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Author: John Harmon McElroy
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1461730295
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
Why do so many different people with widely dissimilar ideas and customs get along as Americans? In American Beliefs, John McElroy identifies and explains those essential ideas that promote the unity of a vast nation and a diversified people—because they have been shared and acted upon by generations of Americans. Tracing these beliefs historically from their origins in the earliest experiences of the American colonists, Mr. McElroy shows how they became continuing convictions that together form a pattern distinct from those of other peoples. Work, he argues, shaped the primary beliefs of Americans, for the task of the early settlers was first of all to survive in a new wilderness. He then goes on to discuss beliefs that grew from the experiences of immigrants, from life on the frontier, and from the ideas that Americans developed about religion and morality, politics, human nature, and the workings of society. It is not birthplace or skin color that makes a person an American, Mr. McElroy observes, but a common behavior based upon principles of freedom and equality, individuality and responsibility, improvement and practicality. American Beliefs is a book greatly needed, a powerful antidote to decades of historical and political writings that have concentrated on the differences among Americans.
Author: John Harmon McElroy
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1461730295
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Get Book Here
Book Description
Why do so many different people with widely dissimilar ideas and customs get along as Americans? In American Beliefs, John McElroy identifies and explains those essential ideas that promote the unity of a vast nation and a diversified people—because they have been shared and acted upon by generations of Americans. Tracing these beliefs historically from their origins in the earliest experiences of the American colonists, Mr. McElroy shows how they became continuing convictions that together form a pattern distinct from those of other peoples. Work, he argues, shaped the primary beliefs of Americans, for the task of the early settlers was first of all to survive in a new wilderness. He then goes on to discuss beliefs that grew from the experiences of immigrants, from life on the frontier, and from the ideas that Americans developed about religion and morality, politics, human nature, and the workings of society. It is not birthplace or skin color that makes a person an American, Mr. McElroy observes, but a common behavior based upon principles of freedom and equality, individuality and responsibility, improvement and practicality. American Beliefs is a book greatly needed, a powerful antidote to decades of historical and political writings that have concentrated on the differences among Americans.
Author: Michael Thomas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135983453
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Book Description
This book explains the institutionalization of nearly unconditional American support of Israel during the Reagan administration, and its persistence in the first Bush administration in terms of the competition of belief systems in American society and politics. Michael Thomas explains policy changes over time and provides insights into what circumstances might lead to lasting changes in policy. The volume identifies the important domestic, social, religious and political elements that have vied for primacy on policy towards Israel, and using case studies, such as the 1981 AWACS sale and the 1991 loan guarantees, argues that policy debates have been struggles to embed and enforce beliefs about Israel and about Arabs. It also establishes a framework for better understanding the influences and constraints on American policy towards Israel. An epilogue applies the lessons learned to the current Bush administration. American Policy toward Israel will be of interest to students of US foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics and international relations.
Author: Robert D. Putnam
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416566732
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 720
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Book Description
Based on two new studies, "American Grace" examines the impact of religion on American life and explores how that impact has changed in the last half-century.
Author: Gregg L. Frazer
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700620214
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
Were America's Founders Christians or deists? Conservatives and secularists have taken each position respectively, mustering evidence to insist just how tall the wall separating church and state should be. Now Gregg Frazer puts their arguments to rest in the first comprehensive analysis of the Founders' beliefs as they themselves expressed them-showing that today's political right and left are both wrong. Going beyond church attendance or public pronouncements made for political ends, Frazer scrutinizes the Founders' candid declarations regarding religion found in their private writings. Distilling decades of research, he contends that these men were neither Christian nor deist but rather adherents of a system he labels "theistic rationalism," a hybrid belief system that combined elements of natural religion, Protestantism, and reason-with reason the decisive element. Frazer explains how this theological middle ground developed, what its core beliefs were, and how they were reflected in the thought of eight Founders: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. He argues convincingly that Congregationalist Adams is the clearest example of theistic rationalism; that presumed deists Jefferson and Franklin are less secular than supposed; and that even the famously taciturn Washington adheres to this theology. He also shows that the Founders held genuinely religious beliefs that aligned with morality, republican government, natural rights, science, and progress. Frazer's careful explication helps readers better understand the case for revolutionary recruitment, the religious references in the Declaration of Independence, and the religious elements-and lack thereof-in the Constitution. He also reveals how influential clergymen, backing their theology of theistic rationalism with reinterpreted Scripture, preached and published liberal democratic theory to justify rebellion. Deftly blending history, religion, and political thought, Frazer succeeds in showing that the American experiment was neither a wholly secular venture nor an attempt to create a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. By showcasing the actual approach taken by these key Founders, he suggests a viable solution to the twenty-first-century standoff over the relationship between church and state-and challenges partisans on both sides to articulate their visions for America on their own merits without holding the Founders hostage to positions they never held.
Author: Paul V. Kroskrity
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816529167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 363
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Book Description
Beliefs and feelings about language vary dramatically within and across Native American cultural groups and are an acknowledged part of the processes of language shift and language death. This volume samples the language ideologies of a wide range of Native American communities--from the Canadian Yukon to Guatemala--to show their role in sociocultural transformation. These studies take up such active issues as "insiderness" in Cherokee language ideologies, contradictions of space-time for the Northern Arapaho, language socialization and Paiute identity, and orthography choices and language renewal among the Kiowa. The authors--including members of indigenous speech communities who participate in language renewal efforts--discuss not only Native Americans' conscious language ideologies but also the often-revealing relationship between these beliefs and other more implicit realizations of language use as embedded in community practice. The chapters discuss the impact of contemporary language issues related to grammar, language use, the relation between language and social identity, and emergent language ideologies themselves in Native American speech communities. And although they portray obvious variation in attitudes toward language across communities, they also reveal commonalities--notably the emergent ideological process of iconization between a language and various national, ethnic, and tribal identities. As fewer Native Americans continue to speak their own language, this timely volume provides valuable grounded studies of language ideologies in action--those indigenous to Native communities as well as those imposed by outside institutions or language researchers. It considers the emergent interaction of indigenous and imported ideologies and the resulting effect on language beliefs, practices, and struggles in today's Indian Country as it demonstrates the practical implications of recognizing a multiplicity of indigenous language ideologies and their impact on heritage language maintenance and renewal.
Author: Gary Althen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780933662681
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Althen (former foreign student adviser, U. of Iowa) gives advice to foreign visitors to the U.S. that is intended to help them understand the motivations, attitudes, communication styles, and actions of Americans. Emphasizing the interpretation of observed behavior, he covers ways of reasoning and American ideas about politics, family life, education, religion, the media, social relationships, racial and ethnic diversity, male-female relationships, sports and recreation, driving, shopping, personal hygiene, and organizational and public behavior. Over-generalization is an understandable danger in such a work as this, but Althen does make an effort to emphasize that there are variations among Americans, while he concentrates on the similarities. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author: Richard T. Hughes
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252050800
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374
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Book Description
Six myths lie at the heart of the American experience. Taken as aspirational, four of those myths remind us of our noblest ideals, challenging us to realize our nation's promise while galvanizing the sense of hope and unity we need to reach our goals. Misused, these myths allow for illusions of innocence that fly in the face of white supremacy, the primal American myth that stands at the heart of all the others.
Author: Jennifer L. Hochschild
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674950870
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
Using a long questionnaire and in-depth interviews, Hochschild examines the ideals and contemporary practices of Americans on the subject of distributive justice, and discovers neither the rich nor the nonrich support the downward redistribution of wealth.
Author: Benjamin Reiss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226709655
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
In the mid-1800s, a utopian movement to rehabilitate the insane resulted in a wave of publicly funded asylums—many of which became unexpected centers of cultural activity. Housed in magnificent structures with lush grounds, patients participated in theatrical programs, debating societies, literary journals, schools, and religious services. Theaters of Madness explores both the culture these rich offerings fomented and the asylum’s place in the fabric of nineteenth-century life, reanimating a time when the treatment of the insane was a central topic in debates over democracy, freedom, and modernity. Benjamin Reiss explores the creative lives of patients and the cultural demands of their doctors. Their frequently clashing views turned practically all of American culture—from blackface minstrel shows to the works of William Shakespeare—into a battlefield in the war on insanity. Reiss also shows how asylums touched the lives and shaped the writing of key figures, such as Emerson and Poe, who viewed the system alternately as the fulfillment of a democratic ideal and as a kind of medical enslavement. Without neglecting this troubling contradiction, Theaters of Madness prompts us to reflect on what our society can learn from a generation that urgently and creatively tried to solve the problem of mental illness.
Author: Charles McCrary
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226817954
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
"If you read Supreme Court opinions on cases involving First Amendment religion issues, you're likely to encounter the ubiquitous phrase "sincerely held religious belief." The "sincerity test" of religious belief has become a cornerstone of US jurisprudence, determining what counts as legitimate grounds for First Amendment claims in the eyes of the law. In Sincerely Held, Charles McCrary provides an original account of how "sincerely held religious belief" became the primary standard for determining what legally counts as genuine religion. McCrary traces the interlocking histories of sincerity, religion, and secularism in the US, starting in the mid-nineteenth century. He then shows how, in the 1940s, as the courts expanded the concept of religious freedom, they incorporated the notion of sincerity as a key element in determining religious freedom protections. The legal sincerity test was part of a larger trend in which the category "religion" became largely individualized and correlated with "belief." This linking of religion and belief, with all its Protestant underpinnings, is a central concern of critical secularism studies. McCrary contributes to this conversation by revealing the history of how sincerity and sincerely held religious belief developed as technologies of secular governance, constraining the type of subject one has to be in order to receive protections from the state"--
