Democratic vistas : reflections on the life of American democracy / Jedediah Purdy, editor ; Anthony T. Kronman and Cynthia Farrar, advisory editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Purdy, Jedediah, 1974-

Kronman, Anthony T.

Farrar, Cynthia.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democracy--United States.

Democracy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (289 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this thought-provoking collection, leading scholars explore democracy in the United States from a sweeping variety of perspectives. A dozen contributors consider the nature and prospects of democracy as it relates to the American experience-free markets, religion, family life, the Cold War, higher education, and more. These probing essays bring American democracy into fresh focus, complete with its idealism, its moral greatness, its disappointments, and its contradictions. Based on DeVane lectures delivered at Yale University, these writings examine large themes and ask important questions: Why do democratic societies, and the United States in particular, tolerate profound economic inequality? Has the United States ever been truly democratic? How has democratic aspiration influenced the development of practices as diverse as education, religious worship, and family life? With deep insights and lively discussion, the authors expand our understanding of what democracy has meant in the past, how it functions now, and what its course may be in the future.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

1. The Democratic Soul

2. Lincoln and Whitman as Representative Americans

3. Public Emblem, Private Realm: Family and Polity in the United States

4. Can Religion Tolerate Democracy? (And Vice Versa?)

5. Taking Democracy to School

6. The Misuse of Numbers: Audits, Quantification, and the Obfuscation of Politics

7. Neither Capitalist nor American: The Democracy as Social Movement

8. Democracy and the Market

9. Democracy and Distribution

10. Democracy and Foreign Policy

11. Dinner with Democracy

12. American Democracy and the Origins of the Biomedical Revolution

13. Computers and Democracy

Contributors

Index

Notes:

"The essays in this volume began as the Tercentennial DeVane Lectures at Yale University"--Introduction.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786611730642

9781281730640

1281730645

9780300130485

0300130481

OCLC:

923588167