THE AMERICAN SPIRIT: The Idea of Civilization in the United States

Perhaps the Beard name and fame will search out the market for this fourth volume of The Rise of American Civilization. I found it very heavy going, laboring the point. The Beards set out to trace the sources, the influences, the definitions, the an ging directions of this matter of civilization. They go back to the period of political unrest, last 18th century, when the term first was used. They trace it through the early republic, through the progress in science, in industrial revolution, in social principles; they argue the reciprocal influences of democracy and civilization, the church and civilization, etc. They survey the upswing of individualism, the downswing, the rise of a social conscience. They come to the present and the new crusade for civilization -- the barriers, the interpretations, the exclusions.