William Cooper's Town

William Cooper and James Fenimore Cooper a father and son who embodied the contradictions that divided America in the early years of the Republic are brought to life in this Pulitzer Prize-winning book. & 160; William Cooper rose from humble origins to become a wealthy land speculator and U. S. congressman in what had until lately been the wilderness of upstate New York but his high-handed style of governing resulted in his fall from power and political disgrace. & 160; His son James Fenimore Cooper became one of this country’s first popular novelists with a book The Pioneers that tried to come to terms with his father’s failure and imaginatively reclaim the estate he had lost. & 160; In William Cooper’s Town Alan Taylor dramatizes the class between gentility and democracy that was one of the principal consequences of the American Revolution a struggle that was waged both at the polls and on the pages of our national literature. & 160; Taylor shows how Americans resolved their revolution through the creation of new social reforms and new stories that evolved with the expansion of our frontier. Language: English