Our Suffering Brethren

"The scholarship in this book is very sound and up-to-date, and the author is clearly aware of, and conversant with, several different bodies of scholarship that bear on this topic."—Todd Estes, author of The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of Early American Political Culture

"Our Suffering Brethren deserves to be read by early Americanists and their students. Dzurec makes a compelling case for the development of American identity through foreign captivity and how Americans crafted their relationship with and understanding of their government."—Ricardo A. Herrera, author of For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775–1861

"Well researched, this book is appropriate for those looking to better understand how the origins of US foreign policy developed."—CHOICE

"Our Suffering Brethren sheds much-needed additional light on one of the many mechanisms by which American political culture became more broadly inclusive across the early nineteenth century. This book also further establishes the close connection between events overseas and national development at home in the United States."—New England Quarterly

"Contribute[s] to our understanding of foreign policy in the early republic and the emergence of American national identity as a result of the interactions of the United States across the globe . . . Dzurec demonstrates the way public debates over the treatment of prisoners held abroad helped Americans define themselves in opposition to others. "—William and Mary Quarterly

"We might understand Our Suffering Brethren as contributing not only to the transnational studies and histories of US nationalism that Dzurec explicitly engages, but also to current work in affect theory and the politics of emotion."—Early American Literature

"[A] coherent and comprehensive work that bridges the rich bodies of scholarship on the public sphere during the early American republic and on various types of captivity experienced by Americans from 1776 to 1816. Through newspapers, personal accounts and memoirs, pamphlets, and poetry, Dzurec explores the experiences of American captives and the many anxieties—real and performative—that American citizens harbored . . ."—American Historical Review