America in Italy: The United States in the Political Thought and Imagination of the Risorgimento, 1763–1865. By Axel Körner.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017. Pp. xx+350. $45.00.

2019 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-201
Author(s):  
Silvana Patriarca
1995 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Bradley Thompson

John Adams was unique among the Founding Fathers in that he actually read and took seriously Machiavelli's ideas. In his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States, Adams quoted extensively from Machiavelli and he openly acknowledged an intellectual debt to the Florentine statesman. Adams praised Machiavelli for having been “the first” to have “revived the ancient politics” and he insisted that the “world” was much indebted to Machiavelli for “the revival of reason in matters of government.” What could Adams have meant by these extraordinary statements? The following article examines the Machiavellian ideas and principles Adams incorporated into his political thought as well as those that he rejected. Drawing upon evidence found in an unpublished fragment, Part one argues that the political epistemology that Adams employed in the Defence can be traced to Machiavelli's new modes and orders. Part two presents Adams's critique of Machiavelli's constitutionalism.


Author(s):  
Axel Körner

This book examines the extent to which the United States' political experience influenced the political thought and imagination of the Risorgimento during the period 1763–1865. Drawing on various source materials such as early Italian histories of the American Republic, parliamentary documents, memoirs, and correspondence, the book shows how abstract political ideas were reflected in Italy's wider cultural imagination from the end of the Seven Years' War in the early 1760s to the American Civil War a century later, which coincided with the Unification of Italy under the crown of Savoy. It argues that Italian ideas of the United States during the period of the Risorgimento were not blind admiration for American political experiments. Instead, Italians engaged with what they knew about the early Republic in relation to their own constitutional history, as well as to a whole range of different European experiences.


Author(s):  
Robert E. Lerner

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the life and work of Ernst Kantorowicz (1895–1963). Kantorowicz is considered one of the most influential of all medieval historians, if not the most influential. His book The King's Two Bodies has been kept in print by Princeton University Press since its first appearance in 1957. The steady sales and numerous translations reflect the fact that Kantorowicz's book has had extraordinary resonance in several disciplines: not only in history but in art history, literary criticism, and political thought. After the Nazis took power, Kantorowicz courageously spoke against them as a full professor from the lecture platform to an overflowing crowd in Frankfurt in November 1933. In 1938 he barely escaped Kristallnacht and fled first to England and then the United States, where in the fall of 1939 he took a one-year position at Berkeley.


Author(s):  
Gregory A. Barton

The movement to maintain the influence of the countryside and of farmers in particular dominated political thought in England and the United States throughout most of the nineteenth century, and still influenced millions into the mid-twentieth century. Aspects of agrarianism, romantic farm literature, and its many variants on the continent of Europe—including biodynamics and German biological farming—all can be seen as building blocks that merged with the organic farming protocols pioneered by Albert Howard (discussed further in later chapters). The reaction against industrialism must be understood as both a cultural and a political movement. This explains why—though socialist and leftist thinkers of all stripes also shared agrarian ideals—the main arguments against the effects of industrialism were from those on the right of the political spectrum.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
Adolphus G. Belk ◽  
Robert C. Smith ◽  
Sherri L. Wallace

In general, the founders of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists were “movement people.” Powerful agents of socialization such as the uprisings of the 1960s molded them into scholars with tremendous resolve to tackle systemic inequalities in the political science discipline. In forming NCOBPS as an independent organization, many sought to develop a Black perspective in political science to push the boundaries of knowledge and to use that scholarship to ameliorate the adverse conditions confronting Black people in the United States and around the globe. This paper utilizes historical documents, speeches, interviews, and other scholarly works to detail the lasting contributions of the founders and Black political scientists to the discipline, paying particular attention to their scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and civic engagement. It finds that while political science is much improved as a result of their efforts, there is still work to do if their goals are to be achieved.


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