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 following issues: the distinction between the sacred and the profane; a reevaluation of Tocqueville's analysis; the competitive and coalescent qualities of Calvinist and Arminian doctrines; an interpretation of sectarianism and cultism; a dissection of the meanings of American providentialism; an application of Weberian theory of the Protestant ethic to American religion and politics; a critique of the modern notion of "civil religion"; and an analytical investigation of religious and political modes of conviction. "Readers will be grateful to Kelly] for clearing away much of the debris of American religious and political traditions and revealing at least some of the old foundations."--James L. Guth, "American Politcal Science Review" "A penetrating criticism of Protestant and post-Protestant culture in America."--A. Porterfield, "Choice" "Subtle, extraordinarily learned, and often original."--John A. Coleman, "America" George Armstrong Kelly (1932-1987) was a visiting professor of humanities and political science at Johns Hopkins University from 1980 until 1987, taught for many years at Harvard and Brandeis, chaired the Seminar in Political and Social Thought at Columbia University, and was a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. Among his many books are "Idealism, Politics and History: Sources of Hegelian Thought and Lost Soldiers: The French Army and Empire in Crisis, 1947-1962." Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago. She is the author of several books, including "Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought and Augustine and the Limits of Politics."

This book is the last completed work of one of the most distinguished political theorists and intellectual historians of our time. Focusing on the political ideas and activities of leading French liberals from approximately 1805 into the Second Empire, Professor Kelly presents a distinctive blend of ideological and intellectual history, biography, analysis of French regimes and their changes, and his own reflections concerning the wide and still highly pertinent range of issues considered. Beginning with a subtle analysis of the complex patterns of agreement and disagreement between the liberalisms of Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville, the work offers a sophisticated examination of the attempts of a sequence of liberal thinkers to harmonize their commitments to political and civil liberty with one another, and with a profound desire for a legitimate and stable political order.

This book is the last completed work of one of the most distinguished political theorists and intellectual historians of our time. Focusing on the political ideas and activities of leading French liberals from approximately 1805 into the Second Empire, Professor Kelly presents a distinctive blend of ideological and intellectual history, biography, analysis of French regimes and their changes, and his own reflections concerning the wide and still highly pertinent range of issues considered. Beginning with a subtle analysis of the complex patterns of agreement and disagreement between the liberalisms of Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville, the work offers a sophisticated examination of the attempts of a sequence of liberal thinkers to harmonize their commitments to political and civil liberty with one another, and with a profound desire for a legitimate and stable political order.

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. Cumulatively, they furnish a context of thought in which Hegel's system of thought can be clarified and reinterpreted. Mr Kelly thus succeeds not only in conveying an appreciation of the connection between philosophy and politics in Hegel, but in tracing the stages of an entire school of interpretation.

Concentrating on Hegel's political philosophy, George Armstrong Kelly pursues three lines of inquiry. The first is the broad question of the connection of philosophy, politics, and history within Hegel's system of thought. Second, the author explores Hegel's relationship with his surrounding political culture and his rejection of aestheticism for the higher goal of politics. Finally, he analyzes Hegel's theory of the state, its historical and structural foundations, its demolition by a later generation, and its relevance. Professor Kelly explains how Hegel's total philosophical method and system convey his apprehension of the meaning of European culture and its links with a political harmony accessible to modern times. Professor Kelly explains how Hegel's total philosophical method and system convey his apprehension of the meaning of European culture and its links with a political harmony accessible to modern times. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Concentrating on Hegel's political philosophy, George Armstrong Kelly pursues three lines of inquiry. The first is the broad question of the connection of philosophy, politics, and history within Hegel's system of thought. Second, the author explores Hegel's relationship with his surrounding political culture and his rejection of aestheticism for the higher goal of politics. Finally, he analyzes Hegel's theory of the state, its historical and structural foundations, its demolition by a later generation, and its relevance. Professor Kelly explains how Hegel's total philosophical method and system convey his apprehension of the meaning of European culture and its links with a political harmony accessible to modern times. Professor Kelly explains how Hegel's total philosophical method and system convey his apprehension of the meaning of European culture and its links with a political harmony accessible to modern times. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.