American Transcendentalism

A History

Philip F. Gura

Hill and Wang

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American Transcendentalism is a sweeping narrative history of America’s first group of public intellectuals, the men and women who defined American literature and indelibly marked American reform in the decades before and following the American Civil War. Philip F. Gura masterfully traces their intellectual genealogy to transatlantic religious and philosophical ideas, illustrating how these informed the fierce theological debates that, so often first in Massachusetts and eventually throughout America, gave rise to practical, personal, and quixotic attempts to improve, even perfect the world. The transcendentalists would painfully bifurcate over what could be attained and how, one half epitomized by Ralph Waldo Emerson and stressing self-reliant individualism, the other by Orestes Brownson, George Ripley, and Theodore Parker, emphasizing commitment to the larger social good.
 
By the 1850s, transcendentalists turned ever more exclusively to abolition, and by war’s end transcendentalism had become identified exclusively with Emersonian self-reliance, congruent with the national ethos of political liberalism and market capitalism.

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Praise for American Transcendentalism

NOMINATED FOR THE 2008 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
 
“The best collective biography on the group published in modern times.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
“A perfect companion to Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club.” —Kirkus Reviews

Reviews from Goodreads

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Jason  rated it  
Jun 17, 2008
(My full review of this book is much longer than Goodreads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

The only time before this week that I had ever had experiences with the American Transcendentalist movement of ...more
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Heather  rated it  
Dec 7, 2011
In American Transcendentalism, Gura chronicles the birth, evolution, and ultimate demise of this philosophical, literary, and political movement of the 1800s, including short biographies of its most important participants and contributors.

What is Transcendentalism and where did it come f ...more
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Rick  rated it  
Jul 21, 2011
If there is a unique amd American philosophical movement transcendentalism could easily be that movement. But we hear so little about it any more. Why? I think it is because of its place in history. This short lived movement was a reaction against the Age of Reason (the Enlightment) using German ...more
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About the Author

Philip F. Gura

Philip F. Gura is William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he holds appointments in English, American studies, and religious studies.

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American Transcendentalism
A History
Philip F. Gura
Award

National Books Critics Circle Awards - Nominee

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hill and Wang
September 2008
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780809016440
ISBN10: 0809016443
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 384 pages, Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations, Notes, and an Index
$16.00
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Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hill and Wang
November 2007
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780809034772
ISBN10: 0809034778
6 x 9 inches, 384 pages, 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations/Notes/Index
$27.50

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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hill and Wang
September 2008
e-Book Agency
ISBN: 9781429922883
ISBN10: 1429922885
384 pages, Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations, Notes, and an Index
$9.99
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