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American Transcendentalism: A History

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 85 ratings · 22 reviews

The First Comprehensive History of Transcendentalism

American Transcendentalism is a comprehensive narrative history of America's first group of public intellectuals, the men and women who defined American literature and indelibly marked American reform in the decades before and following the America Civil War. Philip F. Gura masterfully traces their intellectual genealogy...more

Hardcover, 384 pages

Published November 13th 2007 by Hill and Wang (first published 2007)

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Philip F. Gura's bona fides are impeccable. He is professor of American literature and culture at the University of North Carolina and has written books on transcendentalism, early American history, and the American theologian Jonathan Edwards. Far from being one of those ubiquitous, cleverly packaged academic tomes in sheep's clothing, Gura's book breathes life into an important period in American history. Even though Gura limits his study to around 300 pages (plus notes), a strategy that resul

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Sep 10, 2012 Nathanael Booth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Gura gives a broad-brush overview of the rise and fall of Transcendentalism as a distinct philosophy. He begins by pointing out the intellectual background that gave rise to the movement: German “higher criticism,” German Idealism, etc. Though Emerson is most often associated with Transcendentalism in the popular mind, Gura shows that he was really somewhat marginal—magnetic, yes, and influential, but far from the only, or even the most interesting, game in town. Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller,...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Becky rated it 4 of 5 stars

American Transcendentalism
By Philip F. Gura

I read this book, and would probably need to read it several more times (at least) to understand it. My impression now is that when German Idealism and German Biblical scholarship became available in the U.S. in the 1830’s, the new ideas prompted a wash of excitement and of other new ideas. I am reminded of the music of the Beatles coming to the U.S. in the 1960’s. Their music was completely new and exciting, even revolutionary. The subsequent 15 years...more American Transcendentalism
By Philip F. Gura

I read this book, and would probably need to read it several more times (at least) to understand it. My impression now is that when German Idealism and German Biblical scholarship became available in the U.S. in the 1830’s, the new ideas prompted a wash of excitement and of other new ideas. I am reminded of the music of the Beatles coming to the U.S. in the 1960’s. Their music was completely new and exciting, even revolutionary. The subsequent 15 years brought empowerment movements, communal living, dietary changes, changes in clothing, anti-war activism, interest in eastern and native religions, and experimental writing, film, and art. To say nothing of the music.

Similarly, the spread of ideas of German idealism and German Biblical scholarship somehow led to new ideas in theology and philosophy with attendant significant efforts regarding social justice – work with the poor, abolitionism, women’s rights. Communal living and dietary changes were also tried seriously. There were strong sentiments against the Mexican War, and even some support of a person (John Brown) who clearly favored violence. Somehow much of this came under the umbrella of Transcendentalism; the word was at first applied as a pejorative label and was then adopted by the people involved. As with the counterculture of the 1960’s and 1970’s, there was no unifying central force, there was just a collection of people doing all sorts of new things. From the book: “Transcendentalism was linked to disruption of the social as well as of the religious order.”

There were apparently two branches of Transcendentalism. One focused on individual consciousness, and the other responded to the “inherent worth and dignity of every person” by tackling social ills. The two branches aren’t completely distinct, as eventually even Emerson (individual consciousness) began lecturing about abolitionism.

I made a note of some particularly interesting parts of the book:

p. 204 Thoreau “We must first succeed alone before we can succeed together.”

p. 210, bottom of page Emerson says that people want to eradicate evil without considering what will take its place.

p. 16 Emerson didn’t value work with the poor. He felt it was too easy to get involved in such work and to think that it validated one’s moral rectitude, when it actually might mask a continuing moral callousness.

Emerson’s book “Nature” was at first dismissed as mist and moonshine. Emerson was criticized for being willfully obscure.

Emerson said that all truth is a revelation, and all men are revealers.

Elizabeth Peabody called Emerson’s Transcendentalism “egotheism.”

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Apr 09, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arts-and-historical

American Transcendentalism is a comprehensive narrative history of America's first group of public intellectuals, the men and women who defined American literature and indelibly marked American reform in the decades before and following the America Civil War. Philip F. Gura masterfully traces their intellectual genealogy to transatlantic religious and philosophical ideas, illustrating how these informed the fierce local theological debates that, so often first in Massachusetts and eventually thr...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Rick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: transcendentalism, theology, philosophy, history

If there is a unique amd American philosophical movement transcendentalism could easily be that movement. But we hear so little about it any more. Why? I think it is because of its place in history. This short lived movement was a reaction against the Age of Reason (the Enlightment) using German Idealism as a springboard to make proposals as to the nature of reality and man's place in that reality. It was followed by the Civil War and pragmatism. Instead of trying to find out the meaning of life...more

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Dec 07, 2011 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In American Transcendentalism, Gura chronicles the birth, evolution, and ultimate demise of this philosophical, literary, and political movement of the 1800s, including short biographies of its most important participants and contributors.

What is Transcendentalism and where did it come from? As Gura explains, an absolute definition of Transcendentalism is hard to pin down. Even the Transcendentalists themselves eschewed any one definitive description of their varying ideas and beliefs. George Ri...more

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Oct 28, 2008 Jonathan Hedgpeth rated it 2 of 5 stars

Transcend this dense volume, and read the works by the figures themselves. Granted this book had its moments, but for the most part, it leaves the reader drowning in presumptive prose. This is a history the way that histories of artistic cliques play out, with a lot of gossipy in fighting and ideological feuds.....I guess thats what you pay for though. I found Dr. Gura's treatment of the the Giants namely Emerson and Thoreau rather cursory, and instead he chose to concentrate on decidedly lesser...more

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Jun 17, 2008 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, nonfiction, history, npr-worthy, personal-favorite, religion

(My full review of this book is much longer than Goodreads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

The only time before this week that I had ever had experiences with the American Transcendentalist movement of the 1800s had been in high school, experiences that had not gone well at all; I remember something about them all being philosophers, or maybe it was authors or ministers or something, and I remember something a...more (My full review of this book is much longer than Goodreads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

The only time before this week that I had ever had experiences with the American Transcendentalist movement of the 1800s had been in high school, experiences that had not gone well at all; I remember something about them all being philosophers, or maybe it was authors or ministers or something, and I remember something about one of them living in the woods for two years, and my lit teacher saying something about them being the original hippies. (Of course, this was the early '80s, so my teacher herself was an aging hippie who meant it as a compliment, while we took it as an insult.). And I remember something about this insanely complicated belief system they had that was utterly incomprehensible even when you tried reading the most well-known of all their work, the Emerson lectures and Thoreau stories and all the rest. And that's a real shame, I've come to realize this week, because in so many ways this group deserves so much more modern respect than they usually get, and had a heavier influence over the modern world as it appears today than many of us realize. They were, after all, the very first group of philosophers in American history, the first to create a philosophy that was truly American; they were the group that coined the phrase 'civil disobedience,' the ones who brought about labor reform and women getting the vote; they were the last group in American history to be deeply religious yet consider themselves intellectuals, a distinction sorely missing from our country these days; and they're a fascinating example of how US history could've gone if not for the Civil War, a progressive and utopian vision that believed in the essential goodness of humanity, a vision collectively lost in the US for over a hundred and fifty years and just now starting to be found again in the 2008 election and the historic campaign of Barack Obama.

But there's a reason we have such a strange, fractured way of remembering the Transcendentalists, or so argues professor Philip Gura in his phenomenal new book American Transcendentalism: A History, which is hands-down easily the best nonfiction book I've read in the last year; and that's because the Transcendentalists themselves were a fractured and raucous group, a loose confederation of thinkers who were often at odds with each other over the details of their "movement," a group that finally fell apart precisely because of the Civil War and whose ideas were never picked up in a major way again by the American populace in general (or at least not yet). In many ways they're a historical anomaly, Gura argues, a burp in the usual conservative, free-market theme that pervades most of American history; and it's for that reason that it's so important to study and understand them, he says, precisely because they are a reflection of a time in American history no one had seen before and no one will ever see again (i.e. the "nation-building" years, the era lasting from the War of 1812 to the Civil War of 1860). And furthermore, Gura does this with a clarity that is simply unbelievable, given the complexity of the subject matter; and he does it in an incredibly tight and entertaining 300 pages, too, an astounding feat that you hope will earn him at least his own PBS special or something down the line.

In fact, that's the first thing to understand about Transcendentalism in general, even before picking up the book, is that its roots are mired in complexity to begin with, and with no one at any point in history ever really agreeing on even its general definition. You could say, for example, that the movement mostly grew out of a type of Christian denomination known as Unitarianism; for those unfamiliar with the subtleties of Christianity, it's considered one of the more liberal denominations out there, with their very name for example coming from the fact that they believe Jesus to simply have been a cool guy and important philosopher, but not literally the son of God. (So in other words, unlike other groups who believe in a "trinity" of holy figures at the heart of Christianity [a Father and Son and Holy Ghost], Unitarians believe in a unitary God who rules all by Himself.) It's the Unitarian preachers who are always the first to denounce wars; the ones you always see in the front of peace marches and labor rallies; the ones who have always first embraced things like interracial marriages and gay marriages.

But see, here's where it starts getting complicated, because it was just some of these liberal activist preachers who started rebelling against what was an accepted belief at the time; this being the early 1800s, of course, the very end of the rational Enlightenment years, most educated people still fundamentally believed in doing what these rational philosophers like Descartes and Locke advocated, which is to bring a cold, clinical, scientific eye to every facet of one's life. This resulted, for example, in a Unitarian church in the early 1800s that generally believed in "faith" being something to be externally proven, using scientific methods; in the minds of most church officials at the time, for example, the Bible was to be considered metaphorical only, much like a book of nursery rhymes, with the "truth" of Christianity resting much more on things like archeological digs and better interpretations of the original Aramaic scrolls.

But of course, the beginning of the 1800s was not just the end of the Enlightenment but the beginning of Romanticism; and there were definitely an amount of Unitarian ministers in those years feeling the pull to move in that direction, usually the youngest or most politically radical of the entire church. For example, it started becoming a popular theory among many of these rebels that it's actually one's inner spiritual voice that is the most important aspect of faith; that all of us as Christians are born with a calm, true, steady voice inside us, one that directly communicates with God, and that we don't need stupid archeological digs to tell us how to be good Christians. It's simply a matter of listening to this voice, these radical youthful ministers started arguing from their pulpits; it's a matter of turning inwards, of making faith more spiritual, of "transcending" the surface-level noise that humans and human churches add to the direct relationship all of us have with God. And hence the term "Transcendentalism," which like "beatnik" and "hippie" and "slacker" was actually first coined by the group's critics as an insult against them, before eventually being adopted by the very people the term was supposed to make fun of.

But see, the story of Transcendentalism is even more complicated than that; because frankly, there were lots of people taking up the mantle at the same time not primarily for religious reasons at all, but rather artistic and philosophical ones. Because it's important to remember what exactly was going on in America at the time, and what a strange and new period of our history it was; the first time in our history, in fact, when the question of whether the country even officially existed was finally answered by the rest of the world for good, the first time we could officially stop worrying about falling apart and instead concentrate on what exactly we were going to be. What was the US going to be, actually, now that it had fought and won its initial wars for independence and respect, now that it could start devoting an insane amount of resources simply into building an infrastructure and identity? Many of the country's smartest thinkers, for example, were calling for the US to finally establish an artistic and philosophical community for the first time -- to start really beefing up our school and university systems, stop automatically shipping off all our children to Europe in order to get a decent education, actually publish literary magazines and hold discussion salons and all the other things that at the time you literally had to sail all the way to London or Paris to find.

This is part of Transcendentalist history as well, Gura deftly shows in his book; not just the liberal preachers arguing for a more personal and Romantic understanding of God, but poets and editors and philosophers yearning for an entire Romantic artistic community, one that refocuses on nature and feelings and inner emotions, one where mood and atmosphere play a heavy role in the literature itself. But at the same time, Transcendentalism was also about political activism; it was about these ministers, these thinkers, these philanthropists, indeed turning inwards and realizing, "Why, as a good Christian, I should be helping others, and standing up for the meek, and trying to make the world a better place." And it's such a fascinating thing to look back on, I think, precisely because so much of this kind of stuff has literally disappeared in America; the idea of a Christian actually being an intellectual, the idea of a Christian actually being a liberal, the idea of Christians actually embracing experimental projects and radical theories. The people who identified themselves as Transcendentalists in these years were not just thinkers but doers; they were the ones setting up alternative schools, founding homeless shelters and soup kitchens, leading abolitionist marches, financing bizarre rural utopian societies*.

And like I said, a big part of this finally being a fascinating story to me for the first time is because of...(less)

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May 18, 2012 Curtis rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book does a decent job of explaining American Transcendentalism but it is not enough. It is like a skeletal framework of who, what, where, when and why but it doesn't attach much meat to the skeleton. I could always put this book down. It does contain a wealth of important information, however, and it has really piqued my interest in Margaret Fuller for one. Hopefully I can use the bibliography in the back of this book to track down some reading material more to my liking.

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Feb 21, 2011 Carl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pretty amazing book that reveals just how complicated this movement was in American History. What is so surprising is that the group was clearly split. One side, held by Emerson, triumphed the individual spirit; the other, wanted to help those is need around them, which included women, slaves, and the poor. This call to action ultimately got lost as the group confronted strangely enough the battle over slavery and the greed of business.

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Sep 11, 2012 David Sam rated it 4 of 5 stars

An indepth history and analysis of the complex and sometimes contradictory movement known as Transcendentalism. There are many echoes of today, showing the deep and ongoing influence of the thinkers and their thoughts in the politics and culture of our day.

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Mar 14, 2011 Liam rated it 3 of 5 stars

"[I]t seemed to him like going to heaven in a swing." (Observer on Transcendental Club conversations, 70)

"When [Jones] Very showed Emerson some verse supposedly written at the Spirit's behest, for example, the Concord sage quipped, but 'cannot the spirit parse & spell?'" (288)

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Oct 17, 2012 Geoffrey Deacon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Good history. Written in a sprightly style. I wish it had gone into more detail of the content of transcendentalist thought, in addition to its primarily historical orientation.

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Mar 07, 2013 Kim Adamache marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Decided to put this on my list after doing a research paper that included American Transcendentalism as an influence.

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Aug 03, 2010 Jojo added it · review of another edition

As if I wouldn't own a book that had a mysterious Zoroastrian symbol on the front cover.

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Jan 15, 2009 Andrea marked it as to-read

I've been studying the abolition movement in the 19th century for many years now and wanted to learn more about the role the Transcendentalists played. I am also very intrigued by Gura's argument that this movement "whose roots were so catholic and universal eventuated in a discourse that promoted an American exceptionalism based on self-interest."

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Feb 02, 2008 Anne is currently reading it

I am very interested in the New England Transcendentalists and feel a certain kinship to their weave of spirituality and nature. Their views were progressive and applied in important ways in the culture we know today. There aren't many books on the subject, and I am pleased to have a composite history to begin.

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May 29, 2011 Maria rated it 2 of 5 stars

This was a great, extremely in-depth look at the people who formed American Transcendentalism. My low rating is simply because I myself didn't possess sufficient interest to appreciate its extensiveness. For me (and my level of interest) it became too detailed.

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May 03, 2013 Dawn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent scholarship.

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Oct 18, 2008 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

An excellent summary of the Transcendental movement. A good explanation of the division between the focus on self-development and on social reform.

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Sep 12, 2009 Pamela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-crit, history

An interesting and well-researched look at the American Transcendentalists of the 19th century.

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Oct 24, 2009 Pamela added it

Shelves: mfc-list

or Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology

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May 25, 2013 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

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May 21, 2013 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 17, 2013 Colin Amato rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 08, 2013 Jeffrey Howard is currently reading it

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