The American Democrat [Paperback]

James Fenimore Cooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1443817171 | ISBN-13: 978-1443817172 | Edition: New edition

This is the most clear, concise and comprehensive statement Cooper made of his views on political and social principles as they existed following his return to the United States from Europe.

Editorial Reviews

Review

..".an important political treatise of timely relevance today, providing sound perceptions into our present government." --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

James Fenimore Cooper was born in 1789 in New Jersey, the son of a wealthy land agent who founded Cooperstown in New York State. Cooper attended Yale, but was expelled in 1805 and spent five years at sea on merchant then naval ships. He married in 1811, and eventually settled in New York. Precaution, Cooper's first novel, was written in 1820 as a study of English manners; its successors, The Spy and The Pilot, written within the next three years, were more characteristic of the vein of military or seagoing romance that was to become typical of him. In 1823 he began the Leatherstocking Tales series of novels, centred on a shared Native American character at different periods of his life, for which he is chiefly remembered. Cooper's reputation as one of America's leading authors was quickly established, and spread to Europe by a long stay there from 1826, making him one of the first American writers popular beyond that country. After his return to America in 1832, however, conservative political essays and novels dramatising similar views, as well as critiques of American society and abuses of democracy, led to a decline in his popularity. James Fenimore Cooper died in 1851.

Product Details

• Paperback: 138 pages
• Publisher: CSP Classic Texts; New edition edition (January 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1443817171
• ISBN-13: 978-1443817172
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #505,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > United States > Classics > Cooper, James Fenimore
  • #54 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Law > General
  • #69 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Government

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Equality as virtue and vice..., September 30, 2001

By 

R. Setliff - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Democrat (Hardcover)

Whereas, Alexis de Tocqueville offers his perspective on America as an outside observer, the literary genius James Fenimore Cooper offers his assessment of culture, politics and society in 19th century America. He doesn't hold democracy to be sacrosanct like we do today, but rather like any other system of government with its advantages and disadvantages. His look at the nature of liberty and its relation with equality is particularly intriguing.

He is cognizant of the dangers posed to American self-government, which values legal equality. Equality, is a virtue, only insofar as it pertains to equal rights and equality before the law. Any effort at establishing equality of outcome is tantamount to tyranny and opposed to liberty. Cooper illustrates the precarious relationship between liberty and equality. Unless, tradition, custom, the rule of law and the Constitution are revered and upheld- the American Polity could easily collapse into majoritarian tyranny under a demagogue.

One gains an appreciation of the system of government established by the American founding fathers after reading this book... They established a constitutionally-limited federal republic, with limits not only on the power of government, but with limits placed on the power of majority rule, so as to limit the fundamental role of government to protecting the rights of its citizens. This constitutional republic sought to balance out monarchial, democratic, and aristocratic elements...

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic critique of American government and culture, October 21, 1998

By 

Hugh Macdougall (Cooperstown, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Democrat (Paperback)

First published in 1838, The American Democrat is a wide-ranging series of essays, many of them couched in theoretical terms, about the historical and cultural bases of American democracy, and an informed critique of many aspects of American politics, society, and culture in the 1830s.. Cooper wrote the book shortly after returning to Jacksonian America after a seven-year sojourn in Europe, and it reflects much of his discontent with what he found. As a cogent and informed commentary on 19th Century America it belongs with a book with which it has often been compared -- Toqueville's Democracy in America.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece about basics of American social system., April 5, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Round Rock, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The American Democrat (Hardcover)

Cooper was an acute commentator on the strengths and weaknesses of American society as it developed during the first half of the 19th century. Like a number of other observers Cooper came to be fearful that a society built upon the ideas of self-government, along with legal equality ("democracy" in the social sense), unless it is strongly bound by law and custom and unless such fundamentals as property rights remain sacrosanct, would come to be transformed into some sort of popular tyranny. Source: Literature and Liberty, The New American March 17, 1997.