American Beliefs - What Keeps a Big Country and a Diverse People United (Paperback, New edition)

George Washington said that America's future depends on the unity of its people and, casting a transatlantic eye upon the undignified presidential spat in Florida, one cannot help but note how fragile that unity may indeed be. McElroy's book is billed as an antidote to past examinations of divisions in US society, and embarks on an explicit mission to identify deep-seated values that unify this vast, dynamic and diverse nation. But lurking beneath its surface is a thinly veiled nervousness about 'cultural decline' that seeks to revive values eroded by excessive liberalism: the author bemoans, for example, how the idea of multiculturalism has displaced 'American national culture'. In this sense, this book becomes and important artefact, a resuscitation of the studies in 'national character' once proclaimed extinct. McElroy traces with skill the erudition and evolution of such recognizable American beliefs as the uncompromising work ethic, visionary enterprise, individual responsibility and a genuine popular sovereignity. He devotes considerable effort to arguing for the differences between American and imported English values and the former's separate, almost timeless, evolution derived as if from the very landscape itself. He also examines the residual belief in America as a chosen land with a civilizing mission sanctioned by God. Such ideas recur in cultural nationalism the world over. This book will prove valuable, and often provocative, to readers interested in US perpectives on its own culture at the dawn of the 21st century. (Kirkus UK)

Why do so many different people with widely dissimilar ideas and customs get along as Americans? In American Beliefs, John McElroy identifies and explains those essential ideas that promote the unity of a vast nation and a diversified people because they have been shared and acted upon by generations of Americans. Tracing these beliefs historically from their origins in the earliest experiences of the American colonists, Mr. McElroy shows how they became continuing convictions that together form a pattern distinct from those of other peoples. Work, he argues, shaped the primary beliefs of Americans, for the task of the early settlers was first of all to survive in a new wilderness. He then goes on to discuss beliefs that grew from the experiences of immigrants, from life on the frontier, and from the ideas that Americans developed about religion and morality, politics, human nature, and the workings of society. It is not birthplace or skin color that makes a person an American, Mr. McElroy observes, but a common behavior based upon principles of freedom and equality, individuality and responsibility, improvement and practicality. American Beliefs is a book greatly needed, a powerful antidote to decades of historical and political writings that have concentrated on the differences among Americans.

General

Imprint:	Ivan R. Dee
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	August 2000
First published:	August 2000
Authors:	John Harmon McElroy
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 20mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	256
Edition:	New edition
ISBN-13:	978-1-56663-314-7
Categories:	Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Area / regional studies > General Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history Promotions
LSN:	1-56663-314-1
Barcode:	9781566633147

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