History and Progress: In Search of European and American IdentityConcisely written and compelling, this book offers a provocative look at European-American relations. It focuses on the tradition of common political ideas, the original roots of common European and American thought, the decision by the two continents not to develop in isolation from one another, and the traditional ambivalence of the European caught indecisively between reliance upon and distance from the United States. From classical antiquity to contemporary society, Mathiopoulos unfolds the paradoxical relationship between the U.S. and Europe--the simultaneous occurrence of reciprocal attraction and mutual misunderstanding. She describes how America was born of European intellectual stock; enlightenment, reason, (religious) freedom, equality, democracy, the rights of man and the desire to achieve these things in the New World. She also tells us that the idealism of progress of the European enlightenment gave rise to the American Dream which constitutes the consciousness of the American people and is woven into their domestic and foreign policy to this day. This stimulating book will interest anyone involved in the field of comparative political thought as well as those interested in the evolutionary and revolutionary process of the idea of progress in Europe and the United States. |
From inside the book
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... nature to the Christian concept of history . " 3 Both Holy Scripture and nature have been regarded as sources of the knowledge of God , but while the Eastern Church interpreted nature as a type of symbolic language of God , in the ...
... nature and that . . . human nature is the same in all men ' ” - Thomas Jefferson ) primarily from the works of Tacitus and Polybius . Jefferson , whom John Dewey considered " the first modern to state in human terms the principles of ...
... nature , or even accelerated their dissipation : nature shows no known machinery for restoring the energy that she dissipates .... From the beginnings of philosophy and religion , the thinker was thought by the mere act of thinking , to ...
Contents
The Idea of Progress in the American | 1 |
From Classical Antiquity to Modern Times | 7 |
The Crisis of Europe in the Twentieth Century | 19 |
Copyright | |
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History and Progress: In Search of European and American Identity Margarita Mathiopoulos No preview available - 1989 |