Volume 32, Number 3 · February 28, 1985
Hellfire Politics
By Gordon S. Wood
The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest, and the Foundations of Liberalism
by John Patrick Diggins
Basic, 409 pp., $23.95
What kind of people are we anyway? Politicians are not the only ones asking this question. Historians are too. For the past several years historians have been vigorously debating the origins of early American culture. Monographs and articles have increased, and students are more and more bewildered. The stakes are high: nothing less, it seems, than the real nature of America. In his passionate, agitated book John Diggins, professor of history at the University of California at Irvine, makes a powerful contribution to this debate and describes very frankly just what kind of people we are. It is not a pretty picture.
Review, 3678 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |