A Politics of All: Thomas Jefferson and Radical Democracy

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

No historical figure is more synonymous with establishing American democracy than Thomas Jefferson. Revolutionary, iconoclastic, yet pragmatic, the legacy of Jefferson as an intellectual and politician continues to reverberate across academic and public circles. However, Jefferson's writings on power, authority, and politics point to a different understanding of self-government than dominant liberal and republican interpretations suggest. Dean Caivano's interpretation of Jefferson's political, anthropological, and sociological meditations on power reveals an unknown Jefferson, who conceives the American nation-state as a network of dynamic autonomous communities enacted by a politics of all. Caivano pointedly argues that this unknown Jefferson fittingly aligns with historical and contemporary projects of radical democracy, stressing the need for constant resistance, inquiry, and dialogue. In a period, fraught with political division and hyper-partisanship, this timely, innovative reading of Jefferson invites a reappraisal of how we understand a vital founder of the American republic and what is at stake in the battle to save American democracy.

Reviews

At this critical moment when the West is suffering its gravest legitimation crisis since World War II, Caivano brilliantly discovers a Jefferson whose underappreciated revolutionary ideals place him beyond the stifling constraints of American political thought into the vastness of the cosmos of radical democratic theorists. Caivano shows how Jeffersons ideas hold the potential of a powerful weapon against the present authoritarian zeitgeist by its open, promising, politics of all for this, and future, generations to come.

Author Bio

Dean Caivano teaches political science and history at Merced College.