Democratic Vistas

WARNING

You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com

Reflections on the Life of American Democracy

Edited by Jedediah Purdy; Advisory editors: Anthony T. Kronman, and Cynthia Farrar

View Inside Format: Cloth
Price: $65.00
YUP
Our shopping cart only supports Mozilla Firefox. Please ensure you're using that browser before attempting to purchase.

Also Available in:
e-book

In this thought-provoking collection, leading scholars explore democracy in the United States from a sweeping variety of perspectives. A dozen contributors consider the nature and prospects of democracy as it relates to the American experience—free markets, religion, family life, the Cold War, higher education, and more. These probing essays bring American democracy into fresh focus, complete with its idealism, its moral greatness, its disappointments, and its contradictions.

Based on DeVane lectures delivered at Yale University, these writings examine large themes and ask important questions: Why do democratic societies, and the United States in particular, tolerate profound economic inequality? Has the United States ever been truly democratic? How has democratic aspiration influenced the development of practices as diverse as education, religious worship, and family life? With deep insights and lively discussion, the authors expand our understanding of what democracy has meant in the past, how it functions now, and what its course may be in the future.

Jedediah Purdy is a graduate of Yale Law School and the author of Being America: Liberty, Commerce, and Violence in an American World and For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today.

"Though each of the essays stands alone, together they comprise an accessible but thoughtful conversation. . . . Recommended."—Choice

“Interesting reflections on democracy in the United States by eminent thinkers in a variety of disciplines.”—Michael Lind, New America Foundation

ISBN: 9780300102567
Publication Date: June 10, 2004
288 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
History of the Yale Law School

The Tercentennial Lectures

Edited by Anthony T. Kronman

View details
The Meaning of Property

Freedom, Community, and the Legal Imagination

Jedediah Purdy

View details
Education's End

Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life

Anthony T. Kronman

View details
After Disbelief

On Disenchantment, Disappointment, Eternity, and Joy

Anthony T. Kronman

View details