Product Details

D. M. Hooley - Religious Studies Review

Richard's study offers intriguing glimpses into the minds of the founders through the lens of their classical learning, and the volume fairly bursts with engaging testimony...The force of the book's revelations and the charm of its matter win the day.

Mortimer Sellers - Washington Post Book World

A detailed and fascinating exposition of the classical traditions that gave the United States's founding generation so many political models and ideas.

Frank Ninkovich - The Historian

This is a well-conceived, solidly researched, and ably argued book about the influence of the classics in the the political thought of the founding fathers...This work will be required reading for historians interested in the ideological origins of the American republic. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the intellectual complexities of the period.

Roger Kimball - Wall Street Journal

An admirable book...Richard has done an impressive amount of scholarly detective work.

Library Journal

While it is well known that the Greek and Latin languages and literatures informed the educations and cultural vocabularies of 18th-century Americans, few studies have fully attempted to describe and explore the formative role of the classics for the leaders of the American Revolution and the framers of the Constitution. Providing abundant examples, historian Richard (Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana) argues compellingly that the classics played a definitive role in the minds of figures such as Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Washington, and many others, providing not only theories of constitutional government, human nature, and virtue but even models for emulation. Richard makes a strong case for the continued relevance of the study of the classics. A lucidly written and informative book; for informed lay readers and specialists.-- T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.

Booknews

Richard begins by examining how 18th-century social institutions in general and the education system in particular conditioned the American founders to venerate the classics. He then explores the founders' various uses of classical symbolism, models, "antimodels," mixed government theory, pastoralism, and philosophy, revealing in detail the formative influence exerted by the classics, both directly and through the mediation of Whig and American perspectives. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents