Reconstructing America: The Symbol of America in Modern Thought. This item is unavailable.Reconstructing America: The Symbol of America in Modern Thought

For too many people America has become the primary symbol of all that is grotesque deadening and oppressive. It is time says James Ceaser in this provocative book to take America back to reaffirm confidence in our principles and to remind ourselves that the real America-as opposed to the symbolic one-has forged a system of liberal democratic government that has shaped the destiny of the modern world. "A splendid . . . important book."-Adam Wolfson Wall Street Journal "A fascinating compendium of misconceptions about America a catalog of expressions of European anxiety and paranoia that may be followed down to the historical present. . . . Ceaser's knowledge of European political traditions is prodigious and he puts it to excellent use. . . . Like all good histories his is motivated by an impassioned concern for our precarious present."-Richard Wolin The New Republic "An important book . . . about the European image of the United States showing the ways in which philosophers of both left and right have constructed a symbolic America often bearing little resemblance to the place itself. [This] wryly written . . . book is a timely corrective to loose thought in the academy and a candid appeal to reason."-John S. Gardner The Weekly Standard "Gracefully written and provocative."-Solomon L. Wisenberg Wilson Quarterly

Ceaser (government and foreign affairs, Univ. of Virgina) distinguishes between the "metaphysical or symbolic" America (the notion of America as a materialistic, decadent country) and the "real" America (America as a preeminent bastion of freedom and opportunity). The negative concept, he argues, originated in Europe?primarily in Germany and France. To flesh out this idea, he traces the thought of pertinent Germans from Hegel to Heidegger ("with passages through Spengler and Junger") and the French from Buffon to Bandrillard ("with passages through Maistre and Kojeve"). An engagingly written excursion through American and European political and intellectual history. this book touches on an important issue in contemporary American society: not only how other countries see America but the negative attitudes prevalent among certain groups, including academics here at home. In view of the climate of opinion surrounding Waco and Oklahoma City, this book's positive appraisal, written in a style accessible to the lay reader, could be of interest to a wide readership.?Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Mgt. Lib., Washingon, D.C.
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