Our Declaration : a reading of the Declaration of Independence in defense of equality / Danielle Allen.
2014
KF4506 .A45 2014 (Mapit)
Available at Stacks
Items
Details
Author
Allen, Danielle S., 1971-
Title
Our Declaration : a reading of the Declaration of Independence in defense of equality / Danielle Allen.
Edition
First edition.
Imprint
New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a Division of W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.
Description
315 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Formatted Contents Note
Part I. Origins
Night teaching
Patrimony
Loving democracy
Animating the Declaration
Part II. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
The writer
The politicos
The Committee
The editors
The people
Part III. The art of democratic writing
On memos
On moral sense
On doing things with words
On words and power
Part IV. Reading the course of events
When in the course of human events
Just another word for river
One people
We are your equals
An echo
Part V. Facing necessity
...it becomes necessary
The laws of nature
And nature's god
Kinds of necessity
Part VI. Matters of principle
We hold these truths
Sound-bites
Sticks and stones
Self-interest?
Self-evidence
Magic tricks
The creator
Creation
Beautiful optimism
Part VII. Matters of fact
Prudence
Dreary pessimism
Life's turning points
Tyranny
Facts?
Life histories
Plagues
Portrait of a tyrant
The thirteenth way of looking at a tyrant
The use and abuse of history
Dashboards
On potlucks
If actions speak louder than words
Responsiveness
Part VIII. Drawing conclusions
We must, therefore, acquiesce
Friends, enemies, and blood relations
On oath
Real equality
What's in a name?
Night teaching
Patrimony
Loving democracy
Animating the Declaration
Part II. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
The writer
The politicos
The Committee
The editors
The people
Part III. The art of democratic writing
On memos
On moral sense
On doing things with words
On words and power
Part IV. Reading the course of events
When in the course of human events
Just another word for river
One people
We are your equals
An echo
Part V. Facing necessity
...it becomes necessary
The laws of nature
And nature's god
Kinds of necessity
Part VI. Matters of principle
We hold these truths
Sound-bites
Sticks and stones
Self-interest?
Self-evidence
Magic tricks
The creator
Creation
Beautiful optimism
Part VII. Matters of fact
Prudence
Dreary pessimism
Life's turning points
Tyranny
Facts?
Life histories
Plagues
Portrait of a tyrant
The thirteenth way of looking at a tyrant
The use and abuse of history
Dashboards
On potlucks
If actions speak louder than words
Responsiveness
Part VIII. Drawing conclusions
We must, therefore, acquiesce
Friends, enemies, and blood relations
On oath
Real equality
What's in a name?
Summary
Allen makes the case that we cannot have freedom as individuals without equality among us as a people. Evoking the colonial world between 1774 and 1777, Allen describes the challenges faced by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston--the "Committee of Five" who had to write a document that reflected the aspirations of a restive population and forge an unprecedented social contract. Although the focus is usually on Jefferson, Allen restores credit not only to John Adams and Richard Henry Lee but also to clerk Timothy Matlack and printer Mary Katherine Goddard. Allen also restores the text of the Declaration itself. Its list of self-evident truths does not end with our individual right to the "pursuit of happiness" but with the collective right of the people to reform government so that it will "effect their Safety and Happiness." The sentence laying out the self-evident truths leads us from the individual to the community--from our individual rights to what we can achieve only together, as a community constituted by bonds of equality.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-299)and index.
Location
STA
Call Number
KF4506 .A45 2014
Language
English
ISBN
9780871406903 hardcover
087140690X hardcover
087140690X hardcover
Record Appears in
Monographs & Serials