American society may be hostile to the thought of ideologies, but it possesses a sophisticated but little understood ability to engage in deep conflicts over political ideas, while at the same time reducing adversarial positions to legitimate derivatives of American history and development. This book asks how this occurs; how the sources, traditions, and usages of core ideas and their derivative compounds animate political discourse and structure the basis of political conflict; and how it is possible to sustain a high incidence of competitive value-laden argument and principled political conf ... More

American society may be hostile to the thought of ideologies, but it possesses a sophisticated but little understood ability to engage in deep conflicts over political ideas, while at the same time reducing adversarial positions to legitimate derivatives of American history and development. This book asks how this occurs; how the sources, traditions, and usages of core ideas and their derivative compounds animate political discourse and structure the basis of political conflict; and how it is possible to sustain a high incidence of competitive value-laden argument and principled political conflict within a stable political order. The fundamental aim of this book is to examine the traditions and usages of American political ideas within the arena of practical politics. By locating them in their respective contexts, it is possible to assess both their changing meanings and their shifting relationships to one another. In surveying America's core ideas, the book facilitates an informed awareness of their political and cultural leverage as forms of persuasion and sources of legitimacy. The book roots the examination of American political ideas firmly in the milieu of social drives, political movements, and contemporary issues within which the ideas themselves are embedded. This not only allows the study to investigate the interior properties and traditional priorities of America's key values, but permits the theoretical implications and practical consequences of these ideas to be traced and evaluated.