Customer Reviews

Seduced, Abandoned, and Reborn: Visions of Youth in Middle-Class America, 1780-1850 (Early American Studies)

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I enjoyed this book so much that I nearly wrote to the author to congratulate him. The content is easy for modern readers to relate to: young adults exploring religion and sexuality and occasionally rioting against college authorities. Hessinger skillfully interweaves these themes with the political, economic, and cultural values of the early republic to discover the roots of this generation's apparent crisis. The book is not only a compelling piece of scholarship but also a model of clear, succinct, engaging historical writing. I recommend it highly, with the caveat that it will be best enjoyed by those who are already knowledgeable about the nineteenth-century United States.

So you think your teenager gives you trouble? Well, get in line with generations of previous Americans! This book shows that young adults produced much anxiety in the decades following American independence. Armed with new notions of equality and finding new opportunities unleashed by market capitalism, youth in the early national era disrupted traditional patterns of courship, churchgoing, and apprenticeship. Effortlessly blending entertaining anecdotes with sophisticated theoretical analysis, Hessinger has written a fascinating book that will appeal to both scholars and a general audience.