Syllabus
1. Colonial:
John Winthrop, Christian Experience
Roger Williams (1603-1683), Plea for Religious Liberty
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): Sinners in the Hands of Angry God 2. Enlightenment and Revolution I
Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography (excerpts)
Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists (1772)
James Madison: Federalist 10, 51 3. Enlightenment and Revolution II
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia (excerpt)
Alexander Hamilton: Report on Manufactures (excerpt) 4. Transcendentalists
William Ellery Channing, Unitarian Christianity
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Emerson, Self-Reliance
Emerson, Politics 5. Abolitionism:
William Garrison
Frederick Douglass
Abraham Lincoln 6. Social Darwinism
Herbert Spencer: Social Darwinism (excerpts)
William Graham Sumner, What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883) 7. Progressivism and Pragmatism
John Dewey 8. Social Critique and Radical Thought
Lewis Mumford,
David Riesman,
C. Wright Mills
Noam Chomsky 9. Leo Strauss and the Chicago School of Political Philosophy:
Leo Strauss, …
Allan Bloom: The Closing of the American Mind (excerpts)
Harry V. Jaffa: Leo Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy
Neil G. Robertson: The Closing of the Early Modern Mind: Leo Strauss and Early Modern Political Thought
Thomas West, Review of the Closing of American Mind, by Allan Bloom 10. Conservatives and Neoconservatives
Russell Kirk: Lord Acton on Revolution
Harry F. Jaffa: The False Prophets of American Conservatism 11. Recent Academic Philosophers
Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (excerpts)
Robert Nozick: Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?
John Rawls: A Theory of Justice
(excerpts)
Annotation
The course covers main currents of American social and political thought from the colonial times to the late 20th century. The main emphasis of the course will be placed on the careful study of texts.