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This work challenges the thesis first formulated by de Tocqueville and later systematically developed by Louis Hartz, that American political culture is characterized by a consensus on liberal capitalist values. Ranging over three hundred years of history and drawing upon the seminal work anthropologist Mary Douglas, Richard Ellis demonstrates that American history is best understood as a contest between five rival political cultures: egalitarian community, competitive individualism, hierarchical collectivism, atomized fatalism, and autonomous hermitude.

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CHOICE Review

This study is in the tradition of historically minded political scientists such as Louis Hartz, J. David Greenstone, and Samuel Huntington. It is a rich stew of commentaries and critiques on a gargantuan literary menu dealing with the development of American politics and culture. The stock or broth that jells this fascinating concoction is a relentless attack on Hartz's view of America as a "Lockean nation" and a "five rival political cultures" thesis based on an imaginative application of ideas from anthropologist Mary Douglas. The five contesting cultures are egalitarian community, competitive individualism, hierarchical collectivism, atomized fatalism, and autonomous hermitude. The treatment of slavery in terms of "fatalism as a rational response to a capricious environment" (134ff.) will surely spark controversy. But the meat of the book is the author's attempt to fortify our sense of American political conflict by acknowledging "both the pervasive individualism of American life and the centrality of the communitarian or egalitarian challenge." The author intends a variety of contributions especially by deploying Douglas's cultural categories or "grid-group typology." Just one that should be mentioned is his perspective on the republicanism/liberalism debate that still engages several historians and political theorists. One question that remains is whether this valuable work in cultural theory should have given more explicit attention to concepts of ideology and power. Advanced undergraduate through faculty. H. G. Reid; University of Kentucky

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Richard J. Ellis is at Willamette University.