Ceaser's American Political Science

In: Perspectives on political science, Band 29, Heft 3, S. 135-141

Abstract

The aim of James W. Ceaser's book, Reconstructing America (1997), is to save the US from the deconstructionist European thinking that has, since the eighteenth century, portrayed Americans as "inferior & degenerate." In the book, Ceaser attempts to reconstruct the US statesman. In doing so, he responds to the theories of Leo Strauss, Martin Heidegger, Alexis de Tocqueville, Richard Rorty, Mansfield, & Aristotle. Ceaser's thinking on the subject of US reconstruction reveals his belief that in post-Cold War America, the "real war for the soul of humanity has just begun." As he moves from a critique of US political life to a critique of US culture; however, it is no longer possible to blame US shortcomings on European thought. K. A. Larsen