Conceptual Change and the ConstitutionEdited by Terence Ball and J. G. A. Pocockx, 222 pages, 6 x 9
"Politics is a communicatively constituted activity. Words are its coin, and speech its medium. And yet, notoriously, the words which make up this medium have hotly contested and historically mutable meanings."--from the Introduction "These well-written essays provide new insight into the history of the period."--Virginia Magazine of History and Biography "This volume calls attention to the changing or multiple meanings of key concepts and terms in Revolutionary-era political thought. As against the tendency to stress the relative homogeneity of the ideas that coalesced in the late 1780s, this collection creates, in effect, a set of case studies that illuminate the range of issues around which new and disputed positions formed."--Jack Rakove, author of The Beginnings of National Politics
TERENCE BALL is professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. J.G.A. POCOCK is Harry C. Black Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University CONTRIBUTORS: Terence Ball, Lance Banning, James Farr, Russell L. Hanson, Daniel Walker Howe, Peter S. Onuf, J. G. A. Pocock, Gerald Stourzh, and Garry Wills Home | About the Press | Recent Awards | Contact Us | Order
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In this volume distinguished historians
and political scientists examine political discourse during that
short span of years from the Revolution through ratification,
a period of profound political and conceptual change. The concepts
of "sovereignty," "representation," "liberty,"
"virtue," "republic," "democracy"--even
"constitution" itself--were virtually recoined. Others,
like "federalism," were new inventions. Out of the
vehement political arguments and debates of the period came not
only a new Constitution but a new political vocabulary--a political
idiom that was distinctly recognizably American.