Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

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West (politics, Univ. of Dallas) aims to defend the U.S. Constitution and the men who drafted it in 1787 from the accusations of sexism, racism, and prejudice against the poor. West writes from a conservative perspective, and, as he frequently pauses to remind the reader, his arguments are learned and logical. However, this is a deeply flawed book. West writes in a supercilious and dismissive tone. Worse, he digresses far afield to introduce his ideas on contemporary issues, which have almost nothing to do with the founders; his chapter on the family is simply a compendium of current conservative views and he rarely mentions the founders, who said and wrote little on the subject. More eloquent and elegant conservative viewpoints on the founding include Marvin Olasky's Fighting for Liberty and Virtue (Regnery, 1996), M.E. Bradford and Russell Kirk's A Better Guide Than Reason (Transaction, 1994), and Forrest McDonald's We the People (Transaction, 1992).?Fritz Buckallew, Univ. of Central Oklahoma Lib., Edmond
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Mr. West points out that the principle of equality itself has two parts that often conflict. One is equal rights; but among those rights is the right of consent to government. The trouble is that through prejudice people may not accord equal rights to others; yet the right of consent belongs just as much to people with prejudice as to the enlightened.... In our age of self-expression, the worst accusation you can face is being unfaithful to yourself. That is why personal attack, always a danger in a democracy, so often today replaces serious argument over principle, as in the debate over the Founders and their alleged hypocrisy. Mr. West reminds us that our "self" is mainly constituted by our principles. -- The Wall Street Journal, Harvey Mansfield --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (February 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847685179
• ISBN-13: 978-0847685172
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #461,673 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for Any Critic of the Founders, July 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (Hardcover)

No one should criticize or condemn the Founding Fathers of this country until they've read either this book by Tom West or every one of the speeches, letters, and other writings of the Founders for themselves. One of the problems in today's country is that we have a bunch of self-appointed PC historians that regularly badger the Founders for falling short of today's enlightened sense of justice without taking the time to read what the Founders had to say on these issues themselves. West lets the Founders speak for themselves by documenting both their writings and their actions. Truly, a valuable contribution to the study of American history.

I hope to see more from Tom West.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Antidote for Common Anachronisms, April 2, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Whittier, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (Hardcover)

Did the Founders think that blacks were morally and intellectually inferior? Yes, most of them did. Did the Founders think that blacks were still fully entitled to the unalienable rights of man? Yes, most of them did. Were intellectual and social debates as multifaceted then as now. You bet. That's why it is possible to find facts and quotations to support a variety of assaults on the Founders, based on selective evidence and anachronistic, collectivist values. This book looks at the people and the circumstances of the founding period in light of the individualist values of the time and the social conflicts and necessities those people had to reconcile. The mere fact that they created a nation more free and more fair than any that had gone before should make us doubt the malign, revisionist, politically-correct histories we've seen in recent decades. This book is not only very good, but much needed.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, November 8, 1997

By	Richard Mendoza ([e-mail]) (Santa Ana, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (Hardcover)

Thomas G. West does a masterful job of explaining the commonly held political and social beliefs of the Founders, all the while he debunks numerous myths from both the Left and the Right. West, a disciple of Leo Strauss and Harry Jaffa, stays within the tradition of natural law theory as currently advocated by the Clairemont Institute as he explains the true meanings of the words found in the Declaration and the Constitution. Each chapter begins with quotations from various historians or influential thinkers who have misinterpreted their meanings, then West gathers quotes from the Founders within context and gives the reader the proper meaning. This is then followed by what might be called application and social critique, telling us things that may surprise us.

Although I think he underplays the racism that was evident in their thoughts and behaviors, I believe he is correct in most of his conclusions and I learned quite a bit. It could be a conservative compliment to *Lies My Teacher Told Me* by James Loewen. For those who want to gather the true meaning of the what the USA was founded on, they could get no better book than this.