What do you think?
Rate this book
Intellectual Life in America
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 2, 2014
Through his survey of American intellectual history from the 17th through the 20th century, Perry attempts to understand the place of intellectuals in a democratic society, with particular concern for the charge of intellectual elitism. Perry argues that the current of American intellectualism transformed from that of Enlightenment “virtue” to that of 19th century “culture,” a conceptions which was more aesthetic than political. Democracy caused segmentation and specialization on intellectual interests.
Religion is a decisive agent of intellectual change, with a primary role in his narrative: with beginnings in a hierarchical Christian world view, through strains of utopian, millennial, and progressive strains that retained an element of Providence. According to Perry, religious revivals spurred a mood of rebelliousness that led to Revolution; and he, furthermore, argues that religious change was “inevitable” after the Revolution; the Jeffersonian agrarian ideal is based on a sense of providence and moral virtuosity, religious revivals functions as a national “linchpin” during the antebellum years (136), with the ministry forming a specialized religious class, and even late 19th century “Culture” was conceptualized as “quasi-religious” (267). Although he gives some attention to regional variation, Perry also makes a case for early New England intellectualism as the foundation for national intellectual identity.
Religion is a decisive agent of intellectual change, with a primary role in his narrative: with beginnings in a hierarchical Christian world view, through strains of utopian, millennial, and progressive strains that retained an element of Providence. According to Perry, religious revivals spurred a mood of rebelliousness that led to Revolution; and he, furthermore, argues that religious change was “inevitable” after the Revolution; the Jeffersonian agrarian ideal is based on a sense of providence and moral virtuosity, religious revivals functions as a national “linchpin” during the antebellum years (136), with the ministry forming a specialized religious class, and even late 19th century “Culture” was conceptualized as “quasi-religious” (267). Although he gives some attention to regional variation, Perry also makes a case for early New England intellectualism as the foundation for national intellectual identity.
Displaying 1 of 1 review