CLOSURE: Central Library will be closed Tuesday, July 21, through Saturday, July 25, while emergency repairs are made to the building’s cooling system. We expect to reopen Monday, July 27. Click for more details on holds, program schedules, and returns during the closure. 

Notice of Public Meeting: Kalamazoo Public Library Board of Trustees | July 27 | 5:30 pm | Central Library/Van Deusen Room. The packet of information for the meeting can be found on the library’s website. 

Book

The idea of America : reflections on the birth of the United States

Call Number

  • 973.3 W875.3 (CEN)

Browse similar titles by call number

Publication Information

New York : Penguin Press, 2011.

Physical Description

385 p. ; 25 cm.

Summary

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the American Revolution explains why it remains the most significant event in our history. In a series of elegant and illuminating essays, Wood explores the ideological origins of the revolution--from ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment--and the founders' attempts to forge an American democracy.

Contents

  • Rhetoric and reality in the American Revolution
  • The legacy of Rome in the American Revolution
  • Conspiracy and the paranoid style
  • Interests and disinterestedness in the making of the Constitution
  • The origins of American Constitutionalism
  • The making of American democracy
  • The radicalism of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine considered
  • Monarchism and republicanism in early America
  • Illusions of power in the awkward era of federalism
  • The American enlightenment
  • A history of rights in early America
  • Conclusion : the American revolutionary tradition, or why America wants to spread democracy around the world.

Subjects