Emerson's liberalism /

Ralph Waldo Emerson's influence on life and letters in the US has been profound. Americans feel his presence when they talk about religion, philosophy, art, education, and literature, at the very least. In this addition to the groundbreaking "Studies in American Thought and Culture" series, Dolan (Univ. of Toronto) offers the first comprehensive analysis of Emerson's influence on American liberalism. He discusses Emerson's liberal values not only as political in nature--the principal contemporary way of thinking about liberalism--but also as a comprehensive view of all things that determines the nature of how one lives in the world. After a thorough introduction, in which he lays out traditional and historical ways of discussing Emerson, the author proceeds to analyze almost all of Emerson's major published works, including the bulk of his journals, as outgrowths of the classical libertarian thinking one finds in John Locke, the Scottish Enlightenment, and the progressive founders of the US. He locates Emerson as a Romantic heir of the Enlightenment who envisioned that all of history was moving inevitably toward liberty and the enlarging concept of natural rights. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. P. J. Ferlazzo Northern Arizona University