| Abstract |
"This book presents the first English translation of News on the Present State of the Republic of America by Fr Giovanni Antonio Grassi, the ninth president of Georgetown. First published in Italian in 1818, News went through three editions and gave its Italian readership a view of the early American republic, especially of the situation of Catholics in the United States. Born in Italy in 1775, Giovanni Antonio Grassi entered the Society of Jesus in 1799, and arrived in Baltimore in October of 1810. In 1811 he was appointed president of Georgetown College. He wrote that he was "in a melanchology situation, compelled to be a sorrowful specator to the miserable state of the college." Nevertheless, his tenure was one of achievement: he steered the college through the war of 1812, open the school to non-Catholics, and expanded the library. In 1815 the US Congress awarded Georgetown the authority to grant degrees. In 1817 Grassi returned to Italy and published News the following year. The book is a fascinating series of impressions of the young United States, interesting both as an example of European views of the US, as well as a glimpse into the life of Catholics in the early republic. It appears here for the first time in English, with an afteword by the eminent Georgetown historian Robert Emmett Curran"-- Provided by publisher. |
