Description
Book SynopsisThrough the journeys of four foreign visitors - Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, G. K. Chesterton and Sayyid Qutb - this book provides an intriguing perspective on America. It will be used in advanced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars dealing with foreign intellectuals' observations of America, American studies, political science, and sociology.
Trade Review'Tocqueville strikingly observed that Americans live in 'perpetual adoration' of themselves and that 'only foreigners or experience can make certain truths reach their ears.' These remarks, quoted at the beginning of James Nolan's impressive work on the most reflective foreign observers of American democracy, provide the point of departure for a fascinating study.' Daniel J. Mahoney, City Journal
'James Nolan, Jr, a distinguished sociologist at Williams College, has written an extremely illuminating report on the judgments of four distinguished visitors to the United States … What They Saw in America is an indispensable tool for thoughtful Americans and their visitors.' David P. Deavel, Gilbert
'The assembled experiences and viewpoints of these scholars compose an attractive description of the New World, provided with words of admiration and hints of irony … an enjoyable piece of reading, a very good book.' Simonetta Piccone Stella, Sociologica
'The perspective of certain astute foreigners is the great virtue of James Nolan's absorbing book … the hard look in the mirror Nolan's book offers us is a very timely gift.' Charles J. Chaput, First Things
'Is America any longer a nation with good character? This fraught political question, striking at the heart of culture and identity, receives provocative yet judicious attention from James L. Nolan, Jr. in What They Saw in America, a new study of four of the most famous foreign critics of the United States … Nolan's searching analysis raises many pressing questions …' James Poulos, Law & Liberty Book Reviews (www.lawliberty.org)
Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Pride, patriotism, and the mercantilist spirit: Tocqueville and Beaumont discover America; 3. Tocqueville and the quandary of American democracy; 4. Agrarianism, race, and the end of romanticism: Weber in early twentieth-century America; 5. Weber on sects, schools, and the spirit of capitalism; 6. A new Martin Chuzzlewit: Chesterton on main street; 7. Chestertonian distributism and the democratic ideal; 8. From Musha to New York: Qutb encounters American jahiliyya; 9. Qutb's 'inquiring eyes' in Colorado and California; 10. Conclusion.
