Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture by Brit Rusert (review)
As a result of the restrictive 1797–98 Alien and Sedition Acts, the sixth chapter and conclusion reveal, the five émigrés felt that America was moving away from France in favor of Great Britain and consequently returned to their homeland. Furstenberg maintains that foreign minister Talleyrand, who never forgot his favorable experiences in Philadelphia, convinced Napoleon in 1803 to consent to the terms of the Louisiana Purchase, which enabled America to acquire New Orleans and massive amounts of land in the American West. This work has much to recommend it. The book is elegantly written and is based especially on primary sources in Philadelphia and Paris. Furstenberg effectively explains his theses and reveals much about late eighteenthcentury Philadelphia and the revolutionary Franco-American Atlantic world. This detailed and well-organized work, which contains a splendid appendix, illustrations, and detailed endnotes, breaks new ground and will be recognized as the classic study in the field.