American Political Thought

How do Americans think about foundational political questions? Covering the full span of U.S. history, American Political Thought: An Invitation offers a lively yet sophisticated overview of the nature and dynamics of American Political Thought for students and general readers alike.

Award-winning scholar Ken Kersch’s engaging introduction situates the key debates in their historical, political and cultural context. He introduces the touchstone frameworks and ideas that are both deeply ingrained and yet have been actively re-made in a country that has spent 250 years of shifting circumstances battling over their real-world implications. Covering thinkers ranging from Jefferson to Rawls, Du Bois to Audre Lorde, he examines the ambiguities of the purportedly ‘consensus’ American principles of liberty, equality, and democracy as well as addressing questions ranging from ‘What are the foundations of a legitimate political order?’ and ‘What is the appropriate role of government?’ to ‘What are the appropriate terms of full civic membership ?’ - and beyond.

Politically balanced and inclusive, American Political Thought introduces the contested terrain concerning these core political questions as they were raised over the course of the USA’s often dramatic history. Acknowledgments

1 Themes and Frameworks in American Political Thought

The Traditional Framing: Lockean Liberalism, Civic Republicanism, and the Liberal–Republican Debate

Complications and Refinements: Other Liberalisms, Other Republicanisms, and Other Thought Traditions

Theories Positing the Inadequacy of the Traditional Frameworks and Proposing Alternatives

Stories About America

Conclusion

Questions

Notes

2 Settlement, the Road to Revolution, the Founding, and the Early Republic

The Theological Dimensions of Colonial American Thought

Race and Indigeneity during the Settlement and the Road to Revolution

The American Revolution and the Founding

Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian Visions

Conclusion

Questions

Notes

3 Antebellum Political Thought

Jacksonian Democracy

The Whig Vision and “the American System”

Majority Rule and Minority Rights

The Sovereign Individual

Anti-Materialism and Nature

The Call of Moral and Social Reform

An “Empire of Liberty”?

Labor: Work and Slavery

Conclusion

Questions

Notes

4 Secession/Civil War/Reconstruction

Race, Slavery, and Natural Rights

Slavery and Union

A New Birth of Freedom? Equality and Union after Slavery

Conclusion

Questions

Notes

5 Industrial Capitalism, Reformism, and the New American State

Restraining Government: The Philosophy of Laissez-Faire

Conservative Critics of Industrial Capitalism and Liberal Modernity

Reformist and Revolutionary Critics of Industrial Capitalism: Ideas

Ideas in Action

From Pragmatism to Progressivism

Pragmatism in Politics and Government

The New Pluralism: Ethnicity, Nationality, and Race

Sex and Gender

Conclusion

Questions

Notes

6 The New Deal Liberal Order: Collapse, Culmination, or “Great Exception”?

The New Deal

The Fate of the Individual in a Mass Polity

Who Governs? The Liberal Consensus

Outliers in Franklin Roosevelt’s America: The “Radical Right,” Marxian Left, and Marginalized African-Americans

Rumbling Undercurrents

Conclusion

Questions

Notes

7 Radical Stirrings, Civil Rights, the Contentious 1960s, and the Rise of Modern Conservatism

Mass Conformity: The Diagnosis and the Rebels

Postwar Conservatism’s Political Rise

Conservative Political Thought

Civil Rights Resistance

Black Nationalism

The New Left

The Full Flowering: The Late 1960s Counterculture

Conclusion

Questions

Notes

8 The Identity and Post-Materialist Left, the New Right, and Third Way Liberalism

Sex and Gender

The Intervention of Feminist Women of Color

“Gay Liberation” and the Politics of LGBTQ + Identity

Racial and Ethnic Identity and Pride: the Chicano and American Indian Movements, and Beyond

Ecology and Environment

The New Right

Third Way (Neo)Liberalism

Conclusion

Questions

Notes

Conclusion

Boundaries, Categories, and Intersectionality

The Persisting Problem of the Color Line

Contemporary Conservatism

Contemporary Liberalism

Capitalism, Socialism, and Neoliberalism

The Resurgent American Left

Conclusion: The Futures of American Political Thought

Questions

Notes

Index

"Ken Kersch manages to showcase the complexity and diversity of American political thought in a way that students and others will find easy to understand. He helps us understand the American past, realize how that past connects to the present, and imagine the possibilities for an American future. He asks fundamental questions about American politics and then makes it possible for readers to come up with their own informed answers."
Susan McWilliams Barndt, Chair and Professor, Pomona College Politics Department Co-Editor, American Political Thought

“Scholars and educators have long needed a fresh analysis of the development of American political thought. Drawing on his deep knowledge of the diversity of American perspectives and experiences, Ken Kersch has met that need. His account of American political thought as a tradition of contention over who does and who should wield power superbly illuminates America’s past and our deeply contentious present—in ways that can benefit our future.”
Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Ken Kersch is Professor of Political Science at Boston College.