The two faces of American freedom
By: Aziz Rana.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 415
ISBN-13: 9780674048973
Subjects: United States -- Politics and government; Frontier and pioneer life -- United States; Liberty -- History; Imperialism -- History; Political culture -- United States -- History; Democracy -- United States -- History; Hegemony -- United States -- History; United States -- Territorial expansion
Description: ""A strikingly original and powerful account of American political culture."--JedediAh Pubdy. Duke Law School" ""Will put the concept of settler freedom on the map of scholarship on American political thought, political development, and democratic theory."--Rocers Smith, University of Pennsylvania" ""This is a genuinely important book, offering a fundamental reinterpretation of American constitutional development."--Bruce Ackerman, Yale Law School" "The Two faces of American Freedom boldly reinterprets the American political tradition from the colonial period to modern times, placing issues of race relations, immigration, and presidentialism in the context of shifting notions of empire and citizenship. Today, while the U.S. enjoys tremendous military and economic power, citizens are inereasingly insulated from everyday decision-making. This was not always the case. America, Aziz Rana argues, began as a seuler society grounded in an ideal of freedom as the exercise of continnous self-rule-one that joined direct political participation with cconomie independence. However, this vision of freedom was politically bonnd to the subordination of marginalized groups, especially slaves, Native Americans, and women. These Practices of liberty and exclusion were not separate currents, but rather two sides of the same coin." "However, at crucial moments, social movements sought to imagine Freedom without either subordination or empire. By the mid-twenticth century, these efforts failed. resulting in the rise of hierarchical state and corporate institutions. This new framework presented national and economic security as society's guiding commitments and nurtured a continual extension of America's global reach. Rana envisions a democratic society that revives settler ideals, but combines them with meaningful inclusion for those currently at the margins of American life."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Liberty and empire in American politics; title: Settler revolt and the foundations of American freedom; title: Citizens and subjects in postcolonial America; title: The populist challenge and the unraveling of settler society; title: Plebiscitary politics and the new constitutional order; title: Conclusion: Democracy and inclusion in the age of American hegemony.