![]() ![]() Together, they question the nature of the archive, the boundaries of American history, and the foundations of modern mores and institutions. ![]() What they all share, however, is their success in moving the field of early American history away from its parochial city-on-a-hill and Founding Fathers roots. Their methodological approaches range from social history to theory-infused analysis to biography to a focus on macro-level political economy. These works are set across a wide geography: New England, Barbados, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. And Honor Sachs analyzes the impact of masculinity on localized nation building. Jen Manion adds a sexuality studies critique to traditional social history readings of archives. Fuentes constructs a history of the impact of violence and power not just on enslaved women, but on entire historical methodologies. ![]() Rachel Hope Cleves pens a contextualized biography of two women who joined their lives together. In the interest of portraying some of the new directions of scholarship, they kindly allowed me to write about four books that may not seem obviously comparable. When the Journal of Women’s History editors first suggested a review essay on early American women’s history, we had a discussion about the state of the field. ![]()
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