This concise and elegant book reintroduces us to the history that shaped thefounding fathers, the history that they made, and what history has made of them. It gives the reader a context within which to explore the world of the founding fathers and their complex and still-controversial achievements and legacies. Here is a vividly written and compact overview of the brilliant, flawed, and quarrelsome group of lawyers, politicians, merchants, military men, and clergy known as the "Founding Fathers"--who got as close to the ideal of the Platonic "philosopher-kings" as American or world history has ever seen. In The Founding Fathers Reconsidered, R. B. Bernstein reveals Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and the other founders not as shining demigods but as imperfect human beings--people much like us--who nevertheless achieved political greatness. They emerge here as men who sought to transcend their intellectual world even as they were bound by its limits, men who strove to lead the new nation even as they had to defer to the great body of the people and learn with them thepossibilities and limitations of politics. Bernstein deftly traces the dynamic forces that molded these men and their contemporaries as British colonists in North America and as intellectual citizens of the Atlantic civilization's Age of Enlightenment. He analyzes the American Revolution, the framing andadoption of state and federal constitutions, and the key concepts and problems--among them independence, federalism, equality, slavery, and the separation of church and state--that both shaped and circumscribed the founders' achievements as the United States sought its place in the world. INDICE: Introduction I. The History that Made the Founding Fathers The State of the Union Free-Born English Subjects The Intellectual World II. The History that the Founding Fathers Made Independence Constitution-Making FederalismPolitics Church and State Equality, Inequality, and Slavery America in the World Part III. What History Made of the Founding Fathers Ancestor Worship? "Which Founding Father Are You?" The Dead Hand of the Past: Original Intent Conclusion Notes Chronology Further Reading
- ISBN: 978-0-19-983257-6
- Editorial: Oxford University
- Encuadernacion: Rústica
- Páginas: 256
- Fecha Publicación: 22/09/2011
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés