"The Constitution of the People" Reflections on Citizens and Civil Society Edited by Robert E. Calvert Introduction by Wilson Carey McWilliams xii, 172 pages, 6 x 9 Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-0478-4, $14.95 To be a U.S. citizen is to be a member of a constitutional order that requires political unity but is also committed to social and cultural diversity. How do we solve the riddle of the one and the many? What is, in Tom Paine's words, "the constitution of the people"? This is a perennial question that goes to the heart of American society and that increasingly shapes public debates about the health of our body politic. To answer it, Robert Calvert, a political scientist, has collected original essays by six distinguished scholars who are among the most influential interpreters of the American scene today. The essays included in this book are united by the effort to understand America's identity in a way that does justice to the paradoxes and pluralities of its politics. Each seeks to find some middle ground between a government too intrusive and citizens too removed from public life, a balance between particular freedom and common purpose. Vigorously argued, lively, and accessible to the general reader, these essays challenge much of contemporary thought on the meaning of American constitutionalism. Contents: Wilson Carey McWilliams Introduction J. David Greenstone Adams and Jefferson on Slavery: Two Liberalisms and the Roots of Civic Ambivalence Robert N. Bellah Citizenship, Diversity, and the Search for the Common Good Jean Bethke Elshtain "In Common Together": Unity, Diversity, and Civic Virtue Michael Novak How to Make a Republic Work: The Originality of the Commercial Republicans Michael Walzer Constitutional Rights and the Shape of Civil Society Robert E. Calvert Political "Realism" and the Progressive Degradation of Citizenship: A Quiet Constitutional Crisis "Robert Calvert has collected a set of remarkable, lively, and lucid papers in this volume. . . . The topic is important, the introduction is masterful, and each of the essays says something significant in a provocative and accessible manner. The collection itself illustrates how different points of view on similar topics can bring unity out of diversity."--Richard Dagger, coauthor of Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal ROBERT E. CALVERT is professor of political science at DePauw University.   Home | About the Press | Recent Awards | Contact Us | Order New Books: | By Author | By Subject | By Title | By Series Books in Print: | By Author | By Subject | By Title | By Series ©2007 University Press of Kansas 2502 Westbrooke Circle, Lawrence, KS 66045-4444 Phone (785) 864-4155; Fax (785) 864-4586