Character in the American Experience

Bruce P. Frohnen is professor of Law at the Ohio Northern University College of Law and Senior Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.Ted V. McAllister is the Edward L. Gaylord Chair and professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine School of Public Policy.

In Character in the American Experience: An Unruly People, Frohnen and McAllister plumb the American past to uncover the dispositions, habits, folkways, and institutions that have bound a people characterized by intense cultural, regional, and local differences. The burden of this remarkably readable and jargon free book is to disclose the unique ways such a diverse country have learned to cooperate and agree on matters of vital public interest and to disagree without rancor and division when consensus was unavoidable. For all those concerned about the forces dividing the country, and the means for containing those forces, this book is an essential must read.

• Introduction: Self, Character, and PeopleChapter 1: Unruly PilgrimsChapter 2: The Roots of American CultureChapter 3: SlaveryChapter 4: A Plural Nation: American Liberties and the Birth of a PeopleChapter 5: Conflict, Law, and RevolutionChapter 6: The Constitutional ConversationChapter 7: Cane Ridge and the New Protestant ConsensusChapter 8: “The Democracy” and Its LimitsChapter 9: Changing Circumstances, Abiding CharacterChapter 10: American Women and the Power of Self-SacrificeChapter 11: Civil War: The Deals that FailedChapter 12: Aftermath: Salvaging the Deal, or Replacing It?Chapter 13: The WestChapter 14: Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day, but Oklahoma City WasChapter 15: The Pursuit of ConsolidationChapter 16: Wall Street vs. Main Street: The Early Years. Or, from Populism to ProgressivismChapter 17: A Generation of ChangeChapter 18: A Changed GenerationChapter 19: Civil Rights and the Anti-Discrimination StateChapter 20: Radical Origins and IdealsChapter 21: Conflict