Reviews for American political thought

The average rating for American political thought based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-07-22 00:00:00 Spiros Bozikis A rather brief but useful introduction to American political thought. The work is also decently written. This is not one of the heavy duty volumes on American political thought, but it does provide a solid, albeit basic, view of the subject matter. The book begins by placing American political thought in context--with a consideration of Greek, Roman, Judeo-Christian, and Protestant Reformation currents. There is also an analysis of the religious roots of American thought, with special emphasis on New England as well as other colonies. Then, the work takes a temporal orientation--from the Revolution to the Constitutional era to the early republic to the era of Andrew Jackson to American romanticism (the Transcendentalists, such as Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau) to nationalism to the debate over slavery to industrial ideology and so on--up to the debates between conservatives and liberals after the Second World War. Again, a nice introduction to the subject, although not a very deep book.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-03-12 00:00:00 John Ruth Once upon a time, I taught a course on American political thought. And this is a text that I used. While there is nothing especially unique in this book, it is a nice and literate chronological examination of the evolution fo American thinking about politics. The first two parts provide a general background--including the English context. Part three looks at the development of revolutionary thought, culminating with the Declaration of Independence. Part 4 focuses on the movement toweard an American Constitution. And on it goes. . . . The book ends with a discussion of "Postwar Conservatism and the New Left." Published in 1972, this does a decent job of covering the subject up to that point in time.