Awards
- Short-listed for National Book Awards (Nonfiction) 2014
Overview
Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green Mountain Boys, and Thomas Young, the forgotten Founder who kicked off the Boston Tea Party-these radicals who founded America set their sights on a revolution of the mind. Derided as ""infidels"" and ""atheists"" in their own time, they wanted to liberate us not just from one king but from the tyranny of supernatural religion. The ideas that inspired them were neither British nor Christian but largely ancient, pagan, and continental: the fecund universe of the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius, the potent (but nontranscendent) natural divinity of the Dutch heretic Benedict de Spinoza. Drawing deeply on the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart pursues a genealogy of the philosophical ideas from which America's revolutionaries drew their inspiration, all scrupulously researched and documented and enlivened with storytelling of the highest order. Along the way, he uncovers the true meanings of ""Nature's God,"" ""self-evident,"" and many other phrases crucial to our understanding of the American experiment but now widely misunderstood. Stewart's lucid and passionate investigation surprises, challenges, enlightens, and entertains at every turn, as it spins a true tale and a persuasive, exhilarating argument about the founding principles of American government and the sources of our success in science, medicine, and the arts.
Full Product Details
Author: Matthew Stewart
Publisher: WW Norton & Co
Imprint: WW Norton & Co
Dimensions:
Width: 16.50cm
, Height: 4.30cm
, Length: 24.40cm
Weight: 1.095kg
ISBN: 9780393064544
ISBN 10: 0393064549
Pages: 576
Publication Date: 29 August 2014
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
Enthralling and important [A] pleasure to read. --Buzzy Jackson
...splendidly polemical account of the philosophy of the founding fathers... -- Prospect
Eloquently argued. --Wendy Smith
In a book that offers you a chance to rethink much of what you thought you knew about America s founders, Matthew Stewart traces the little-known influence of secular philosophers, from Epicurus through Spinoza, on the revolutionary generation and offers a lively, powerful, and erudite refutation of the myth that the framers of our secular Constitution had any intention of founding an orthodox Christian nation. --Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
Author Information
Matthew Stewart is an independent philosopher and historian who has written extensively about the philosophical origins of the American republic. His work has appeared in?The Atlantic,?The?Washington Post,?The Wall Street Journal, and more. He is currently based in London.
