The Social Contract in America

Synopsis

"Because most Americans believe that government requires the consent of the governed, the idea of the social contract may come as close to a public philosophy as we've ever had. And, as Mark Hulliung reminds us, we have frequently fought our greatest political battles by wielding one or another version of social contract theory." "Hulliung's book is the first to examine the role of the social contract across the entire sweep of American history, well beyond the Revolution and Founding periods. While he pays close attention to the contested versions of the social contract from 1765 to 1861, he also underscores its relevance after the Civil War, from late nineteenth-century land reform to the rights revolution of the late twentieth century." "Innovative and provocative, Hulliung's study clearly shows that, until we come to terms with the centrality of the social contract in American history - and the significance of its possible demise -something essential will be missing from our accounts of the past and our understanding of the present."--BOOK JACKET.