The Roots of American Individualism
The Roots of American Individualism

Author: Alex Zakaras

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2024-08-20

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0691226326

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A panoramic history of American individualism from its nineteenth-century origins to today’s bitterly divided politics Individualism is a defining feature of American public life. Its influence is pervasive today, with liberals and conservatives alike promising to expand personal freedom and defend individual rights against unwanted intrusion, be it from big government, big corporations, or intolerant majorities. The Roots of American Individualism traces the origins of individualist ideas to the turbulent political controversies of the Jacksonian era (1820–1850) and explores their enduring influence on American politics and culture. Alex Zakaras plunges readers into the spirited and rancorous political debates of Andrew Jackson’s America, drawing on the stump speeches, newspaper editorials, magazine articles, and sermons that captivated mass audiences and shaped partisan identities. He shows how these debates popularized three powerful myths that celebrated the young nation as an exceptional land of liberty: the myth of the independent proprietor, the myth of the rights-bearer, and the myth of the self-made man. The Roots of American Individualism reveals how generations of politicians, pundits, and provocateurs have invoked these myths for competing political purposes. Time and again, the myths were used to determine who would enjoy equal rights and freedoms and who would not. They also conjured up heavily idealized, apolitical visions of social harmony and boundless opportunity, typically centered on the free market, that have distorted American political thought to this day.

The Myth of American Individualism
The Myth of American Individualism

Author: Barry Alan Shain

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1996-08-25

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9780691029122

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Sharpening the debate over the values that formed America's founding political philosophy, Barry Alan Shain challenges us to reconsider what early Americans meant when they used such basic political concepts as the public good, liberty, and slavery. We have too readily assumed, he argues, that eighteenth-century Americans understood these and other terms in an individualistic manner. However, by exploring how these core elements of their political thought were employed in Revolutionary-era sermons, public documents, newspaper editorials, and political pamphlets, Shain reveals a very different understanding--one based on a reformed Protestant communalism. In this context, individual liberty was the freedom to order one's life in accord with the demanding ethical standards found in Scripture and confirmed by reason. This was in keeping with Americans' widespread acceptance of original sin and the related assumption that a well-lived life was only possible in a tightly knit, intrusive community made up of families, congregations, and local government bodies. Shain concludes that Revolutionary-era Americans defended a Protestant communal vision of human flourishing that stands in stark opposition to contemporary liberal individualism. This overlooked component of the American political inheritance, he further suggests, demands examination because it alters the historical ground upon which contemporary political alternatives often seek legitimation, and it facilitates our understanding of much of American history and of the foundational language still used in authoritative political documents.

The Roots of American Individualism
The Roots of American Individualism

Author: Alex Zakaras

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-10-11

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 069122630X

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A panoramic history of American individualism from its nineteenth-century origins to today’s bitterly divided politics Individualism is a defining feature of American public life. Its influence is pervasive today, with liberals and conservatives alike promising to expand personal freedom and defend individual rights against unwanted intrusion, be it from big government, big corporations, or intolerant majorities. The Roots of American Individualism traces the origins of individualist ideas to the turbulent political controversies of the Jacksonian era (1820–1850) and explores their enduring influence on American politics and culture. Alex Zakaras plunges readers into the spirited and rancorous political debates of Andrew Jackson’s America, drawing on the stump speeches, newspaper editorials, magazine articles, and sermons that captivated mass audiences and shaped partisan identities. He shows how these debates popularized three powerful myths that celebrated the young nation as an exceptional land of liberty: the myth of the independent proprietor, the myth of the rights-bearer, and the myth of the self-made man. The Roots of American Individualism reveals how generations of politicians, pundits, and provocateurs have invoked these myths for competing political purposes. Time and again, the myths were used to determine who would enjoy equal rights and freedoms and who would not. They also conjured up heavily idealized, apolitical visions of social harmony and boundless opportunity, typically centered on the free market, that have distorted American political thought to this day.

The Cult of Individualism
The Cult of Individualism

Author: Aaron Barlow

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-08-27

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13:

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American individualism: It is the reason for American success, but it also tears the nation apart. Why do Americans have so much trouble seeing eye to eye today? Is this new? Was there ever an American consensus? The Cult of Individualism: A History of an Enduring American Myth explores the rarely discussed cultural differences leading to today's seemingly intractable political divides. After an examination of the various meanings of individualism in America, author Aaron Barlow describes the progression and evolution of the concept from the 18th century on, illuminating the wide division in Caucasian American culture that developed between the culture based on the ideals of the English Enlightenment and that of the Scots-Irish "Borderers." The "Borderer" legacy, generally explored only by students of Appalachian culture, remains as pervasive and significant in contemporary American culture and politics as it is, unfortunately, overlooked. It is from the "Borderers" that the Tea Party sprang, along with many of the attitudes of the contemporary American right, making it imperative that this culture be thoroughly explored.

From Power to Prejudice
From Power to Prejudice

Author: Leah N. Gordon

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-05-20

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 022623844X

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Gordon provides an intellectual history of the concept of racial prejudice in postwar America. In particular, she asks, what accounts for the dominance of theories of racism that depicted oppression in terms of individual perpetrators and victims, more often than in terms of power relations and class conflict? Such theories came to define race relations research, civil rights activism, and social policy. Gordon s book is a study in the politics of knowledge production, as it charts debates about the race problem in a variety of institutions, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago s Committee on Education Training and Research in Race Relations, Fisk University s Race Relations Institutes, Howard University s "Journal of Negro Education," and the National Conference of Christians and Jews."

Inventing the Individual
Inventing the Individual

Author: Larry Siedentop

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2014-10-20

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 0674417534

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Here, in a grand narrative spanning 1,800 years of European history, a distinguished political philosopher firmly rejects Western liberalism’s usual account of itself: its emergence in opposition to religion in the early modern era. Larry Siedentop argues instead that liberal thought is, in its underlying assumptions, the offspring of the Church. “It is a magnificent work of intellectual, psychological, and spiritual history. It is hard to decide which is more remarkable: the breadth of learning displayed on almost every page, the infectious enthusiasm that suffuses the whole book, the riveting originality of the central argument, or the emotional power and force with which it is deployed.” —David Marquand, New Republic “Larry Siedentop has written a philosophical history in the spirit of Voltaire, Condorcet, Hegel, and Guizot...At a time when we on the left need to be stirred from our dogmatic slumbers, Inventing the Individual is a reminder of some core values that are pretty widely shared.” —James Miller, The Nation “In this learned, subtle, enjoyable and digestible work [Siedentop] has offered back to us a proper version of ourselves. He has explained us to ourselves...[A] magisterial, timeless yet timely work.” —Douglas Murray, The Spectator “Like the best books, Inventing the Individual both teaches you something new and makes you want to argue with it.” —Kenan Malik, The Independent

Rugged Individualism
Rugged Individualism

Author: David Davenport

Publisher: Hoover Press

Published: 2017-01-01

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 0817920269

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Today, American "rugged individualism" is in a fight for its life on two battlegrounds: in the policy realm and in the intellectual world of ideas that may lead to new policies. In this book, the authors look at the political context in which rugged individualism flourishes or declines and offer a balanced assessment of its future prospects. They outline its path from its founding—marked by the Declaration of Independence—to today, focusing on different periods in our history when rugged individualism was thriving or was under attack. The authors ultimately look with some optimism toward new frontiers of the twenty-first century that may nourish rugged individualism. They assert that we cannot tip the delicate balance between equality and liberty so heavily in favor of equality that there is no liberty left for individual Americans to enjoy. In considering reasons to be pessimistic as well as reasons to be optimistic about it, they also suggest where supporters of rugged individualism might focus greater encouragement and resources.

A Decade of Upheaval
A Decade of Upheaval

Author: Dong Guoqiang

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-02-23

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0691213224

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Inhaltsverzeichnis: Prologue -- Factions -- Enter the Army -- Escalation -- Beijing Intervenes -- Forging Order -- Backlash -- The Final Struggle -- Troubled Decade.

The Tyranny of the Moderns
The Tyranny of the Moderns

Author: Nadia Urbinati

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-01-28

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0300189958

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In a well-reasoned and thought-provoking polemic, respected political theorist Nadia Urbinati explores a profound shift in the ideology of individualism, from the ethical nineteenth-century standard, in which each person cooperates with others as equals for the betterment of their lives and the community, to the contemporary “I don’t give a damn” maxim. Identifying this “tyranny of the moderns” as the most radical risk that modern democracy currently faces, the author examines the critical necessity of reestablishing the role of the individual citizen as a free and equal agent of democratic society.

Cultures and Globalization
Cultures and Globalization

Author: Helmut K Anheier

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2007-03-27

Total Pages: 664

ISBN-13: 1848607377

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"In the age of globalization we are no longer home alone. Migration brings other worlds into our own just as the global reach of the media transmits our world into the hearts and minds of others. Often incommensurate values are crammed together in the same public square. Increasingly we all today live in the kind of ′edge cultures′ we used to see only on the frontiers of civilizations in places like Hong Kong or Istanbul. The resulting frictions and fusions are shaping the soul of the coming world order. I can think of no other project with the ambitious scope of defining this emergent reality than The Cultures and Globalization project. I can think of no more capable minds than Raj Isar and Helmut Anheier who can pull it off." - Nathan Gardels, Editor-in-Chief, NPQ, Global Services, Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media "This series represents an innovative approach to the central issues of globalization, that phenomenon of such undefined contours." - Lupwishi Mbuyumba, Director of the Observatory of Cultural Policies in Africa The world′s cultures and their forms of creation, presentation, and preservation are deeply affected by globalization in ways that are inadequately documented and understood. The Cultures and Globalization Series is designed to fill this void in our knowledge. Analyzing the relationship between globalization and cultures is the aim of the Series. In each volume, leading experts as well as young scholars will track cultural trends connected to globalization throughout the world, covering issues ranging from the role of cultural difference in politics and governance to the evolution of the cultural economy and the changing patterns of creativity and artistic expression. Each volume will also include an innovative presentation of newly developed ′indicator suites′ on cultures and globalization that will be presented in a user-friendly form with a high graphics content to facilitate accessibility and understanding Like so many phenomena linked to globalization, conflicts over and within the cultural realms crystallize great anxieties and illusions, through misplaced assumptions, inadequate concepts, unwarranted simplifications and instrumental readings. The aim here is to marshal evidence from different disciplines and perspectives about the culture, conflict and globalization relationships in conceptually sensitive ways.