THE MYTH OF AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM by Barry Alan Shain ( 9780691029122 )

Item Details

Title:

THE MYTH OF AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM
THE PROTESTANT ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT

By:

Format:

Paperback

List price:	£30.00
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ISBN 10:

0691029121

ISBN 13:

9780691029122

Publisher:

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

5 August, 1996

Pages:

416

Description:

This work reconsiders what early Americans meant by such basic political concepts as the public good, liberty and slavery. It questions whether 18th-century Americans understood these terms in an individualistic manner, revealing an understanding based on reformed Protestant communalism.

Synopsis:

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.

Publication:

Imprint:

Princeton University Press

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT (PB)

MAN, GOD AND SOCIETY (PB)

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT (HB)

THE MYTH OF AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM (HB)

THE NATURE OF RIGHTS AT THE AMERICAN FOUNDING AND BEYOND (HB)