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Still Louis Hartz after All These Years: A Defense of the Liberal Society Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2005

Philip Abbott
Philip Abbott
Affiliation:
Wayne State University ([email protected])
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Abstract

Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America was the dominant interpretative text in American political thought for a generation. In the late 1960s the Hartzian hegemony came under severe attack, and by the 1990s his interpretive framework had been declared obsolete. Critiques allege two basic, related flaws: (1) Hartz's interpretation ignored the diversity in American political thought, particularly, though not exclusively, on questions of race, and (2) his analysis exaggerated the extent of the consensus in American political culture. These critiques are based almost exclusively on Hartz's analysis of selected periods of early American political development. I argue that Hartz's basic concepts are powerful analytical tools that continue to provide the most compelling analysis of recent American political development. I test the Hartz thesis by constructing a plausible interpretation of the 1960s based on the concepts employed in The Liberal Tradition.Philip Abbott is Distinguished Graduate Professor at Wayne State University ([email protected]). His recent books include Exceptional America: Newness and National Identity (1999) and Political Thought in America: Conversations and Debates (2004). The author is grateful to Jennifer Hochschild for her encouragement and to the anonymous reviewers for Perspectives on Politics. Christopher Duncan and Max Skidmore also provided very helpful advice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2005 , pp. 93 - 109
Copyright
© 2005 American Political Science Association

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