Bøger i American Political Thought serien

Since the early days of the republic, Americans have recognized Thomas Jefferson''s distinctive role in helping to shape the American national character. As Founder and statesman, Jefferson thought broadly about the virtues Americans would need to cultivate in order to preserve and perfect their experiment in republican self-government. Now in an age preoccupied with rights and divided over questons of character in public and private life, Jefferson can help us to think more clearly about our most urgent concerns.American Virtues is the first comprehensive analysis of Jefferson''s moral and political philosophy in over twenty years and the first ever to focus exclusively on the full range of moral, civic, and intellectual virtues that together form the American character. It asks what kind of character Americans as a people must cultivate to ensure their freedom and happiness and how we as a free society can nurture moral and intellectual excellence in our citizens and statesmen.Beginning with the Declaration of Independence, Jean Yarbrough explores how Jefferson''s conception of rights helps to form the American character. In subsequent chapters, she examines the moral sense virtues of justice and benevolence; the "agrarian" virtues of industry, moderation, patience, self-reliance, and independence; patriotism and modern republicanism; slavery and agrarian vice; the effect of commerce on character; the virtues connected with private property; the civic virtues of vigilance and spirited participation; the meaning of virtue and happiness for women; the virtues of republican statesmen; the place of the Epicurean virtues of wisdom and friendship in liberal republicanism; and piety and the secularized virtues of charity, toleration, and hope.In broadening the examination of virtue to include not only civic or republican virtue but the whole range of moral and intellectual excellences that perfect the individual character, American Virtues moves beyond the liberal-republican debates and makes a fresh contribution to the Jeffersonian literature.

This study of the political philosophers, Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss, provides a comprehensive comparison of their thought and its influence on contemporary American conservatism.

William James is rarely considered a political theorist, but Miller argues that political concerns were central to his intellectual work. Highlighting James' view of the ""democratic temperament"", he shows how the psychologist's views apply to the possibility of reviving democracy in our era.

Offers an understanding of George Washington and the history and government he helped to make. Phelps makes the case for the President's decisive importance to the development of American constitutional republicanism, emphasising the strength and coherence of his political philosophy.

What makes the American Constitution a paramount law, one that supersedes the laws passed by Congress and state legislatures? This book sets out to recover the enduring principles, purposes and meanings that inform the founders' charter and continue to offer political guidance today.

Much of the world today views America as an imperialist nation bent on global military, economic, and cultural domination. At home few share this negative view. Bob Pepperman Taylor, however, argues that US moral self-righteousness may potentially imperil democratic ideals and threaten democracy.

An examination of the political thought of John Adams. The author seeks to reconstruct the contours and influences of Adams's mental universe, the ideas he challenged, the problems he considered central to constitution-making, and the methods of his reasoning.

From the Revolution to the Age of Jackson, John Marshall played a crucial role in defining the ""province of the judiciary"" and the constitutional limits of legislative action. This book clarifies the coherence of Marshall's jurisprudence, while keeping in sight the man as well as the jurist.

Examines the Republicans' ideological struggle, focusing on how party thought - particularly concerning the concept of republicanism - determined the contours of their efforts and was in turn shaped by it. This book focuses on what they thought about their actions, particularly their beliefs about the meaning and nature of the American Republic.

A conversation about war and freedom between founder Alexander Hamilton and the Loyalists, Anti-Federalists, Jeffersonians and other Federalists. Instead of pitting Hamilton's virtues against his opponents' vices, it pits his virtue of responsibility against the revolutionary virtue of vigilance.

Surveys more than 100 theories of community, taken from political, sociological, philosophical and theological thought, and backed by a bibliography of over 300 entries. Fowler proposes the idea of existential community as an alternative to liberalism and the standard communitarian ideal.

In ""A Preface to American Political Theory"" the author sets out to emancipate American political theorists from empiricism and inappropriate European theories and methodologies. He argues for clarification of the core of American political theory and its attendant methodologies.

A sequel to ""Peace Pact"", in which the author identified a 'unionist paradigm' that defined America's political understanding in 1787, this book examines how that paradigm was transformed under the impact of the great wars that followed. It challenges accepted interpretations of America's role in the world.

For Frederick Douglass, the iconic 19th-century slave and abolitionist, the foundations for his arguments in support of racial equality rested on natural rights and natural law. This title examines the philosophic core of Douglass' political thought, offering an understanding of its depth and coherence.

Were America's Founders Christians or deists? Conservatives and secularists have taken each position respectively, mustering evidence to insist just how tall the wall separating church and state should be. Now Gregg Frazer puts their arguments to rest in the first comprehensive analysis of the Founders' beliefs as they themselves expressed them - showing that today's political right and left are both wrong.

John C Calhoun may be best known for his stature in the US Senate and his controversial defense of slavery, but he is also a key figure in American political thought. This book sheds light on the crisis leading up to the Civil War by exploring Calhoun's conviction that his uncompromising defense of slavery would help preserve the Union.