Political Science - History, Cabinet Members - 18th & 19th Century - Biography, Historical Biography - United States - Colonial & 18th Century, United States History - General & Miscellaneous, General & Miscellaneous U.S. Political Biography, Nationalism

Hamilton's Republic

Name: Hamilton's Republic
Author: Michael Lind
ISBN: 9780684831602

by Michael Lind

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Overview

Hamilton's Republic is the first anthology of Hamiltonian democratic nationalism. Here are excerpts from the major writings of Alexander Hamilton and his successors. In addition to a generous selection from familiar works of Hamilton like the Federalist Papers, and the addresses of Abraham Lincoln, this collection includes Henry Clay on "the American system," Daniel Webster on the Union - "one and indivisible" - and Theodore Roosevelt on "the new nationalism" and "the big stick." Here the reader will find Frederick Douglass on racial integration and Israel Zangwill on the melting pot, Dean Acheson and Walter Lippmann on realism in foreign affairs, the Progressive philosopher Herbert Croly on "democratic Hamiltonianism," and the great New Deal presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson on the need for the national government to promote economic justice and racial equality. Many of the addresses and books excerpted in this anthology, like Senator Henry Cabot Lodge's World War I-era critique of idealism in foreign policy, the forgotten Founding Father James Wilson's discussion of popular sovereignty and the U.S. constitution, and the writings of nineteenth-century American economic nationalists like Friedrich List and Henry Carey, are reprinted here for the first time in generations. Hamilton's Republic is the most important anthology of American political thought in decades. Destined to be an indispensable textbook in colleges and universities, this collection is also required reading for Americans and others who want to learn about the heritage and destiny of the United States.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Arguably the most effective and often the most controversial force in modern politics is nationalism, which both unites and divides. According to Lind (The Next American Nation, LJ 6/1/95), such an interpretation of nationalism, especially in the U.S. context, is inaccurate and insufficient. Nationalism, Lind contends, is neither dirty nor un-American but has deep and positive roots in American soil, producing a rich country domestically and a powerful one internationally. To a large degree, Lind is on target, for central to the American political and intellectual tradition is the idea of the nation, as exemplified in the thought and practice of the likes of Hamilton, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts. Such Hamiltonian visionary nationalism, Lind argues, is essential for recovering our civic culture and realizing the purposes of our polity as expressed in the preamble to the Constitution. His book must be encountered in the ongoing debate about the health of our body politic. Recommended for all libraries.Stephen Shaw, Northwest Nazarene Coll., Nampa, Ind.