American Social and Political Thought : A Reader

by Hess, Andreas

• ISBN13: 9780814736579
• ISBN10: 0814736572
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.This reader provides substantial extracts from the core texts in the field of American social and political thought. It demonstrates the rich intellectual tradition of the United States, giving an unparalleled understanding of American society and politics through the reproduction of key writings from a wide variety of thinkers.The first part covers the core traditions of American social and political thought--American Exceptionalism, Political Theology, Republicanism, Liberalism, and Pragmatism. In the second part, texts have been selected to demonstrate the ways in which these traditions have been applied to a broad range of issues and conditions.Exceptionally well-written and jargon-free, with helpful introductions and selections from Frederick Jackson Turner, Max Weber, Michael Sandel, John Rawls, C. Wright Mills, Sheldon Wolin, Judith N. Shklar, bell hooks, Michael Walzer and Richard Rorty, among others, American Social and Political Thought will be the core text in the field.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction	1	(4)
General Section	5	(10)
Reconstructing America -- The Symbol of America in Modern Thought	6	(3)
James W. Ceaser
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life	9	(6)
Richard Hofstadter
PART I THINKING THE POLITICAL: THE MAIN MODES AND TRADITIONS OF AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT
Section 1: Exceptionalism	15	(30)
Letters from an American Farmer	18	(4)
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
The Frontier in American History	22	(3)
Frederick Jackson Turner
The Influence of Sea Power upon History	25	(4)
Alfred Thayer Mahan
The Rights of Man	29	(4)
Thomas Paine
Democracy in America	33	(6)
Alexis de Tocqueville
American Exceptionalism -- A Double-Edged Sword	39	(6)
Seymour Martin Lipset
Section 2: Political Theology	45	(52)
The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism	47	(7)
Max Weber
Democracy in America	54	(7)
Alexis de Tocqueville
The Age of Reason	61	(2)
Thomas Paine
Letter to Dr Benjamin Rush	63	(3)
Thomas Jefferson
The Boundaries of Democracy	66	(10)
Judith N. Shklar
The New England Mind -- From Colony to Province	76	(4)
Perry Miller
The American Jeremiad	80	(9)
Sacvan Bercovitch
Protestant -- Catholic -- Jew	89	(8)
Will Herberg
Section 3: Republicanism	97	(56)
The Machiavellian Moment -- Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition	99	(14)
John G. A. Pocock
Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination	113	(6)
Joyce Appleby
On Revolution	119	(7)
Hannah Arendt
The Federalist Papers	126	(9)
James Madison
Alexander Hamilton
John Jay
Montesquieu and the New Republicanism	135	(6)
Judith N. Shklar
The Compromised Republic	141	(8)
Benjamin Barber
Democracy Without the Citizen	149	(4)
Sheldon S. Wolin
Section 4: Liberalism	153	(46)
The Liberal Tradition in America	155	(7)
Louis Hartz
Reconsidering American Liberalism	162	(9)
James P. Young
Political Liberalism	171	(8)
John Rawls
The Liberalism of Fear	179	(8)
Judith N. Shklar
Passions and Constraint -- On the Theory of Liberal Democracy	187	(12)
Stephen Holmes
Section 5: Pragmatism	199	(38)
Two Essays: The American Scholar and The Young American	201	(3)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What Pragmatism Means	204	(4)
William James
The Public and its Problems	208	(7)
John Dewey
The Power Elite	215	(7)
C. Wright Mills
The American Evasion of Democracy	222	(5)
Cornel West
The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy	227	(10)
Richard Rorty
PART II THINKING THE SOCIAL: MODERN APPLICATIONS OF AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT
Section 1: Democracy and Power	237	(48)
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy	239	(5)
Barrington Moore
The Power Elite	244	(6)
C. Wright Mills
A Preface to Democratic Theory	250	(2)
Robert A. Dahl
Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City	252	(4)
Robert A. Dahl
Democracy and Disagreement	256	(7)
Amy Gutmann
Dennis Thompson
Strong Democracy	263	(7)
Benjamin Barber
Democracy and Capitalism	270	(5)
Samuel Bowles
Herbert Gintis
Habits of the Heart -- Individualism and Commitment in American Life	275	(6)
Robert Bellah
Fugitive Democracy	281	(4)
Sheldon S. Wolin
Section 2: Justice and Injustice	285	(26)
A Theory of Justice	287	(5)
John Rawls
Understanding Rawls	292	(5)
Robert Paul Wolff
Spheres of Justice -- A Defense of Pluralism and Equality	297	(6)
Michael Walzer
Sovereign Virtue -- The Theory and Practice of Equality	303	(3)
Ronald Dworkin
American Citizenship -- The Quest for Inclusion	306	(5)
Judith N. Shklar
Section 3: Pluralism and Multiculturalism	311	(42)
The Color Line Belts the World	313	(2)
W. E. B. Du Bois
We are all Multiculturalists now	315	(5)
Nathan Glazer
Multiculturalism and `The Politics of Recognition'	320	(6)
Charles Taylor
What it Means to be an American	326	(6)
Michael Walzer
Color Conscious	332	(14)
K. Anthony Appiah
killing rage: ending racism	346	(4)
bell hooks
Loose Canons -- Notes on the Cultural Wars	350	(3)
Henry Louis Gates
Section 4: Civil Society, Social Theory and the Task of Intellectuals	353	(48)
Civil Society and Political Theory	355	(7)
Jean L. Cohen
Andrew Arato
The Strange Silence of Political Theory	362	(6)
Jeffrey C. Isaac
Civility and Subversion: the Intellectual in Democratic Society	368	(6)
Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
Antigone's Daughters	374	(5)
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal Thinking	379	(10)
Mary G. Dietz
Gender and Public Access: Women's Politics in 19th-Century America	389	(7)
Mary P. Ryan
Civil Society I, II, III	396	(5)
Jeffrey C. Alexander
Section 5: American Social and Political Thought at the Dawn of the 21st Century	401	(62)
Democracy's Discontent - America in Search of a Public Philosophy	403	(9)
Michael J. Sandel
Fusion Republicanism	412	(5)
Nancy L. Rosenblum
A Defense of Minimalist Liberalism	417	(5)
Richard Rorty
Michael Sandel and Richard Rorty: Two Models of the Republic	422	(4)
Richard Sennett
Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation	426	(16)
Alan Wolfe
Morality and the Social Sciences	442	(4)
Albert O. Hirschman
The Company of Critics	446	(9)
Michael Walzer
Mariners, Renegades and Castaways	455	(8)
C. L. R. James
List of Authors	463	(4)
Index	467