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amerIcaN HIStory IN a global age 1 JoHaNN N. Neem Without common ideas, there is no common action, and without common action, men may still exist, but they will not constitute a social body. 2 -alexis de tocqueville abStract Historians around the world have sought to move beyond national history. In doing so, they often conflate ethical and methodological arguments against national history. This essay, first, draws a clear line between the ethical and the methodological arguments concerning national history. It then offers a rationale for the continued writing of national history in general, and american history in particular, in today's global age. the essay makes two main points. First, it argues that nationalism, and thus the national histories that sustain national identities, are vital to liberal democratic societies because they ensure the social bonds necessary to enable democratic citizens to sacrifice their immediate interests for the common good. the essay then argues that new methodological and historical work on the history of nations and nationalism has proven that nations are as real as any other historical group. rejecting national history on critics' terms would require rejecting the history of all groups. Instead, new methods of studying nations and nationalism have reinforced rather than undermined the legitimacy of national history within the discipline.

This article explores the origins of the nonprofit corporation following American independence. Corporations had long been considered state agencies responsible to and under the control of state leaders. Both Federalists and Republicans believed that corporate trustees were political officeholders. Only in the face of intense partisan and religious conflict did they change their minds. By examining debates over the legal status of colleges and churches, this article explains how party politics and religious pluralism convinced leaders in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to distinguish between nonprofit corporations and the state. These debates culminated in the United States Supreme Court case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. The court ruled that private corporations were protected from state control. The decision provided the legal foundation for the subsequent development of the nonprofit corporation and civil society in the United States.

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During the early years of the American republic, Connecticut's elite helped to develop a new form of social order, based on voluntary association, replacing the authoritarian, theological hierarchy of the old regime. Social relations, which were once thought fixed in nature by divine sanction, became amenable to the initiatives of the populace. By the antebellum era, Americans had also discovered that social capital could be created through the ordinary activities of people engaged in civil society.

Thomas Jefferson is often invoked as an advocate of limited government and a defender of individual rights. This article argues that rights were Jefferson's starting place. Jefferson also believed that American citizens should have opportunities to develop the capabilities necessary to enjoy the full use of their rights. Rather than thinking about Jefferson as progovernment or antigovernment, this article concludes that we must understand the particular kind of government Jefferson desired, the ends he had in mind, and why and how those ends differed from his Federalist predecessors. A better understanding of Jefferson's statecraft not only offers a new perspective on the relationship between government and rights in Jefferson's thought but also how and why Jeffersonians in power used the state to promote individual freedom.

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