Is our Greek and Roman heritage merely allusive and illusory? Or were our founders; and so our republican beginnings; truly steeped in the stuff of antiquity? So far largely a matter of generalization and speculation; the influence of Greek and Roman authors on our American forefathers finally becomes clear in this fascinating book-the first comprehensive study of the founders' classical reading. Carl J. Richard begins by examining how eighteenth-century social institutions in general and the educational system in particular conditioned the founders to venerate the classics. He then explores the founders' various uses of classical symbolism; models; "antimodels;" mixed government theory; pastoralism; and philosophy; revealing in detail the formative influence exerted by the classics; both directly and through the mediation of Whig and American perspectives. In this analysis; we see how the classics not only supplied the principal basis for the U.S. Constitution but also contributed to the founders' conception of human nature; their understanding of virtue; and their sense of identity and purpose within a grand universal scheme. At the same time; we learn how the classics inspired obsessive fear of conspiracies against liberty; which poisoned relations between Federalists and Republicans. The shrewd ancients who molded Western civilization still have much to teach us; Richard suggests. His account of the critical role they played in shaping our nation and our lives provides a valuable lesson in the transcendent power of the classics.
#1601429 in Books Harvard University Press 1998-04-01 1998-05-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 1.57 x 6.00l; 1.65 #File Name: 0674078306598 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. LENIN. MASTER OF HATEBy Mary WilburLenin is the only Bolshevik that matters. This is a biography of him. Hate was virtually his only emotion. Stalin wasn't unique; he followed Lenin's line exactly.23 of 25 people found the following review helpful. Detailed history of Lenin and the BolsheviksBy Sherrie BrownellI read this book for a class to get an understanding of Lenin's influence on the Russian Revolution. This book is very detailed and not for someone who doesn't understand what the Bolsheviks were rebelling against. Little background is given on the Tsar's reign and the problems associated with autocratic rule. The story is never presented from the Tsar's side. What the reader does receive is a detailed account of Lenin's private and political life. Lenin was full of contradictions and paradoxes that were reflected in Communism. It was almost as though his influence was so powerful that the political culture reflected his egnimatic personality. In addition to being a fine intellectual biography of the man; Ulam's text details all the political movements that competed with Lenin in addition to highlighting the beginnings of the Stalin era.Ulam writes well and is interesting to read. As a lay reader I found all the details sometimes overwhelming; and I had to do additional research to understand the issues that the Bolsheviks were responding to. As a non-scholar; I found this book readable and memorable.7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. First the Decembrists...By John C. LandonThere are many more recent books on this subject but rereading this one was interesting for the way it properly places the beginning of the subject in the nineteenth century beginning with the mutiny of the Decembrists in the 1820's. The history of Russian Communism told in a void is misleading in some ways. The whole tragedy begins with the extreme reaction of the Russian system (before and)after the repression of the Decembrists and the poisoning of the faintest indications of emerging liberal culture. This forced the issue from the beginning and virtually manufactured the extreme explosion that finally came. All this also puts the Bolshevik era in direct descent from the era of the French Revolution and the period of the Restoration in the era of the abortive birth of the bourgeois culture. All of a piece. The rest follows.
