New from Yale University Press:
The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government (September 2016), by
Steve Pincus (Yale University). A description from the Press:
From one election cycle to the next, a defining question continues to
divide the country’s political parties: Should the government play a
major or a minor role in the lives of American citizens? The Declaration
of Independence has long been invoked as a philosophical treatise in
favor of limited government. Yet the bulk of the document is a
discussion of policy, in which the Founders outlined the failures of the
British imperial government. Above all, they declared, the British
state since 1760 had done too little to promote the prosperity of
its American subjects. Looking beyond the Declaration’s frequently
cited opening paragraphs, Steve Pincus reveals how the document is
actually a blueprint for a government with extensive powers to promote
and protect the people’s welfare. By examining the Declaration in the
context of British imperial debates, Pincus offers a nuanced portrait of
the Founders’ intentions with profound political implications for
today.
A few blurbs:
“This book resets our baseline for the American
Revolution. Far from a localized protest against big government, that
rebellion grew from a widely shared vision of public responsibility to
stimulate economic development and consumer demand. This is a
provocative history both true to its period and stunningly relevant to
our times.”—Christine Desan
“Sparkling with interpretive originality and brimming with original sources, Heart of the Declaration
contributes mightily not only to the history of the Declaration but
also to our understanding of imperial politics, the Revolution, and the
political economy of the Atlantic world.”—Daniel Hulsebosch
More information is available
here.
