In this study of French liberalism in the first half of the nineteenth century and its continuing relevance to political theory and practice, emphasis is given to the tensions and fissures within liberalism as well as to its struggles against Jacobinism, conservatism and socialism. It is a blend of political theory, biography and intellectual and political history informed throughout by the author's distinctive political, moral and religious sensibilities. A major theme of great relevance to current debate about liberalism is the contrast between the vigor and brilliance of these thinkers as...

In this study of French liberalism in the first half of the nineteenth century and its continuing relevance to political theory and practice, emphasis is given to the tensions and fissures within liberalism as well as to its struggles against Jacobinism, conservatism and socialism. It is a blend of political theory, biography and intellectual and political history informed throughout by the author's distinctive political, moral and religious sensibilities. A major theme of great relevance to current debate about liberalism is the contrast between the vigor and brilliance of these thinkers as...

This exploration of the tensions of politics and religion in the United States, from its earliest settlement to contemporary times, is the first coherent history of American religious thought and practice within the context, of politics. Kelly sets forth a chronology and topology of the patterns of collaboration, competition, and interaction of politics and religion in America. In the United States the pathological features of politics and religion-and their decline of power and virtue-seem more closely linked in time and substance than elsewhere. Kelly concentrates on the implications of the...

Politics and Religious Consciousness in America remains the first coherent history of American religious thought and practice within the context of politics. Kelly sets forth a chronology and topology of the patterns of collaboration, competition, and interaction of politics and religion in America. His exploration of the tensions of politics and religion in the United States, from its earliest settlement to contemporary times, is as relevant now as when it was first published. Elshtains introduction underscores the continuing importance of this seminal work. Transactions decision to publish...

In Idealism, Politics and History, Mr Kelly provides a wide-ranging but careful scholarly analysis of the meeting of two vital themes in the French Revolutionary period: intellectual and moral perceptions of history, and the patterns of political systems. He argues that a close exploration of the former is critical to our understanding of political philosophy at the end of the Age of Reason. The author traces his central preoccupations in a series of linked studies of Rousseau, Kant, Fichte and Hegel. Each essay is in its own right an important contribution to the history of political ideas....

By means of a typology of authority, Kelly locates defined groups within the orbit of Jacobean hatred of all aristocracies and charts this course of logic through the collective biography of four significant victims of the Terror. Concluding that the Jacobean philosophy could not tolerate any residue of the aristocratic temper, he shows that, in essence, these men were executed because of their Old Regime connections. Kelly's method and conclusions challenge mainstream French revolutionary historiography.

Originally published in 1982.

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