"selffashioning" - 1 õppematerjal

American Literature

texts, which fuse ProtestantChristian and Enlightenment values. According to the textbooks, the Puritans came to the New World to establish religious freedom, and American civil liberties are a uniquely Protestant idea. The doctrine of Free Trade became part of the narrative, semantically shifting words like "freedom" to connote the marketplace rather than the social arena. By the end of the century the energies of 19thcentury evangelical outreach crossed over into U.S. national selffashioning, and history texts positioned the Founding Fathers as directors of a divinely mandated mission to spread American civilization around the globe. The contradiction lay in the fact that although the narrative indicated that it was America's duty to help other nations gain freedom from oppressive colonial powers, it also suggested that only people of AngloSaxon descent were capable of fully enacting modern civilization