Between Two Worlds: American Social Thought After the Civil War

Prospects ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 411-431
Author(s):  
Rush Welter
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Renaissance ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
History Of

In recent years American scholars have made significant progress in rethinking the history of the United States after the Civil War. Although much of their effort has come to a focus on Reconstruction, new questions and new techniques of historical analysis have combined to revitalize examination of the era as a whole. Yet-certain specialized studies notwithstanding – relatively little has been done to reconceive the intellectual history of the period. In part, this situation probably reflects the disappointing character of most of postbellum thought, which boasts few such luminaries as the era of the American Revolution or that of the so-called American Renaissance. In part, it may also reflect the fact that study of the period revived at a time when intellectual history no longer seemed to represent the cutting edge of historical inquiry. In any case, the opinions and beliefs of late Victorian America have remained a stepchild of historical research while their adopted family has flourished.

INSOMNIA AND OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL PATHOLOGIES

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-308
Author(s):  
JEFFREY LENOWITZ ◽  
MELISSA SCHWARTZBERG
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cambridge School

The publication of Richard Tuck's 2012 Seeley Lectures constituted an important event in intellectual history and political theory. The Sleeping Sovereign reflects the depth of Tuck's nearly forty years of historical inquiry into the concepts of rights, reason of state, and freedom, beginning with Natural Rights Theories. The leading member of the “Cambridge school” of the study of the history of political thought in the United States, and the Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government at Harvard University, Tuck combines a contextualist, and often intertextualist, approach to the interpretation of canonical works with a theorist's attention to the value these works retain for contemporary political life.

The American Revolution in Atlantic Perspective

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Armitage
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Independent States

Two assumptions can be made about the American Revolution: it shaped the Atlantic world and was shaped by the Atlantic world. These Atlantic perspectives challenged accounts of it as a specifically American sequence of events, of defining relevance only to the history of United States. Conjuring states out of colonies was the single most radical act of the American Revolution: indeed, it was precisely what turned that sequence of events from a civil war into a revolution as it began the transformation of the Atlantic world into an arena hospitable, first, to independent states on its western shores, then to republicanism (in the sense of non-monarchical government), and finally to the creation of federal republics — the United States, Venezuela, and Mexico, for instance — on a scale undreamed of by classical and early modern thinkers. This article retraces the course of the Revolution from its beginnings in the aftermath of the Seven Years War and places its events into the context of Britain's Atlantic empire and the shifting fortunes of the other European empires of the Atlantic world.

History, Politics, and Health in Early American Thought: The Case of David Ramsay

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Lawrence J. Friedman ◽  
Arthur H. Shaffer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Early American ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

In 1785 physician-politician David Ramsay of Charleston published The History of the Revolution of South Carolina. Contemporaries praised it highly. Four years later Ramsay produced a more ambitious work, The History of the American Revolution. It established his reputation both in America and abroad as the new nation's leading historian. Thus in a few short years Ramsay went from a locally prominent physician and State legislator to an important national cultural and literary figure. The American reading public found his approach to history to its tastes. He expressed a set of ideas about American history in general and the Revolution in particular that were common currency in the United States. But he expressed them for the first time in well-reasoned and documented historical narrative: in volumes that were suitably pro-American, yet judicious in their treatment of Britain, that made a strong case for American uniqueness while maintaining the ideal of the United States as a model for the world.Ramsay's histories alone would attract our interest as the first and most influential historical analysis of the American Revolution and the ratification of the Federal Constitution. But Ramsay's writings and his career as physician and politician are also significant because they launch us upon a journey into the mind of one of the new nation's most articulate spokesmen on historical, political, and medical issues. There is, to be sure, little in the general pattern of his life to distinguish him from a number of his contemporaries among the professions and political figures of second rank. Ramsay seldom formulated original ideas. His importance was not simply, or even primarily, that of a political or historical philosopher or medical innovator.

Presidents and the Dissolution of the Union

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred I. Greenstein ◽  
Dale Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
George Washington ◽  
Personal Strengths ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civil War Era ◽  
American Leader ◽  
Policy Vision

The United States witnessed an unprecedented failure of its political system in the mid-nineteenth century, resulting in a disastrous civil war that claimed the lives of an estimated 750,000 Americans. This book assesses the personal strengths and weaknesses of presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama. The book evaluates the leadership styles of the Civil War-era presidents. The book looks at the presidential qualities of James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. For each president, the book provides a concise history of the man's life and presidency, and evaluates him in the areas of public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence. The book sheds light on why Buchanan is justly ranked as perhaps the worst president in the nation's history, how Pierce helped set the stage for the collapse of the Union and the bloodiest war America had ever experienced, and why Lincoln is still considered the consummate American leader to this day. The book reveals what enabled some of these presidents, like Lincoln and Polk, to meet the challenges of their times—and what caused others to fail.

Luther's Word on Man's Will: A Case Study in Comparative Intellectual History

1984 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-667
Author(s):  
Mark Migotti
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Thematic Unity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Single Set

It is commonplace to observe that the history of thought reveals certain recurring patterns whose mode of expression changes according to context. It is equally apparent that to chart the salient characteristics of an influential way of thinking – to give concrete, clearly defined shape to the usually tangled fundamental impulses informing a cast of mind – is a complex, difficult task which calls for attention from (at least) the historian, the psychologist, the philosopher and, in the case of religious figures and movements, the theologian alike. With regard to the manner of thinking embodied in the theological doctrines of Martin Luther such a task is fraught with more than the usual number of pitfalls. In the first place, following recent Luther scholarship, we must be wary of assuming that the great Reformer held fast to a single set of theological opinions throughout his long career. We shall not, therefore, attempt to reach conclusions applicable to Luther's thought as a whole, but rather shall focus exclusively on a number of key early expositions of the Theologia Crucis. Here, between about 1514 and 1520, we find, according to our argument, enough thematic unity to warrant the search for underlying principles. A second, less easily disposed of difficulty is the lack of a working consensus as to how and with what aims in mind one should even begin an historical analysis of Luther's texts. For example, to the believer who regards Luther's basic tenets as in a straightforward sense divinely inspired, the attempt to extract from his writings the ingredients of a certain thoroughly human way of thinking will seem doomed to inadequacy from the start. Likewise, for different reasons, many of today's.

Historians, Historical Analysis, and International Water Politics

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Reuss
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Water History ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Means ◽  
International Water ◽  
Sound Policy ◽  
Water Issues

The resolution of international water disputes demands historical analysis. Too often, this analysis is not supplied by professional historians but by policymakers, engineers, and others who may lack the required knowledge and skills. The result inhibits rather than advances sound policy. Fortunately, historians are obtaining increased appreciation for what they bring to the conference table. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which the United States recently rejoined, is attempting to further sound historical study; and the recently formed International Water History Association (IWHA) provides a forum to focus on the history of global water issues. These developments afford historians new and important means to make a difference in resolving some of the most pressing international resource issues.

Toward a Global Intellectual History of “Minority”

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-324
Author(s):  
Roy Bar Sadeh ◽  
Lotte Houwink ten Cate
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

Abstract The term minority is today applied to describe beleaguered, persecuted, and exiled people whose subordination is preserved or merely “tolerated” by majoritarian politics inherent to modern states. As this introduction indicates, however, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries minority politics became a rubric for sociopolitical emancipation, providing a framework for intellectuals in colonized Asia and Africa to question European powers' treatment of marginalized communities. Bar Sadeh and Houwink ten Cate contend that “minority” has unique value as an instrument for historical analysis that is restricted neither solely to minority-majority relations nor to debates about (political) representation. Instead, the authors propose a global intellectual history of “minority” as a concept and experience, which is explored in the essays compiled in this special section, “Minority Questions.” By examining the diverse genealogies of the concept of minority, the essays that follow provide a valuable contribution to efforts to redress historical wrongs, even as they offer a range of explanations for the enduring legacy and power of this multifaceted concept.

American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Westward Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Intellectual ◽  
American Intellectual History ◽  
American Thought

American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction provides an introduction to the history of American thought from the sixteenth century up until the present. Long before the United States was a nation, it was a set of ideas, projected onto the New World by European commentators and explorers. American thought grew from this foundation of expectation and experience, both enriched and challenged over the centuries by developments including the Revolutionary War, westward expansion, the rise of capitalism, the proliferation of diverse religions, immigration, industrialization, and the emergence of the United States as a superpower. This introduction provides an overview of some of the most compelling episodes and abiding preoccupations in American thought, while showing how ideas have been major forces driving the course of American history.

A History of the United States Since the Civil War, in Five Volumes: 1868-1872.

1923 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 312
Author(s):  
Benjamin B. Kendrick ◽  
Ellis Paxon Oberholtzer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of
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