A revealing history of the formative period when voices of dissent and innovation defied power and created visions of America still resonant today.

The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the expansion of slavery, Native dispossession, and wars with Canada and Mexico. Mass immigration and powerful religious movements sent tremors through American society. Even as the powerful defended the status quo, others defied voices from the margins moved the center; eccentric visions altered the accepted wisdom, and acts of empathy questioned self-interest. Ayers examines the visions that moved Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, the Native American activist William Apess, and others to challenge entrenched practices and beliefs. He shows that the years from 1800 to 1860 was a period when bold visionaries and critics built vigorous traditions of dissent and innovation into the foundation of the nation. Those traditions remain alive for us today. -- adapted from jacket