Arguing that American colonists who declared their independence in 1776 remained tied to England by both habit and inclination, Clark traces the new Americans' struggle to come to terms with their loss of identity as British, and particularly English, citizens. Clark's study shows that any attempt to examine what it meant to be American in the New Nation must be situated within the context of the Anglo-American relationship.

Contents: Introduction; 'The Britainism of our great men!': Anglophilia, political writing and the political context of American writing; The history of John Bull: allegorical writing, 1774-1835; The War of 1812: the idea of England and American nationalism; The paper war: Anglo-American recrimination and retaliation; Far hills look green: travel writing; '[F]air, but different': England and the English in the American literary imagination, Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Jennifer Clark is Academic Director for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and a member of the School of Humanities at the University of New England, Australia, where she teaches American and Australian History. She is the author of Aborigines and Activism: Race, Aborigines and the Coming of the Sixties to Australia (2008).