Vital Remnants: America's Founding and the Western Tradition

Vital Remnants: America's Founding and the Western Tradition

The insistence on America's freedom from tradition is itself an American tradition. However, this new volume presents another view, one in which the American ordo is not as new as we suppose. Vital Remnants explores the origins of the American experience in ordered liberty and finds that the taproot of our constitutional order is sunk deep into the history of the West. America's founding generation was learned in the history and literature of the West and steeped in the English tradition of liberty. Vital Remnants revisits for a new generation the sources of America's greatness and suggests means to restore our weakened foundations. "...reminds readers that the United States is the only country to have been founded on ideas." -- Publishers' Weekly "Vital Remnants contains a remarkable series of essays that will change the direction of scholarship on the founding. The authors have identified new perspectives on virtue and faith in the American tradition that will compel readers to go beyond the existing schools of liberalism and communitarianism." -James W. Ceaser, author, Reconstructing America: The Symbol of America in Modern Thought "This superior collection of essays on American civilization should be in the hands of every student of the subject. It is lucidly written by some of leading scholars in several fields. Warmly recommended."-Ellis Sandoz, editor, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805.