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In Quest of Freedom: American Political Thought and Practice
Book by Mason, Alpheus Thomas
1 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 1972
About the author
Alpheus Thomas Mason
43 booksA specialist in the American Constitution and the author of several judicial biographies, Alpheus Thomas Mason was McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Princeton University. He received his BA from Dickinson College in 1920 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1923, and he taught at Princeton from 1925 until his retirement in 1968.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 8, 2010
This is a very nice study of American political thought and its antecedents. Alpheus T. Mason pulls together, here, an analysis of key documents and thoughts of important American thinkers over the decades and centuries.
The first chapter is entitled "Tap Roots of Freedom." Here, he explores the English background--from the Putney Debates, to John Locke and James Harrington and Montesquieu. Each contributed ideas and arguments about the structure and role of government to provide context for the American experiment. Then a chapter entitled "Struggle for Freedom," which examines New England's Puritanism and those who questions it (such as Roger Williams). Then, Chapter 3, "Forging Independence. After the French and Indian War ended, many pamphlets circulated, arguing over the propriety or the evil of the English government requesting that American colonists pay a share of the cost of that war. The arguments by leading colonists such as Benjamin Franklin, James Otis, John Dickinson, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and others are duly noted.
The book goes on, tracking the evolution of American political thought and key exemplars over the course of the country's history. Hamilton versus Jefferson; Jacksonian democracy; Transcendentalism; slavery--proponents and opponents; the Gilded Age and its ideology; the New Deal; post-World War II America. . . .
A readable and accessible introduction to American political thought. . . .
The first chapter is entitled "Tap Roots of Freedom." Here, he explores the English background--from the Putney Debates, to John Locke and James Harrington and Montesquieu. Each contributed ideas and arguments about the structure and role of government to provide context for the American experiment. Then a chapter entitled "Struggle for Freedom," which examines New England's Puritanism and those who questions it (such as Roger Williams). Then, Chapter 3, "Forging Independence. After the French and Indian War ended, many pamphlets circulated, arguing over the propriety or the evil of the English government requesting that American colonists pay a share of the cost of that war. The arguments by leading colonists such as Benjamin Franklin, James Otis, John Dickinson, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and others are duly noted.
The book goes on, tracking the evolution of American political thought and key exemplars over the course of the country's history. Hamilton versus Jefferson; Jacksonian democracy; Transcendentalism; slavery--proponents and opponents; the Gilded Age and its ideology; the New Deal; post-World War II America. . . .
A readable and accessible introduction to American political thought. . . .
Displaying 1 of 1 review