In Print the Legend: Politics, Culture, and Civic Virtue in the Films of John Ford, a collection of writers explore Ford's view of politics, popular culture, and civic virtue in some of his best films: Drums Along the Mohawk, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Stagecoach, How Green Was My Valley, and The Last Hurrah. John Ford, more than most motion picture directors, invites his viewers into a serious discussion of these themes. For instance, one can consider Plato's timeless question 'What is justice?' in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, vengeance as classical Greek tragedy in The Searchers, or ethnic politics in The Last Hurrah. Ford's films never grow stale or seem dated because he continually probes the most important questions of our civic culture: what must we do to survive, prosper, pursue happiness, and retain our common decency as a regime? Further, viewing them from a distance of time, we are subtly invited to ask whether anything has been lost or gained since Ford celebrated the civic virtues of an earlier America. Is Ford's America an idealized America or a lost America?

Ronald J. Pestritto's and Thomas G. West's earlier volume The American Founding and the Social Compact addressed the nature of the thought and philosophy of the men who shaped the American founding. In this second volume in a trilogy, Pestritto and West examine the fate of the founders' principles in the nine teeth century, when these principles faced their first great challenges. Support of slavery, culminating in secession and civil war, came from the South; and after the war came positivism, relativism, and radical egalitarianism, which originated in Europe and infiltrated American universities, where intellectuals repudiated the founders' views as historically obsolete and insufficiently concerned with true human liberation. In ten chapters covering major thinkers in nineteenth-century American political thought, contributors discuss the rise and resolution of ideological conflicts in the early generations of the American republic. In Challenges to the American Founding Pestritto and West have compiled an invaluable resource for the roots of the twentieth-century departure in American politics from the political vision of the American founders.

We cannot understand our current political situation and the scholarship used to comprehend our politics without taking full account of the Progressive revolution of a century ago. This fundamental shift in studying the political world relegated the theory and practice of the Founders to an antiquated historical phase. By contrast, our contributors see beyond the horizon of Progressivism to take account of the Founders' moral and political premises. By doing so they make clear the broader context of current political science disputes, a fitting subject as American professional political science enters its second century. The contributors to the volume specify the changes in the new world that Progressivism brought into being. Part I emphasizes the contrast between various Progressives and their doctrines, and the American Founding on political institutions including the presidency, political parties, and the courts; statesmen include Frederick Douglass, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and John Marshall. Part II emphasizes the radical nature of Progressivism in a variety of areas critical to the American constitutional government and self-understanding of the American mind. Subjects covered include social science, property rights, Darwinism, free speech, and political science as a liberal art. The essays provide intellectual guidance to political scientists and indicate to political practitioners the peculiar perspectives embedded in current political science. Published in cooperation with The Claremont Institute.

The crisis of western civilization is a crisis of public philosophy. This is the charge of Public Philosophy and Political Science, a stunning new collection of essays edited by E. Robert Statham Jr. Vividly cataloging the decay of the moral and intellectual foundations of civic liberty, the book portrays a generation of Americans alienated from institutions built on public philosophy. The work exposes the failure of America's political scientists to acknowledge and understand this alarming crisis in the American body politic. The distinguished contributors examine the evolution of public philosophy; the inextricable relationship between politics and philosophy; and the interplay between public philosophy, the constitution, natural law, and government. They reveal the dire threat to deliberative democracy and the fundamental order of constitutional society posed by public philosophy's waning power to refine, cultivate, and civilize. The work is an indictment of a society which has discarded a way of life rooted in natural law, democracy and the traditions of civility; and is a denunciation of an educated elite that has divorced itself from the standards upon which public philosophy rests. It is essential reading for philosophers and political and social scientists seeking to resurrect the standards of American public life.

The crisis of western civilization is a crisis of public philosophy. This is the charge of Public Philosophy and Political Science, a stunning new collection of essays edited by E. Robert Statham Jr. Vividly cataloging the decay of the moral and intellectual foundations of civic liberty, the book portrays a generation of Americans alienated from institutions built on public philosophy. The work exposes the failure of America's political scientists to acknowledge and understand this alarming crisis in the American body politic. The distinguished contributors examine the evolution of public philosophy; the inextricable relationship between politics and philosophy; and the interplay between public philosophy, the constitution, natural law, and government. They reveal the dire threat to deliberative democracy and the fundamental order of constitutional society posed by public philosophy's waning power to refine, cultivate, and civilize. The work is an indictment of a society which has discarded a way of life rooted in natural law, democracy and the traditions of civility; and is a denunciation of an educated elite that has divorced itself from the standards upon which public philosophy rests. It is essential reading for philosophers and political and social scientists seeking to resurrect the standards of American public life.

In Print the Legend: Politics, Culture, and Civic Virtue in the Films of John Ford, a collection of writers explore Ford's view of politics, popular culture, and civic virtue in some of his best films: Drums Along the Mohawk, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Stagecoach, How Green Was My Valley, and The Last Hurrah. John Ford, more than most motion picture directors, invites his viewers into a serious discussion of these themes. For instance, one can consider Plato's timeless question "What is justice?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, vengeance as classical Greek tragedy in The Searchers, or ethnic politics in The Last Hurrah. Ford's films never grow stale or seem dated because he continually probes the most important questions of our civic culture: what must we do to survive, prosper, pursue happiness, and retain our common decency as a regime? Further, viewing them from a distance of time, we are subtly invited to ask whether anything has been lost or gained since Ford celebrated the civic virtues of an earlier America. Is Ford's America an idealized America or a lost America?

Ronald J. Pestritto's and Thomas G. West's earlier volume The American Founding and the Social Compact addressed the nature of the thought and philosophy of the men who shaped the American founding. In this second volume in a trilogy, Pestritto and West examine the fate of the founders' principles in the nine teeth century, when these principles faced their first great challenges. Support of slavery, culminating in secession and civil war, came from the South; and after the war came positivism, relativism, and radical egalitarianism, which originated in Europe and infiltrated American universities, where intellectuals repudiated the founders' views as historically obsolete and insufficiently concerned with true human liberation. In ten chapters covering major thinkers in nineteenth-century American political thought, contributors discuss the rise and resolution of ideological conflicts in the early generations of the American republic. In Challenges to the American Founding Pestritto and West have compiled an invaluable resource for the roots of the twentieth-century departure in American politics from the political vision of the American founders.

Working with the underlying premise that America's founding principles continue to be vital in the modern era, Erler, Marini, and West take a conservative look at immigration, one of today's most pressing political issues. Character_the capacity to live a life befitting republican citizens_is, as the Founders knew, crucial to the debate about immigration. The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration seeks to revive the issue of republican character in the current immigration debate and to elucidate the constitutional foundations of American citizenship. Published in cooperation with the Claremont Institute.

Working with the underlying premise that America's founding principles continue to be vital in the modern era, Erler, Marini, and West take a conservative look at immigration, one of today's most pressing political issues. Character-the capacity to live a life befitting republican citizens-is, as the Founders knew, crucial to the debate about immigration. The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration seeks to revive the issue of republican character in the current immigration debate and to elucidate the constitutional foundations of American citizenship. Published in cooperation with the Claremont Institute.