| Previews | The Journal of American History, 92.2

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| Previews | The Journal of American History, 92.2 | The History Cooperative

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Elizabeth Reis explores the changing definitions and perceptions of "hermaphrodites" (now called intersex) from the colonial period to the mid-twentieth century. Over the course of three centuries, most medical observers agreed that true hermaphrodites did not exist in the human species, and that patients with ambiguous reproductive organs were simply cases of "mistaken sex." The stubborn reality of hermaphrodism, however, challenged the ideal polarity of two sexes and raised questions about what it meant to be male or female. Reis describes the changing ways Americans, particularly physicians, have understood and treated nonconforming bodies to uncover the hidden history of intersex and to explain how Americans naturalized the norms of sex and gender.
Revising questions that Charles Beard raised in 1913, Woody Holton offers a new economic interpretation of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. He connects debate about the Constitution with disputes about the political causes of the recession of the 1780s. One line of thought blamed the recession on an excess of democracy, manifested in state legislatures' willingness to forgive debts and taxes. Such policies discouraged investment, proponents of limiting popular rule argued. Critics of this explanation excoriated the high state taxes intended to pay interest to owners of government bonds for discouraging economic effort by artisans and farmers. Holton uses this nearly forgotten labor-based analysis to challenge assumptions that the tumult of the 1780s shows the dangers of democracy.
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