American Intellectual Culture - Böcker

In Species of Origins, Karl W. Giberson and Donald A. Yerxa examine America's controversial conversation about creation and evolution. While noting that part of the discord stems from the growing cultural and religious diversity of the United States, they argue powerfully that the real issue is the headlong confrontation between two seemingly incompatible worldviews upon which millions of Americans rely: modern naturalistic science and traditional Judeo-Christian religions.

In The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, D. G. Hart examines the historical origins of the idea that faith must be socially useful in order to be valuable. Through specific episodes in Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Reformed history, Hart presents a neglected form of Protestantism—confessionalism—as an alternative to prevailing religious theory. He explains that, unlike evangelical and mainline Protestants who emphasize faith's role in solving social and personal problems, confessional Protestants locate Christianity's significance in the creeds, ministry, and rituals of the church. Although critics have accused confessionalism of encouraging social apathy, Hart deftly argues that this form of Protestantism has much to contribute to current discussions on the role of religion in American public life, since confessionalism refuses to confuse the well-being of the nation with that of the church. The history of confessional Protestantism suggests that contrary to the legacy of revivalism, faith may be most vital and influential when less directly relevant to everyday problems, whether personal or social. Clear and engaging, D. G. Hart's groundbreaking study is essential reading for everyone exploring the intersection of religion and daily life.

In The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, D. G. Hart examines the historical origins of the idea that faith must be socially useful in order to be valuable. Through specific episodes in Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Reformed history, Hart presents a neglected form of Protestantism—confessionalism—as an alternative to prevailing religious theory. He explains that, unlike evangelical and mainline Protestants who emphasize faith's role in solving social and personal problems, confessional Protestants locate Christianity's significance in the creeds, ministry, and rituals of the church. Although critics have accused confessionalism of encouraging social apathy, Hart deftly argues that this form of Protestantism has much to contribute to current discussions on the role of religion in American public life, since confessionalism refuses to confuse the well-being of the nation with that of the church. The history of confessional Protestantism suggests that contrary to the legacy of revivalism, faith may be most vital and influential when less directly relevant to everyday problems, whether personal or social. Clear and engaging, D. G. Hart's groundbreaking study is essential reading for everyone exploring the intersection of religion and daily life.

Intellectuals and the American Presidency examines the complex relationships between Presidents and America's intellectuals since 1960. From Arthur Schlesinger's work in John Kennedy's campaign and administration to Daniel Patrick Moynihan's role as the Democrat in the Nixon White House, through Sidney Blumenthal's efforts to secure intellectual support for a scandal-plagued Bill Clinton, every president since 1960 has had to address the question of intellectual support. Using both popular sources and some never before used archived material, Intellectuals and the American Presidency looks at the advisers who served as liaisons to the academic community, the presidents' views of those intellectuals and how they fit in with the presidents' plans. In this bipartisan study, political insider Tevi Troy analyzes how American presidents have used intellectuals to shape their images and advance their agendas.

Americans want it both ways. They are committed to cultural diversity, yet demand an endless variety of cheap consumer goods from a global system that destroys distinct ways of life. Americans have papered over this paradox by embracing the rhetoric of diversity and multiculturalism, hiding the extent to which they have accepted homogenized ways of working and living. In this groundbreaking work, David Steigerwald exposes this paradox and examines how culture, rather than economics or politics, became the framework for understanding human affairs. Steigerwald criticizes contemporary cultural studies and multiculturalism, showing how they lead, not to true understanding and acceptance, but to mass consumption and bureaucratic power. Culture's Vanities moves debate away from the culture wars by examining what culture actually means and how the modern understanding of it can only destroy true diversity.

Woodrow Wilson is best known for his service as the twenty-eighth president of the United States and his influence on American foreign policy in the twentieth century and beyond. Yet Wilson is equally important for his influence on how Americans think about their Constitution and principles of government.Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism highlights Wilson's sharp departure from the traditional principles of American government, most notably the Constitution. Ronald J. Pestritto persuasively argues that Wilson's unfailing criticism places him clearly in line with the Progressives' assault on the original principles of American constitutionalism. Drawing primarily from early writings and speeches that Wilson made during his years as a scholar, Pestritto examines the future president's clear and consistent ideologies that laid the foundation for later actions taken as a public leader.Engaging and thought-provoking, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism gets to the heart of Wilson's political ideologies and brings a fresh perspective to the study of American political development.

Woodrow Wilson is best known for his service as the twenty-eighth president of the United States and his influence on American foreign policy in the twentieth century and beyond. Yet Wilson is equally important for his influence on how Americans think about their Constitution and principles of government.Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism highlights Wilson's sharp departure from the traditional principles of American government, most notably the Constitution. Ronald J. Pestritto persuasively argues that Wilson's unfailing criticism places him clearly in line with the Progressives' assault on the original principles of American constitutionalism. Drawing primarily from early writings and speeches that Wilson made during his years as a scholar, Pestritto examines the future president's clear and consistent ideologies that laid the foundation for later actions taken as a public leader.Engaging and thought-provoking, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism gets to the heart of Wilson's political ideologies and brings a fresh perspective to the study of American political development.

In this remarkable work, Roger Lundin seeks the source of American moral and cultural authority in the shift from nature to experience figured in the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson. While the pragmatic tradition concludes that experience must generate the very light that will lead us out of its own darkness, From Nature to Experience returns to religion for illumination and truth. This is a story of nineteenth-century sources and twenty-first century consequences in which literature, history, philosophy, and theology are joined in order to form a truly original critique of American culture.

Although Lester Frank Ward's accomplishments are not as well known today, he is considered the father of American Sociology and his work profoundly influenced such important thinkers as Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, Edward Ross, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In Apostle of Human Progress, Edward C. Rafferty presents the first full scale intellectual portrait of this important public thinker. Rafferty shows how Ward's thought laid the foundations for the modern administrative state and explores his contributions to twentieth century American liberalism. Ideal for anyone interested in the history of American intellectuals and ideas.

The nine colleges of colonial America confronted the major political currents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while serving as the primary intellectual institutions for Puritanism and the transition to Enlightenment thought. The colleges also confronted the most partisan and divisive cultural movement of the eighteenth century—the Great Awakening. Creating the American Mind is the first book to present a synthetic treatment of the colonial colleges, tracing their role in the intellectual development of early Americans through the Revolution. Distinguished historian J. David Hoeveler focuses on Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, the College of New Jersey (Princeton), King's College (Columbia), the College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania), Queen's College (Rutgers), the College of Rhode Island (Brown), and Dartmouth. Hoeveler pays special attention to the collegiate experience of prominent Americans, including Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison. Written in clear and engaging prose, Creating the American Mind will be of great value to historians and educators interested in rediscovering the institutions that first fostered American intellectual thought.

In this remarkable work, Roger Lundin seeks the source of American moral and cultural authority in the shift from nature to experience figured in the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson. While the pragmatic tradition concludes that experience must generate the very light that will lead us out of its own darkness, From Nature to Experience returns to religion for illumination and truth. This is a story of nineteenth-century sources and twenty-first century consequences in which literature, history, philosophy, and theology are joined in order to form a truly original critique of American culture.

Richard Nixon is hardly remembered for his civil rights policies but there is no denying that, more than any other president, he is responsible for affirmative action. Noting Nixon's hostility towards busing, his political allegiances with segregationists, and the hostility of leading civil rights figures at the time, historians and political scientists have avoided explaining why the origins of modern affirmative action lie in the Nixon era. In this enlightening and original new work, Kevin Yuill combines extensive archival research with a careful analysis of the intellectual climate of the era to examine not only the conditions that made Nixon's policy decisions possible in the 1970s but also what motivated Nixon to act in the way that he did. He argues that in order to fully understand why Nixon embraced affirmative action, one must fully take into account the shifting context of American liberalism in the 1970s. In particular, Yuill contends that although government-enforced affirmative action did not fit into the postwar, growth-oriented liberalism, it emerged as an important regulatory policy blueprint in an era increasingly characterized by diminished horizons for social policy. Nixon's efforts in moving the focus of U.S. race relations from reform to indemnifying damages, Yuill argues, at least equals his contribution to the origins of affirmative action through policy innovations. Controversial and far-reaching, Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action brings fresh research and a much-needed reinterpretation of a crucial yet still enigmatic period, president and policy.

Richard Nixon is hardly remembered for his civil rights policies but there is no denying that, more than any other president, he is responsible for affirmative action. Noting Nixon's hostility towards busing, his political allegiances with segregationists, and the hostility of leading civil rights figures at the time, historians and political scientists have avoided explaining why the origins of modern affirmative action lie in the Nixon era. In this enlightening and original new work, Kevin Yuill combines extensive archival research with a careful analysis of the intellectual climate of the era to examine not only the conditions that made Nixon's policy decisions possible in the 1970s but also what motivated Nixon to act in the way that he did. He argues that in order to fully understand why Nixon embraced affirmative action, one must fully take into account the shifting context of American liberalism in the 1970s. In particular, Yuill contends that although government-enforced affirmative action did not fit into the postwar, growth-oriented liberalism, it emerged as an important regulatory policy blueprint in an era increasingly characterized by diminished horizons for social policy. Nixon's efforts in moving the focus of U.S. race relations from reform to indemnifying damages, Yuill argues, at least equals his contribution to the origins of affirmative action through policy innovations. Controversial and far-reaching, Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action brings fresh research and a much-needed reinterpretation of a crucial yet still enigmatic period, president and policy.

The nine colleges of colonial America confronted the major political currents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while serving as the primary intellectual institutions for Puritanism and the transition to Enlightenment thought. The colleges also confronted the most partisan and divisive cultural movement of the eighteenth century—the Great Awakening. Creating the American Mind is the first book to present a synthetic treatment of the colonial colleges, tracing their role in the intellectual development of early Americans through the Revolution. Distinguished historian J. David Hoeveler focuses on Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, the College of New Jersey (Princeton), King's College (Columbia), the College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania), Queen's College (Rutgers), the College of Rhode Island (Brown), and Dartmouth. Hoeveler pays special attention to the collegiate experience of prominent Americans, including Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison. Written in clear and engaging prose, Creating the American Mind will be of great value to historians and educators interested in rediscovering the institutions that first fostered American intellectual thought.

In this original and highly readable book, Peter S. Field explains how Ralph Waldo Emerson became the first democratic intellectual in American history. By focusing on his public career, Field contends that Emerson was a democrat in two senses: he single-handedly sought to create a vocation equal to his conviction that America represented the democratic promise of the western world; and as importantly, he acted the part of the democrat by attempting to bring culture to all Americans. Utterly disaffected with the self-satisfied Boston Brahmin establishment into which he had been born, he set forth through the nation in order to assume the role of conscience, critic, and gentle exhorter to the people. More poet than philosopher, Emerson demands to be understood as a public intellectual. Peter Field deftly portrays Emerson as he attempted to create himself—as a unique, irenic prophet to the American people.

A scathing criticism of political and sexual correctness, this thought-provoking and powerfully argued book is sure to incite debate among all concerned with the legacy and future of woman's rights.

In A World Made Safe for Differences, Christopher Shannon examines how an anthropological definition of culture shaped the central political and social narratives of the Cold War era. In the middle decades of the twentieth century, American intellectuals understood culture as a "whole way of life" and a "pattern of values" in order to account for and accommodate differences between America and other countries, and within America itself. Shannon locates the ideological origins of current debates about multiculturalism in the pluralist thought of "consensus" liberalism. The emphasis on individualism in contemporary identity politics, Shannon suggests, must be understood as a legacy of the Cold War liberalism of the 1950s rather than the counter-culture radicalism of the 1960s. A World Made Safe for Differences is a highly original and controversial book that will be of great interest to students and scholars of twentieth century American history.

Postmodernism Rightly Understood is a dramatic return to realism—a poetic attempt to attain a true understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the postmodern predicament. Prominent political theorist Peter Augustine Lawler reflects on the flaws of postmodern thought, the futility of pragmatism, and the spiritual emptiness of existentialism. Lawler examines postmodernism by interpreting the writings of five respected and best selling American authors—Francis Fukuyama, Richard Rorty, Allan Bloom, Walker Percy, and Christopher Lasch. Lawler explains why the alternatives available in our time are either a "soulless niceness," which Fukuyama, Rorty, and Bloom described as the result of modern success, or a postmodern moral responsibility that accompanies love in the ruins, as articulated by Percy and Lasch. This is a fresh and compelling look at the crisis of the human soul and intellect accompanied by the onset of postmodernity.

Contrary to popular thought, New Age spirituality did not suddenly appear in American life in the 1970s and '80s. In American Feminism and the Birth of New Age Spirituality, Catherine Tumber demonstrates that the New Age movement first flourished more than a century ago during the Gilded Age under the mantle of 'New Thought.' Based largely on research in popular journals, self-help manuals, newspaper accounts, and archival collections, American Feminism and the Birth of New Age Spirituality explores the contours of the New Thought movement. Through the lives of well-known figures such as Mary Baker Eddy, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and Edward Bellamy as well as through more obscure, but more representative 'New Thoughters' such as Abby Morton Diaz, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Ursula Gestefeld, Lilian Whiting, Sarah Farmer, and Elizabeth Towne, Tumber examines the historical conditions that gave rise to New Thought. She pays close attention to the ways in which feminism became grafted, with varying degrees of success, to emergent forms of liberal culture in the late nineteenth century—progressive politics, the Social Gospel, humanist psychotherapy, bohemian subculture, and mass market journalism. American Feminism and the Birth of New Age Spirituality questions the value of the new age movement—then and now—to the pursuit of women's rights and democratic renewal.