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Full-Text Articles in History
Catholicism And Community: American Political Culture And The Conservative Catholic Social Justice Tradition, 1890-1960, Jayna C. Hoffacker
Catholicism And Community: American Political Culture And The Conservative Catholic Social Justice Tradition, 1890-1960, Jayna C. Hoffacker
History Theses
The prevailing trend in the historiography of American Catholicism has been an implicit acceptance of the traditional liberal narrative as formulated by scholars like Louis Hartz. American Catholic historians like Jay Dolan and John McGreevy have incorporated this narrative into their studies and argue that America was inherently liberal and that the conservative Catholics who rejected liberalism were thus fundamentally anti-American. This has simplified nuanced and complex relationships into a story of simple opposition. Further, the social justice doctrine of the Catholic Church, although based on undeniably illiberal foundations, led conservatives to come to the same conclusions about social and …
The Republican-Liberal Continuum: De-Polarizing The Historiographical Debate, Katrina Loulousis Combs
The Republican-Liberal Continuum: De-Polarizing The Historiographical Debate, Katrina Loulousis Combs
M.A. in Philosophy of History Theses
The historiography of the American Revolution and the Early National Period remains a polarized debate. Historians attribute either classical Whig republican ideology or classical liberal ideology to influencing those periods. However, republicanism and liberalism exist along a philosophical and practical continuum. Because Louis Hartz attributed American liberalism exclusively to John Locke, I first examine Locke’s relationship to Algernon Sidney, observing similarities between these exemplars of liberalism and republicanism. Next I examine the confluence of Thomas Reid’s commonsense moral philosophy (via John Witherspoon) and republicanism, particularly concerning views on man and moral liberty. These commonalities are further demonstrated in Thomas Jefferson’s …
'The Father Of Us All': The Cold War Liberalism Of Reinhold Niebuhr And The Paradox Of America's Moral Insecurity, Kendall S. Eyster
'The Father Of Us All': The Cold War Liberalism Of Reinhold Niebuhr And The Paradox Of America's Moral Insecurity, Kendall S. Eyster
History
145 years after Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, there has been a flood of interest in theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and his awareness of the potential hubris in waging a struggle against extremism. His constantly shifting positions on liberalism and America’s global stature has led to disagreement between historians and politicians who claim his legacy on both ends of the political spectrum. What is indisputable, however, is Niebuhr’s belief in liberalism’s epistemological debt to the ideals of Christianity and the repudiation of America’s history as merely a blueprint for democracy that should be repeated, sui generis, elsewhere.