Pulitzer Prize History Winner
William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic
by Alan Taylor
Summary
Taylor follows William Cooper, the frontier land developer and father of novelist James Fenimore Cooper, as he built a settlement and a fortune in upstate New York after the Revolution. The book explores how a self made man pursued gentility and political authority in a raw democratic society that resisted deference. Through the Cooper family it examines class, ambition, and the contest over who would lead the new republic.
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Historical Context & Significance
Alan Taylor won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for History, and the book also received the Bancroft Prize that year.