Seth David Radwell - American schism : how the two Enlightenments hold the secret to healing our nation

PRAISE FOR AMERICAN SCHISM

Those seeking to heal our divided nation should read American Schism. In an age of unreason, Seth David Radwell deftly conveys the history of our core values and shows us a reasoned way forward.

Ana Navarro, CNN contributor

American Schism is a vigorously written, deeply informed intellectual tour de force and a bracing call to nonviolent arms!

David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the Cross

Almost every book I read about America these days makes me more pessimistic about the countrys future. Seth Radwells American Schism is a rare exception. Mr. Radwell shows that Americans have argued angrily about the meaning of the Enlightenment from the founding onwards. But he also shows that disagreements have not prevented them from forging creative consensuses. What might a new creative consensus look like? Mr. Radwell presents an admirable answer to this questionand demonstrates how long-standing American ideas about meritocracy and freedom can be reinvented and revitalized for a new and more diverse age.

Adrian Wooldridge, author of The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World

With America facing an ever-expanding slew of challenges, the only bipartisan solution often seems to be blaming the other side. What this reflects, according to Seth David Radwell, is the divide between two distinct visions of the Enlightenment, one moderate and one radical, that has been present since the nations founding and continues to shape our politics. Today the danger is that our divisions will cause us to abandon Enlightenment valuesreason, tolerance and pluralismaltogether, retreating into a more primordial emphasis on loyalty to faction or political tribe above principle and the common good. As a student of history and politics, and a committed political innovator, I wholly recommend Radwells book as a vital foundation on which to build a better understanding of not just the problems of twenty-first-century America but of the solutions we require.

Katherine M. Gehl, author of The Politics Industry

American Schism makes a counterintuitive yet compelling case: we shouldnt overcome our disagreements; we should accentuate the right disagreements those rooted in the competing, but always fact-based, visions that emerged in the Enlightenment and shaped Americas founding. Deftly moving from philosophy to history to contemporary politics, Seth David Radwell illuminates an innovative path to a better society.

Jacob S. Hacker, professor of political science, Yale University, co-author of Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality

A familiar narrative is that America was founded on eighteenth-century Enlightenment ideals and principles. Twenty years ago, however, Jonathan Israel influentially argued that there were actually two contending schools of Enlightenment thoughtone more radical, secular, democratic, and egalitarian, and the other more moderate and friendlier to established religion, hierarchy, and the protection of property. American Schism shows how both competing strands were represented at our nations founding and have been vying in our national life ever since. The upshot is that the roots of our current division are much deeper than we may have thought. American Schism provides a compelling account of our nations past and present and makes a vigorous case for a hopeful future.

Stephen Darwall, Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy, Yale University

Radwell makes a powerful argument that many of Americas greatest internal conflictspast and presentare part of a titanic, ongoing struggle between conflicting camps of Enlightenment thought, one championing a democratic republic, the other an aristocratic one.

Colin Woodard, author of Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood and American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

For those of us who are anxious about the state of democracy in the US and beyond, Radwells book is a salve. He diagnoses the sorry state of American democracy as our intellectual inheritance from the Enlightenment: many of our deepest divisions, he writes, are the result of earlier disagreements about how to interpret the Enlightenment project itself. But behind our current divisions, Radwell glimpses the prospects for a more hopeful futureone which requires re-committing ourselves to certain Enlightenment ideals. I find Radwells vision compelling: historically nuanced, well-argued, and with a focus firmly on what we all have reason to hope is a better future together.

Sanford C. Goldberg, Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities and professor of philosophy, Northwestern University, professorial fellow, Arch Research Center, University of St. Andrews

As the political polarization in our country deepens seemingly by the day, Seth David Radwells American Schism could not come at a better time. In contrast to the widespread belief that our current state of affairs is unprecedented, Radwell shows that, in fact, its roots date back to the origins of this country in the form of The Two Enlightenments. American Schism is a fascinating historical work, but Radwell also offers an optimistic look forward and a detailed road map for how we can restore our unity and greatness.

Whitney Tilson, co-author of Poor Charlies Almanack, More Mortgage Meltdown, The Art of Value Investing, and The Art of Playing Defense, and a well-known value investor and philanthropist

An intriguing exploration of how past historical conflicts continue to play out in our present divisions.

Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen

It is not often that one encounters history powerfully combined with analysis of our present, deeply troubling reality in a way that compels us to reconsider and reset our own political notions... Seth David Radwell, with his engaging style, has done just that, escorting us from the America of the Enlightenment to the United States of today in a way that will cause a great many of us to rethink.

Jonathan Israel, leading Enlightenment scholar and Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

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