The United States: An Experiment in DemocracyRoutledge, 17/04/2018 - 333 páginas According to Carl Becker "if the framers of the Constitution could come back to earth and see what the federal government is doing to-day, they would all agree that this monstrous thing was no child of theirs; for to-day the federal government exercises as a matter of course powers which they never dreamed of." This prescient statement rings as true today as it did when Becker wrote An Experiment in Democracy nearly eighty years ago. This American classic is an engaging, gracefully rendered piece of historical literature as well as a non-ideological meditation on the "meaning of America." Carl Becker's ruminations are invariably provocative, notably wise, and remarkably enduring. He clearly believed in what has been called a "living Constitution," one that must be adapted to changing circumstances and imperatives in America life, and his faith in democracy seems to have strengthened as the decades progressed. In his new introduction, Michael Kammen places this American classic in historical perspective. Kammen sees Becker as more than an archival historian, but rather as a master of the "creative synthesis" looking at familiar sources in fresh ways and developing new points of view that were frequently revisionist and, on occasion, radically arresting. Much has changed between 1920 and the present; but Carl Becker's sagacity persists, just as his expository prose will continue to please a new generation of historians and students of American social history. Carl Becker was the author of "Kansas"; The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas; Modern History: The Rise of a Democratic, Scientific, and Industrial Civilization; "Benjamin Franklin"; "Everyman His Own Historian"; The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers; How New Will the Better World Be?; and Freedom and Responsibility in the American Way of Life. |
No interior do livro
... few of his particular lines of historical interpretation are now somewhat ... American Century” moves toward closure. That is the principal reason why An ... America.” It is also a classic because no historian of the United States has ...
... few of his memorable classics: “Kansas” (1910); The Declaration of ... American Way of Life (1945). Born in 1873 on a farm in Blackhawk County ... young Becker, as did other Europeanists. One of the anomalies of Becker's professional ...
... few years later: It made both men realize how very American they were. Considering Becker's commitment to mainstream liberal values in his native country, it is ironic that during the mid1930s he was accused of harboring socialist views ...
... American past because of persistent contention between liberal and ... few examples suffice. “It is not our free government, but our fortunate ... Americans “have always been opposed to a highly centralized government, exercising its ...
... small landowners, and peasants. The motives which inspired these people to try their fortunes in America varied with the individual, as well as with the region in which they settled. Some came in a spirit of adventure, others to mend ...
Índice
DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNMENT | |
NEW WORLD DEMOCRACY AND OLD WORLD INTERVENTION | |
DEMOCRACY AND FREE LAND | |
DEMOCRACY AND SLAVERY | |
DEMOCRACY AND IMMIGRATION | |
DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION | |
DEMOCRACY AND EQUALITY | |