, concerts, lectures, clubs, and art exhibitions. Taverngoers also appropriated the tavern space around them to reposition themselves in the colonial hierarchy by retiring into exclusive tavern rooms, enacting exclusionary drinking rituals, opening their own taverns, and sometimes fighting. More than any other public space, early American taverns helped colonists assert themselves initially as ardent British subjects and later as revolutionary Republicans. Understanding early American taverns as both reflections of and influences on colonists' Imperial desires advances our understanding of early American society in multiple ways. First, by revealing colonial taverngoers' intense urge for global connections, the dissertation challenges colonial American historians to broaden their geographical and ideological canvas beyond the thirteen colonies. As the colonies erupted into Revolution, however, Patriots transformed American taverns into centers of resistance against the Empire they had previously embraced. Second, then, the dissertation urges historians of the revolutionary era to more seriously consider taverns as fundamental in the transformation from imperial to republican society. Third, the international direction of the dissertation pushes historians to reconsider the "Atlantic world" model as a process of imperialism and globalization more than a geographically limited field of study. A transatlantic perspective, "Imperial Pubs" contends, is more useful when understood within and in conjunction with global processes and networks, almost all of which were made possible by imperialism.
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Date
2013-05-31
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
American history, European history, World history, American Revolution, British Empire, Colonial America, Consumption, Cosmopolitanism, Tavern