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A provocative new interpretation of the language Americans have used to define their country. Americans have always used words of sentiment and sympathy, passion and power to explain their country's democracy. Here the young Jefferson scholar Andrew Burstein examines the metaphorically rich language which Americans developed to express their guiding principle: that the New World would improve upon the Old. In journals, letters, and speeches, and in diaries and books that deployed an impassioned rhetoric of "feeling," he locates the sources of American patriotism. Burstein shows how the eighteenth-century "culture of sensibility" encouraged Americans to make a heartfelt commitment to the Enlightenment's optimism about a global society; it would succeed, they believed, as much by sublime feeling as by intellectual achievement and political liberty. As Americans grew more united and self-confident, this pacific ideal acquired teeth; the noble Washington and humane Jefferson yielded to the boisterous Jackson, and the language of gentle feeling was succeeded by the force of Manifest Destiny. Yet Americans never stopped celebrating their philanthropic intentions and what they believed was their innate impulse to do good. Sentimental Democracy is a lively dual portrait of the American psyche and the American dream-telling us as much about ourselves as about our morally passionate ancestors.

Sentimental Democracy: Evolution of America's Romantic Self-Image: Search Results