{"product_id":"break-it-up-secession-division-and-the-secret-history-of-americas-imperfect-union-9780316510608","title":"Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union","description":"\u003ch2\u003eBreak It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom journalist and historian Richard Kreitner, a \"powerful revisionist account\" of the most persistent idea in American history: these supposedly United States should be broken up (Eric Foner).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe novel and fiery thesis of \u003ci\u003eBreak It Up\u003c\/i\u003e is simple: The United States has never lived up to its name--and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but as \u003ci\u003eBreak It Up\u003c\/i\u003e shows, the seduction of secession wasn't limited to the South or the nineteenth century. It was there at our founding and has never gone away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eA Revolutionary Journey Through American Disunion\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a scholar's command and a journalist's curiosity, Richard Kreitner takes readers on a revolutionary journey through American history, revealing the power and persistence of disunion movements in every era and region. Each New England town after Plymouth was a secession from another; the thirteen colonies viewed their Union as a means to the end of securing independence, not an end in itself; George Washington feared separatism west of the Alleghenies; Aaron Burr schemed to set up a new empire; John Quincy Adams brought a Massachusetts town's petition for dissolving the United States to the floor of Congress; and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison denounced the Constitution as a pro-slavery pact with the devil.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eFrom Colonial Era to Modern Secession Movements\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the \"cold civil war\" that pits partisans against one another to the modern secession movements in California and Texas, the divisions that threaten to tear America apart today have centuries-old roots in the earliest days of our Republic. Richly researched and persuasively argued, \u003ci\u003eBreak It Up\u003c\/i\u003e will help readers make fresh sense of our fractured age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRichard Kreitner\u003c\/b\u003e is a contributing writer to \u003ci\u003eThe Nation\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eBooked: A Traveler's Guide to Literary Locations Around the World.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Little Brown and Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50493494264082,"sku":"9780316510608","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_ec6a22ad-121c-4945-a141-57150e0ec47b.jpg?v=1737216150","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/break-it-up-secession-division-and-the-secret-history-of-americas-imperfect-union-9780316510608","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}