Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism
Cambridge University Press
Edition: 2, 8/17/2009
EAN 9780521119290, ISBN10: 0521119294
Hardcover, 222 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Now an established classic, Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism was the first book to explore this alternative current of American political thought. Stemming back to the seventeenth-century English Revolution, many questioned private property, the sovereignty of the nation-state, and slavery, and affirmed the common man's ability to govern. By the time of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine was the great exemplar of the alternative intellectual tradition. In the nineteenth century, the antislavery movement took hold of Thomas Paine's ideas and fashioned them into an ideology that ultimately justified civil war. This updated edition contains a preface by the author, which describes the inquiries that he undertook in his books of the 1960s and their conclusions. David Waldstreicher has contributed a new historiographical essay that discusses the book's lasting importance and contrasts its ideas with the work of Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood.
Preface
Introduction
the right of revolution
Part I. Theory
1. Truths self-evident
2. Certain inalienable rights
Part II. Praxis
3. The earth belongs to the living
4. Cast your whole vote
5. My country is the world
Conclusion
bicameralism from below
Afterword David Waldstreicher.