nationalism A strong feeling of devotion and loyalty toward one nation over others. Nationalism encourages the promotion of the nation’s common culture, language, and customs. (pp. 947, 972, 973)
nativism Bias against immigrants and in favor of native-born inhabitants. American nativists especially favor persons who come from white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant lines over those from other racial, ethnic, and religious heritages. Nativists may include former immigrants who view new immigrants as incapable of assimilation. Many nativists, such as members of the Know-Nothing Party in the nineteenth century and the Ku Klux Klan through the contemporary period, voice anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic sentiments. (pp. 439, 680)
Navigation Acts British acts of 1650, 1651, and 1660 that, together with a 1663 law (the Staple Act), set forth three fundamental regulations governing colonial trade. First, all colonial goods imported into England had to be transported on English ships using primarily English crews. Second, specific colonial products could be shipped only to England or to other English colonies. Third, all goods imported into the colonies had to pass through England. The 1660 Navigation Act assessed an explicit import tax of two pence on every pound of colonial tobacco; these tobacco taxes yielded about a quarter of all English customs revenues in the 1660s. The Navigation Acts fueled tension between the colonies and the monarchy in the century leading up to the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). (pp. 77, 112, 168)
New Deal The group of social and economic programs that President Franklin Roosevelt developed to provide relief for the needy, speed economic recovery, and reform economic and government institutions. The New Deal was a massive effort to bring the United States out of the Great Depression and ensure its future prosperity. (pp. 786, 790, 791, 792, 795, 801, 809, 810)
New Right Politically active religious conservatives who became particularly vocal in the 1980s. The New Right criticized feminism, opposed abortion and homosexuality, and promoted “family values” and military preparedness. (p. 1012)
New South A vision of the South, promoted after the Civil War by Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, that urged the South to abandon its dependence on agriculture and use its cheap labor and natural resources to compete with northern industry. Many Southerners migrated from farms to cities in the late nineteenth century, and Northerners and foreigners invested a significant amount of capital in railroads, cotton and textiles, mining, lumber, iron, steel, and tobacco in the region. (pp. 587–588)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) A post–World War II alliance that joined the United States, Canada, and Western European nations into a military coalition designed to counter the Soviet Union’s efforts to expand. Each NATO member pledged to go to war if any member was attacked. Since the end of the cold war, NATO has been expanding to include the formerly Communist countries of Eastern Europe. (pp. 864, 867, 1046)
nullification The idea that states can disregard federal laws when those laws represent an overstepping of congressional powers. The controversial idea was first proposed by opponents of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and later by South Carolina politicians in 1828 as a response to the Tariff of Abominations. (pp. 337, 432)