Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty

Benjamin H. Irvin offers an innovative and comprehensive view in this kaleidoscopic yet well-organized and clearly argued book. --The Historian Benjamin H. Irvin has written a superb history of the Continental Congress and its place in revolutionary Philadelphia...Irvin writes with a wit and ease that distinguish his study of the Continental and Confederation Congresses from previous histories of congressional policy. --William and Mary Quarterly In recounting and analyzing the attempts by Congress to articulate the meanings of the Revolution through artifacts and ceremonies of state, [Irvin] deeply enriches our understanding not only of the Continental Congress and the Revolution but also more generally of late eighteenth-century political culture. --Journal of American History [An] informative book...Within Irvin's enjoyable book, [readers] will learn a great deal about how the leaders of a modern republic established, maintained, and fumbled the emblems of national identity. --American Historical Review Writing lucidly about traditions being invented in the form of adapted ceremonies with newly devised symbols-in words, in imagery, and in striking dramaturgic enactments-Benjamin Irvin makes a clear contribution to the semiotics of civic culture and the emergence of proto-national identity in the Revolutionary period. In this fine, illuminating narrative, Irvin traces the endeavors of successive Continental and Confederate Congresses to fashion and sustain legitimacy for themselves, and so to create an identity for the nascent new nation they professed to represent. -Rhys Isaac, LaTrobe University A new and valuable contribution to our deepening understanding of the iconic and nation-creating nature of the American Revolution. -Gordon Wood, author of Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 Benjamin Irvin deftly blends cultural and political history in an original account of the Continental Congress's fumbling, often desperate attempts to maintain its symbolic authority during the American Revolution. -T.H. Breen, author of American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People Benjamin Irvin has written a lively and richly detailed account of struggles at the centers of power and in the streets to define a national character and conceptualize a citizenry out of the fragmented chaos of Americans war for independence. Although Congress failed to forge a unified national identity with its invented symbols and rituals, Irvin reveals, it inadvertently conferred on wide layers of Americans the vocabulary and material culture to articulate tangible alternative perspectives about membership in the fragile new nation. Cathy Matson, University of Delaware Benjamin H. Irvin offers an innovative and comprehensive view in this kaleidoscopic yet well-organized and clearly argued book. --The Historian Benjamin H. Irvin has written a superb history of the Continental Congress and its place in revolutionary Philadelphia...Irvin writes with a wit and ease that distinguish his study of the Continental and Confederation Congresses from previous histories of congressional policy. --William and Mary Quarterly In recounting and analyzing the attempts by Congress to articulate the meanings of the Revolution through artifacts and ceremonies of state, [Irvin] deeply enriches our understanding not only of the Continental Congress and the Revolution but also more generally of late eighteenth-century political culture. --Journal of American History [An] informative book...Within Irvin's enjoyable book, [readers] will learn a great deal about how the leaders of a modern republic established, maintained, and fumbled the emblems of national identity. --American Historical Review Writing lucidly about traditions being invented in the form of adapted ceremonies with newly devised symbols-in words, in imagery, and in striking dramaturgic enactments-Benjamin Irvin makes a clear contribution to the semiotics of civic culture and the emergence of proto-national identity in the Revolutionary period. In this fine, illuminating narrative, Irvin traces the endeavors of successive Continental and Confederate Congresses to fashion and sustain legitimacy for themselves, and so to create an identity for the nascent new nation they professed to represent. -Rhys Isaac, LaTrobe University A new and valuable contribution to our deepening understanding of the iconic and nation-creating nature of the American Revolution. -Gordon Wood, author of Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 Benjamin Irvin deftly blends cultural and political history in an original account of the Continental Congress's fumbling, often desperate attempts to maintain its symbolic authority during the American Revolution. -T.H. Breen, author of American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People Benjamin Irvin has written a lively and richly detailed account of struggles at the centers of power and in the streets to define a national character and conceptualize a citizenry out of the fragmented chaos of Americans war for independence. Although Congress failed to forge a unified national identity with its invented symbols and rituals, Irvin reveals, it inadvertently conferred on wide layers of Americans the vocabulary and material culture to articulate tangible alternative perspectives about membership in the fragile new nation. Cathy Matson, University of Delaware