In this dynamic book, Charles Lemert elaborates a vigorous, distinctive, and creative American tradition in social thought.
American social theory has tended to be overshadowed by European social thought. Yet, looking deeper, Americans have always made important contributions to social theory. Drawing upon the work of a dazzling array of both seminal and unjustly overlooked philosophers, sociologists, litterateurs, and political activists, Lemert constructs a coherent yet variegated intellectual framework for understanding American social theory and culture from the colonial era to the present. In doing so, Lemert analyses American intellectual attitudes on race, gender, popular culture, political thought, capitalism, and social movements, while also exploring schools of thought from transcendentalism and pragmatism to interactionism and intersectionality.
In his inimitable style, Charles Lemert, a master of "finding theory where you'd least expect it," offers a masterful rendering of the American tradition in social theory. In doing so, Lemert shines new light on social theory and American history. Both authoritative and accessible, this indispensable work will be essential reading for students, scholars, and general readers with interests in social theory and American social history.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"America is usually viewed as the poor cousin of European intellectual life when it comes to producing canonical social theory. As well-known authority Charles Lemert shows in this sweeping reinterpretation, Americans of all kinds have been intrepid contributors to attempts to conceive of how social order is imagined and made, and under what conditions the agents that society produces can transform it in turn."
Samuel Moyn, Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History, Yale University, USA
"The story of American social theory is often overshadowed by US appropriations of European texts. But it is a vigorous tradition in its own right, helping to shape the country as well as advance social science. Charles Lemert tells this story beautifully, with warmth and engagement as well as insight and breadth of perspective. An important contribution and a pleasure to read."
Craig Calhoun, University Professor of Social Sciences, Arizona State University, USA
"This is no typical social theory book. Charles Lemert, one of the most original theorists of the last half century, creates a compelling new narrative of 'America' that weaves together history, politics, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. Spanning the ideas and contexts of everyone from Franklin to Jefferson, Lincoln to Thoreau, Tubman to DuBois, to more contemporary scholars of globalization, environment, culture, and urban life, Lemert illuminates and explains the connections, fractures, and changes over more than two centuries of Americans thinking America".
Andrew Deener, Professor of Sociology, University of Connecticut, USA
"This book is beyond words in its brilliance. This curated theoretical magnum opus delves into the rich tapestry of American social theory, offering a detailed homage to the American theoretical tradition and its intellectuals. It highlights the evolution of a nation by analyzing historical and cultural milestones through the insights of thinkers such as Emerson, Thoreau, Du Bois, and Dewey. This book addresses pragmatism, identity, social movements, and marginality, crafting a vivid narrative of the American experiment. It traces the journey from premodern to modern to postmodern frameworks, providing a rich, sophisticated overview of the history and theories that shape the United States. Moreover, it underscores America's unique contributions to global intellectual discourse in a landscape dominated by European philosophical traditions. Americans Thinking America is beyond measure, like its author, who, given his life's contributions to the discipline, can easily be revered as the Godfather of social theory."
Waverly Duck, North Hall Chair Endowed Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
"Charles Lemert's Americans Thinking America is the master work of one of the greatest American social theorists of the twenty-first century. The book offers a comprehensive guide to theory in what would become the United States from the early 1700s through to the present. This is essential reading for all who seek to better understand the trajectory of American social thought and all its contradictions."
Kristin Plys, J. Clawson Mills Scholar, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, USA, and Associate Professor of Sociology and History, University of Toronto, Canada
"In this brilliant masterpiece of social theory, Lemert weaves a rich, diverse, and inclusive tapestry of ideas that shine a spotlight on the complex debates shaping our social world and the very essence of America itself. By skilfully placing often overlooked scholars in dialogue with the traditionally revered voices in knowledge production, Lemert offers a fresh and nuanced perspective on how we collectively understand and engage with our surroundings. Through captivating storytelling and profound philosophical inquiry, this book is an essential guide for understanding the intricate ways in which the collective of American thinkers, including scholars denied, make sense of a shared social landscape. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand social theory, past, present, and future."
Victor Rios, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Charles Lemert is University Professor and John C. Andrus Professor of Social Theory Emeritus at Wesleyan University, USA. He has written extensively on social theory, globalization, and culture. He is author of Globalization: An Introduction to the End of the Known World (Routledge, 2015), Why Niebuhr Matters (Yale University Press, 2011), Structural Lie: Small Clues to Global Things (Routledge, 2008), Thinking the Unthinkable: The Riddles of Classical Social Theories (Routledge, 2007), Postmodernism is Not What You Think: Why Globalization Threatens Modernity (Routledge, 2005), and Muhammad Ali: Trickster in the Culture of Irony (Polity Press, 2003). He is also co-author of Introduction to Contemporary Social Theory (Second Edition, Routledge, 2022) and Capitalism and Its Uncertain Future (Routledge, 2021), editor of Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings (Seventh Edition, Routledge, 2021) and co-editor of Globalization: A Reader (Routledge, 2010).
PART I: Americans Thinking America 1 What is Theory? How Can There Be a Theory of America? 2 Elements of American Social Theory PART II: American Social and Natural Spaces, 1727-1861 3 The First Fires of America's Revolutionary Culture: Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Paine 4 America's Revolutionary Culture Burns Bright: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson 5 Nation- State in the Making: James Madison and Alexander Hamilton 6 America Faces Its Fate: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller PART III: Civil War and American Pragmatism, 1861-1917 and After 7 A Suffering Republic and its Culture: John Brown and Harriet Tubman 8 Balm for the Nation's Wounds: Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman 9 Abraham Lincoln's Implicit Practical Social Theory and A New America 10 Suffering as the Seed of Pragmatism: Abraham Lincoln and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 11 Pragmatism, the Hard Realities of Change: William James, Charles Saunders Pierce, John Dewey, Jane Addams, George Herbert Mead, Richard Rorty, Cornel West PART IV: American Culture Tries to Explain its Disorder, 1919-1968 12 The Function of American Culture: Henry Adams, Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton 13 Interpreting Cultures: Robert Bellah, Clifford Geertz, Alvin Gouldner, George Marcus, Michael Fischer, Jeffrey Alexander 14 Excluded Cultures: W.E.B Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Paula Gunn Allen, James Baldwin, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X 15 The Fungible Interaction Order: David Riesman, Erik Erikson, Edwin Lemert, Erving Goffman, Harold Garfinkel 16 Ethnographies and American Social Theory: Robert Park, W.E.B. Du Bois, W. I. Thomas, Florian Znaniecki, Elliott Liebow, Carol Stack, William Julius Wilson 17 The New Ethnographers of Urban Disorder: AbdouMaliq Simone, Elijah Anderson, Waverly Duck, Victor Rios, Matthew Desmond, Nikki Jones, Alice Goffman PART V: Reprise 18 Power, Domination, and the World Revolution of 1968: Herbert Marcuse, Kwame Ture, Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hammer, Ella Baker, and Angela Davis Social Theories in America and the Six Elements PART VI: Identities and Differences in an Unsettled America, 1968 and Beyond 19 The Feminist Standpoint as Critical Theory: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dorothy Smith, Nancy Hartsock, Sandra Harding, bell hooks 20 Fractured Identities and Queer Analytics: Anna Julia Cooper, Patricia Hill Collins, Donna Haraway, Kimberle Crenshaw Williams, Gloria Anzaldua, Judith Butler 21 States, Social Movements, and Revolutions: The Roosevelts, Reinhold Niebuhr, Charles Tilly, Theda Skocpol, James Scott 22 Rethinking the World in the Unsettled 1960s: W.W. Rostow, Daniel Bell, C. Wright Mills, Students for a Democratic Society 23 Global Structures and Exclusions: Immanuel Wallerstein, Saskia Sassen, David Harvey, Nancy Fraser PART VII: American Futures, 1542 and 1619 to When? 24 The TimeSpace of Traveling Theory: Edward Said, Sam Han, Tr?nh Th? Minh Ha, Cabeza de Vaca, Black Elk, Phillis Wheatley, Gyatri Chakravorty Spivak, Howard Zinn, E.O. Wilson
