Political Moderation in America's First Two Centuries

In this book political moderates emerge as complex, thoughtful, and sometimes deeply flawed human beings.

Robert McCluer Calhoon (Author)

9780521515542, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 September 2008

310 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 2 cm, 0.53 kg

'For three decades Robert Calhoun has produced a steady catalogue of major scholarship on such diverse topics as Loyalists in the American Revolution, life in the southern backcountry, and evangelical conservatives in the antebellum South. Now, with Political Moderation in America's First Two Centuries we have the long awaited synthesis that looks comprehensively and authoritatively at conservative political movements throughout early American history. Thoroughly researched, wonderfully written, and brilliantly synthetic, this books is certain to become the standard on the foundations of American conservatism. In one volume readers are drawn into a definitive summation of 'moderation' in politics, religion, and culture. A must read for students of early America and for all inquirers into the roots of political consciousness in America.' Harry S. Stout, Yale University

Political Moderation in America's First Two Centuries corrects the popular misconception that moderates are timid and cautious. Robert M. Calhoon examines the structure of political moderation; he characterizes moderation as a compound of principle and prudence; he defines it as humility in the face of the past; and he classifies it as historically grounded political ethics. From its origins in the Peloponnesian War and its early modern recovery during the French Wars of Religion, this book recounts the popularization of political moderation in American history from John Locke in the 1680s to the Mugwumps in the 1880s. The first comprehensive history of this subject, this book draws on more that a hundred books published over the past half century and extensive research on religion and politics in America to demonstrate that moderates were creatures of circumstance - made not born.

1. Augustan moderates: 'The precariousness of genuine civilization'
2. Revolutionary moderates and the development of political character
3. Ordered liberty in the Southern backcountry and the middle West
4. Moderating moderation: denominational and primitive Christianity.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK]