Overview

The prominent contributors in Friends and Citizens examine the relationship between friendship and politics in American thought and contend that democratic politics is incomplete without citizen friendship, and, similarly, friends need political life to provide a framework for virtue. This volume honors Wilson Carey McWilliams, a leading teacher and scholar of our time. Fourteen essays, by teachers, colleagues and students, pay tribute to him as friend and citizen, and seek to share their understanding of McWilliams's thinking through their own analyses of American political life. Friends and Citizens is rich in the humor, insights, heritage, despair and hope that characterize the work of Carey McWilliams and his unique vision of America's political promise. This is an important book for anyone interested in modern politics.

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9780585382609

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Reviews

For four decades, Wilson Carey McWilliams has been informing and challenging colleagues and students with his insightful and provocative studies of American political thought. This fine collection of essays, tracing themes of friendship and citizenship from classical to contemporary times, and through a broad cross-section of American thinkers, is a testimony to his inspiring influence, and a reminder of the richness of American political theory....--Michael Lienesch For those of us who know Carey McWilliams, these artfully written essays are a richly deserved tribute to one of our nation's most important voices. As exceptionalism defines America, so too does Carey McWilliams define the exceptional teacher and political theorist. His breadth of understanding about American public life is exceeded only by the degree to which he has inspired generations of students to a larger understanding of their native land. Friendship and citizenship stand at the center of Carey's teaching and writing and those themes are wonderfully echoed in the essays in this extraordinary book.--Henry Plotkin Friends and Citizens amplifies the distinctive themes that have marked Carey McWilliams's career. United by their admiration for Carey, political theorists of widely varying approaches and persuasions supply rich fare for examining friendship and citizenship from the Bible and the Greeks to major and lesser known figures in the American political tradition. In McWilliams's spirit, these are essays that pursue the deepest and most mysterious realms of democratic experience....--Bruce L. Miroff Friends and Citizens is a model festschrift. Particularly recommended are the cluster of essays on friendships and politics. Though it cannot be said successfully to bring order to the dazzling eccentricities of Wilson Carey McWiliams' teachings, it does illustrate their capacity to stimulate.... The essays are almost uniformly of high quality, readable, interesting.....

Author Information

Nancy L. Schwartz is professor of government at Wesleyan University. Peter Dennis Bathory is professor of political science at Rutgers University.

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