O'Toole plays off an implicit version of this understanding of humans, which economist George Stigler admitted was a type of morality, against an understanding that individuals do, and ought to, recognize obligation to the common good. Her point is that both these poles exist in an uneasy tension. Observers long have noted just this tension in the American character. Alexis de Tocqueville pondered the problem of self-interest for community in his celebrated study of 1830s America. Other chapters focus upon figures like Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Carnegie, and Whitney Young.
Slavery is addressed in a major chapter that is enhanced by drawing upon less-known sources.
In almost every case, the polarity in values and practice is evident. One could argue about O'Toole's omissions. For example, communitarians like the early Moravians, while out of the mainstream, made a significant critique of dominant individualist values and practices. Daniel Raymond, Richard Ely, or Francis Wayland, who might have been of more interest to economists than, say, Emerson. The views of the economists whom O'Toole ignores probably were more sophisticated than those of the non-economists she does include.