American Political Ideas, 1865-1917

ISBN-13: 9781412807159 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 532 str.

Charles Merriam; Jr. Pearson

Opis

Charles Merriam is scarcely read today, and even among scholars he is probably more often cited than read seriously. His ambiguous position in the study of American democracy is unfortunate. Between the two world wars, Merriman was the doyen of American political science. This was a period when the most formative characteristics of academic social sciences were taking shape, characteristics that were to dominate the remainder of the century. During this period, "science" and "progress" became virtually synonymous in the social sciences. Between the two world wars, the liberal progressive critique of America's founders, a critique that included scholars such as Woodrow Wilson, Charles Beard, and others, became the orthodoxy of a new political science. The heart of that critique, insofar as it turned on methodological questions of how to study American government, was very much the work of Charles Merriam. Anyone who seeks to understand why that period was so pivotal in the interpretation of American democracy must necessarily study Charles Merriam and his infl uence. His work represents the fi rst comprehensive effort by a scholar in the liberal-progressive tradition to survey the entirety of American political thought.

Spis treści

I: The Background of American Political Thought; II: Typical Interpretations of Democracy; III: The Consent of the Governed; IV: Legislative and Executive Powers of Government; V: The Courts and Justice; VI: Responsibility of Judges to the Democracy; VII: Democracy and Constitutional Change; VIII: The Unit of Democratic Organization; IX: Internationalism — Pacifism — Militarism; X: The Political Party and Unofficial Government; XI: Government and Liberty; XII: Government and Liberty (Continued); XIII: Systematic Studies of Politics; XIV: Political Ideas in American Literature 1; XV: Summary

O autorze

Charles Merriam (1874-1953) was professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He served on the Research Committee on Social Trends under President Hebert Hoover and on the National Resources Planning Board under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He is known as the father of the behavioral movement in political science and believed that theories of political process needed to be linked to practical political activity. Sidney A. Pearson, Jr. is professor emeritus of political science at Radford University. He is the series editor of Library of Liberal Thought at Transaction Publishers. In addition to this title he also wrote new introductions for Presidential Leadership, The New Democracy, and Party Government all available from Transaction Publishers.