Ranging from Joseph Bellamy to Hilary Putnam, and from early New England Divinity Schools to contemporary university philosophy departments, historian Bruce Kuklick recounts the story of the growth of philosophical thinking in the United States. Readers will explore the thought of early American philosophers such as Jonathan Edwards and John Witherspoon and will see how the political ideas of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson influenced philosophy in colonial America. Kuklick discusses The Transcendental Club (members Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson) and describes the rise of pragmatism centered on Metaphysical Club of Cambridge (and members William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Charles Peirce). He examines the profound impact Darwinism had on American philosophy and looks at Idealists such as the Kantian Josiah Royce and the Hegelian John Dewey. The book shows how, in the twentieth century, the Nazi conquest of Europe unleashed a flood of European intellectuals onto these shores, including such major thinkers as Theodore Adorno, Erich Fromm, Rudolph Carnap, and Alfred Tarski. Finally, Kuklick examines the contributions of such contemporary philosophers as Sidney Hook and Willard Quine and such books as John Rawl's A Theory of Justice and Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Kuklick pulls no punches in portraying the state of American philosophy today and its contested role in the intellectual life of the nation and the world. The range of philosophical thought in our nation's history has been great, from Edwards's Religious Affections to Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and Bruce Kuklick has captured it all in a book that blends intricate details with sweeping vision.

A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000

History

Kuklick, Bruce

Americas

Clarendon Press

Here at last is the only up-to-date history of American philosophy, an American counterpart to Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. In this fascinating volume, the eminent historian Bruce Kuklick tells the story of the growth of philosophical thinking in the United States, in the context of intellectual and social change. He sketches the genesis of these intellectual practices in New England Calvinism and the writing of Jonathan Edwards. He discusses theology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the origins of collegiate philosophy in the early part of the nineteenth century. We see the development of secular preconceptions and the emergence, after Darwin's writings of the mid-late nineteenth century, of forms of thought hostile to religion. All of the great American thinkers are portrayed and their contributions to philosophy assessed--from Charles Peirce to William James, John Dewey to C. I. Lewis, and Wilfrid Sellars to W. V. Quine. The work brings us right up to date with the first historical treatment of the period after pragmatism, and the fragmentation of philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century. The author steers a controversial course between the divergent views that historians and philosophers take of the significance of philosophy in recent years.

A deeply relevant look at what fascism means to Americans.\nFrom the time Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, Americans have been obsessed with and brooded over the meaning of fascism and how it might migrate to the United States. Fascism Comes to America examines how we have viewed fascism overseas and its implications for our own country. Bruce Kuklick explores the rhetoric of politicians, who have used the language of fascism to smear opponents, and he looks at the discussions of pundits, the analyses of academics, and the displays of fascism in popular culture, including fiction, radio, TV, theater, and film. Kuklick argues that fascism has little informational meaning in the United States, but instead, it is used to denigrate or insult. For example, every political position has been besmirched as fascist. As a result, the term does not describe a phenomenon so much as it denounces what one does not like. Finally, in displaying fascism for most Americans, entertainment—and most importantly film—has been crucial in conveying to citizens what fascism is about. Fascism Comes to America has been enhanced by many illustrations that exhibit how fascism was absorbed into the US public consciousness.

Fascism Comes to America: A Century of Obsession in Politics and Culture

Humor & Entertainment

University of Chicago Press

A Political History of the USA: One Nation Under God

A fresh and engaging account of America's history from the 15th century to the 21st that navigates complexities without oversimplifying or assuming prior knowledge. Kuklick focuses on politics, but places this in the context of religious culture and emphasizes the assertive expansion at the heart of the development of the U.S. 

Red Globe Press

A fresh and engaging account of America's history from European contact to the election of Barack Obama. Bruce Kuklick’s straightforward yet authoritative narrative, provides a clear and concise way through the complexities of American history without oversimplifying or assuming prior knowledge. The book places politics in the context of religious culture and tries to account for the assertive expansion at the heart of the development of the U.S. Supported by wide-ranging examples, extracts from primary sources, maps, photos and illustrations, this compelling yet balanced account of America’s political, cultural and religious history will be core reading for undergraduate students of American history.

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

"Kuklick has inquired into the files of private correspondence of Harvard's philosophers and traced their enthusiasms, animosities, and philosophical careers from the post-Civil War years through the post-World War I era. His book is probably the most thorough history of an American academic department that has ever been written." -Lewis S. Feuer, The Chronicle of Higher Education "Absolutely first class. . . . It is a fascinating book, for the ideas themselves, for its extraordinary figures (Peirce, James, Royce, Whitehead, C. I. Lewis), but most of all for the story it tells." -The New Republic "One of the more analytically rigorous, historically sensitive and well-integrated books ever addressed to American philosophy." -Journal of American History

The rise of American philosophy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Yale University Press

The seventy years between the Civil War and the Depression mark the most significant epoch of American philosophy. In this period American pragmatism emerged, and men such as Charles Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, Alfred North Whitehead, and C. I. Lewis made their enduring contributions to Western thought. This book offers a reinterpretation of American intellectual history of the period, using the relation of philosophers to the primary academic institution – Harvard – as an organizing theme. Bruce Kuklick argues that Harvard established an intellectual community that helped to define the thought of these men, and that the changing character of American philosophy must be related to the emergence of the modern university. Beginning with what he calls the Cambridge amateurs, Harvard-trained philosophers who were unable to find university teaching positions, Kuklick goes on to examine the thought of the “Golden Age” of American philosophy. He shows how it centered on the dialogue between James and Royce and their peers and demonstrates how it contributed to its own transformation: the thinkers of this period were the first generation of professional philosophers. They were pivotal in establishing graduate training programs and the doctoral apprenticeship system. They created the very academic framework in which philosophy would narrow from its role as the integrator of human intellectual concerns to a technical, scholarly discipline of interest only to a small group of professors. This is intellectual history at its best, or what Kuklick calls “the history of difficult ideas.” The author, historian and philosopher, tells a fascinating story of the men, the ideas, and the institutions that formed American philosophy. He has made a successful attempt to bridge the gap between social history and the history of ideas.

The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930

Churchmen and Philosophers: From Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey

Religion & Spirituality

Yale Univ Pr

Hardcover with dust jacket. VG/VG. Previous owner's name.

Josiah Royce: An Intellectual Biography

Bobbs-Merrill Company

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kuklick, Bruce. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kuklick, Bruce

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kuklick, Bruce. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000

A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000

Fascism Comes to America: A Century of Obsession in Politics and Culture

A Political History of the USA: One Nation Under God

A Political History of the USA: One Nation Under God

The rise of American philosophy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930

The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930

Churchmen and Philosophers: From Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey

Churchmen and Philosophers: From Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey

Josiah Royce: An Intellectual Biography