The Heart of the Declaration
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
An eye-opening, meticulously researched new perspective on the influences that shaped the Founders as well as the nation's founding document
From one election cycle to the next, a defining question continues to divide the country’s political parties: Should the government play a major or a minor role in the lives of American citizens? The Declaration of Independence has long been invoked as a philosophical treatise in favor of limited government. Yet the bulk of the document is a discussion of policy, in which the Founders outlined the failures of the British imperial government. Above all, they declared, the British state since 1760 had done too little to promote the prosperity of its American subjects. Looking beyond the Declaration’s frequently cited opening paragraphs, Steve Pincus reveals how the document is actually a blueprint for a government with extensive powers to promote and protect the people’s welfare. By examining the Declaration in the context of British imperial debates, Pincus offers a nuanced portrait of the Founders’ intentions with profound political implications for today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this informative if repetitive treatise on the founders' intent in the Declaration of Independence, Yale history professor Pincus (1688: The First Modern Revolution) presents a strong case for why, then and now, the government should actively promote the "pursuit of happiness." He stresses the document's pre-Revolution economic basis. The United Kingdom's Patriot faction wanted to invest in the colonies, reasoning that the mother country could only benefit from the growth of that untapped consumer market. George III and his Tory minsters, however, wanted to retire the national debt from the Seven Years' War and transfer much of the tax burden to the colonies, while also limiting immigration and westward expansion. Neatly completing this picture of competing interests, Pincus explains that the North American Patriots thought the unwritten British Constitution should allow them to pursue their economic interests. Perhaps most intriguingly, the book observes that many colonists, including slaveholders, opposed slavery not just on ethical grounds but also because it concentrated wealth in the hands of a few and did nothing to promote a broad consumer base. The Declaration articulates the need for an activist "government that could promote economic prosperity," concludes Pincus. He reiterates this cogent argument briskly; despite the book's broad applicability, his writing style will appeal more to scholars than history-interested lay readers.