Description
Book SynopsisRevised and updated, this long-awaited second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to what the most thoughtful Americans have said about the American experience from the colonial period to the present. The book examines the political thought of the most important American statesmen, activists, and writers across era and ideologies, helping another generation of students, scholars, and citizens to understand more fully the meaning of America. This new second edition of the book includes chapters on several additional historical figures, including Walt Whitman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, as well as a new chapter on Barack Obama, who was not prominent in public life when the first edition was published. Significant revisions and additions have also been made to many of the original chapters, most notably on Antonin Scalia, which now updates his full legacy, increasing the breadth and depth of the collection.
Trade ReviewHistory of American Political Thought is a feast for the mind, a first-rate collection of essays by first-rate scholars. Reaching wide and deep, it brims with insights about the philosophers, poets, novelists. activists, jurists, and political leaders who contributed to the intellectual life of this nation. Rigorous yet readable, this book is bound to become a standard reference about the ideas that undergird American politics. It will be a valuable resource for students and scholars, indeed for anyone with a serious interest in serious political questions. -- John J. Pitney Jr., Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics, Claremont McKenna College
Featuring erudite essays of the highest order, this superb collection highlights the richness of the American political tradition, with leading scholars engaging America’s greatest and most important thinkers, jurists, and statesmen. Frost and Sikkenga’s History of American Political Thought is by far the best and most comprehensive volume of its kind, and its updated 2nd edition will no doubt continue to an essential resource for students and researchers. -- Patrick Cain, Lakehead University
This comprehensively encyclopedic set of lively and insightful essays, having become a minor classic over the past fifteen years, is here updated and enlarged in ways that make it an even more essential supplement to all teaching and study of the whole of American political thought. -- Thomas L. Pangle, University of Texas at Austin
This multi authored volume, edited by Frost and Sikkenga, is ‘the best fit’ for how I prefer to approach the study of American political thought in an academic course. In their essays, each author expounds the philosophical orientations and elucidates the main tenets of their notable subject with thoroughly proficient analyses that read much like a high quality narrative. The reader benefits by being shown the important connections between the political ideas of numerous significant figures and the various “isms” that cross the spectrum of political ideology. This new edition gives added value by including extra chapters on the political philosophy of presidents Lyndon Baines Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama. -- Troy Goodale, Tusculum University
This excellent collection has always been the most useful and reliable guide to American political thinkers. Its impressive range has been extended further with new entries on Walt Whitman, LBJ, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. In addition, every chapter of the original edition whose author is still alive has been revised and updated, though all of high quality to begin with. The volume has thus succeeded admirably at rendering its first edition obsolete. What were the visions of America that informed not only the Washingtons and Lincolns but the Elizabeth Cady Stantons and William Graham Sumners? Now you’ll know. -- Clifford Orwin, University of Toronto
Bryan-Paul Frost and Jeffrey Sikkenga are to be congratulated for putting together the most thoughtful, comprehensive, and accessible collection on American political thought ever assembled. This volume is a significant improvement over an already wonderful first edition. One learns what the most serious and gifted American Founders, statesmen, writers, jurists, diplomats, publicists, and citizens have thought about what it means to be an American. Here one confronts unity and diversity and the great debates about liberty and equality, religion and politics, the role of the courts, as well as America's role in the world. A feast for reflective citizens and inquiring scholars alike. -- Daniel J. Mahoney, Assumption College
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop Part One: From Colony To Nation (1608–1776) Ch. 1 John Winthrop, John Cotton, and Nathaniel Niles: The Basic Principles of Puritan Political Thought Michael J. Rosano Ch. 2 Thomas Hutchinson and James Otis on Sovereignty, Obedience, and Rebellion Howard L. Lubert Ch. 3 Thomas Paine: The American Radical John C. Koritansky Ch. 4 Benjamin Franklin: A Model American and an American Model Steven Forde Part Two: The New Republic (1776–1820) Ch. 5 Liberty, Constitutionalism, and Moderation: George Washington’s Harmonizing of Traditions Paul O. Carrese Ch. 6 John Adams and the Republic of Laws Richard Samuelson Ch. 7 Legitimate Government, Religion, and Education: The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson Aristide Tessitore Ch. 8 The Political Science of James Madison Michael P. Zuckert Ch. 9 Alexander Hamilton on the Grand Strategy of Free Government Karl-Friedrich Walling Ch. 10America’s Modernity: James Wilson on Natural Law and Natural Rights Eduardo A. Velásquez Ch. 11Anti-Federalist Political Thought: Brutus and The Federal Farmer Murray Dry Ch. 12The New Constitutionalism of Publius James R. Stoner, Jr. Ch. 13Union, Constitutionalism, and the Judicial Defense of Rights: John Marshall Matthew J. Franck Part Three: A Divided Nation (1820–1865) Ch. 14John Quincy Adams on Principle and Practice David Tucker Ch.15Union and Liberty: The Political Thought of Daniel Webster Sean Mattie Ch. 16Henry Clay and the Statesmanship of Compromise Kimberly C. Shankman Ch. 17 For Constitution and Country? John C. Calhoun, American Politics, and the Union George D. Alecusan Ch. 18The Art of the Judge: Justice Joseph Story and the Founders’ Constitution Peter Schotten Ch. 19James Fenimore Cooper: Nature and Nature’s God John E. Alvis Ch.20Religion, Nature, and Disobedience in the Thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau Bryan-Paul Frost Ch.21“Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land”: Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and the Abolition of Slavery Richard S. Ruderman Ch. 22Abraham Lincoln: The Moderation of a Democratic Statesman Steven Kautz Part Four: Growth of an Empire (1865–1945) Ch.23 Walt Whitman and Politics by Other Means Peter S. Field Ch. 24Feminism as an American Project: The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton Melissa S. Williams Ch. 25Mark Twain on the American Character David Foster Ch. 26Pricking the Bubble of Utopian Sentiment: The Political Thought of William Graham Sumner Lance Robinson Ch. 27Booker T. Washington and the “Severe American Crucible” Peter W. Schramm Ch. 28Co-workers in the Kingdom of Culture: W. E. B. Du Bois’s Vision of Race Synthesis Jonathan Marks C. 29Henry Adams and Our Ancient Faith Christopher Flannery Ch. 30Jane Addams as Civic Theorist: Struggling to Reconcile Competing Claims Jean Bethke Elshtain Ch. 31Herbert Croly’s Progressive “Liberalism” Thomas S. Engeman Ch. 32Theodore Roosevelt and the Stewardship of the American Presidency Jean M. Yarbrough Ch. 33Woodrow Wilson, the Organic State, and American Republicanism Ronald J. Pestritto Ch. 34The Making of the Modern Supreme Court: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Louis D. Brandeis David F. Forte Ch. 35John Dewey’s Alternative Liberalism David Fott Ch. 36Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Second Bill of Rights Donald R. Brand Part Five: New Challenges at Home and Abroad (1945–present) Ch. 37Ayn Rand: Radical for Capitalism William R. Thomas Ch. 38Walker Percy’s American Thomism Peter Augustine Lawler Ch. 39Russell Kirk’s Anglo-American Conservatism James McClellan Ch. 40The Two Revolutions of Martin Luther King, Jr. Peter C. Myers Ch. 41Malcolm X: From Apolitical Acolyte to Political Preacher Lucas E. Morel Ch. 42Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem: The Popular Transformation of American Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century Natalie Fuehrer Taylor and Daryl McGowan Tress Ch. 43“The Secret Heart of America”: Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Bold Synthesis of American Thought Daniel T. Carrigg and James A. Morone Ch. 44John Rawls’s “Democratic” Theory of Justice David Lewis Schaefer Ch. 45Henry Kissinger: The Challenge of Statesmanship in Liberal Democracy Peter Josephson Ch. 46Irving Kristol and the Reinvigoration of Bourgeois Republicanism Laurence D. Cooper Ch. 47The Jurisprudence of William Joseph Brennan, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall Bradley C. S. Watson Ch. 48Ronald Reagan: Statesman and Original Political Thinker Steven F. Hayward Ch. 49The Textualist Jurisprudence of Antonin Scalia Ralph A. Rossum Ch. 50“Yes, We Can”: The Progressive Political Thought of Barack Obama Jeffrey Sikkenga Index About the Contributors
