Discussing the cultural intentions of the first thoroughly commercial republic, the US, this study measures the benefits and deficits of commercial republicanism and states that it is the enemy of culture. It includes the work of writers such as Emerson, Carlyle, Ruskin, Dewey and Pound.

This book discusses the cultural intentions of the founders of the first thoroughly commercial republic, the United States. The typical book on 'the culture' takes the view that commercial republicanism is the enemy of culture; this book tells a much more complex story, and measures the benefits and deficits of commercial republicanism in a way that does not sleight the very substantial achievements of commercial republicanism. The book looks at several critics of the commercial republic, 'left' and 'right'. These writers include Emerson, Whitman, Carlyle, Ruskin, Dewey, and Pound. The book concludes with chapters on two very different writers who take a comprehensive view of culture, nature, and the commercial republic: Allan Bloom and Jane Austen. Contents: Acknowledgments; Preface; Introduction: The Statesmanlike Sources of American Culture; Victorians Contra Commerce; Natural Right and the American Intellectual; American Historicist-Poets: Holmes and Whitman; An American Fascist: Ezra Pound; The American Left and the Culture of Sophistry; An American Philosopher?; The Politics of Self-Knowledge: Mansfield Park and the Refounding of the English Aristocracy; Conclusion: The Arts of Satiation; Endnotes; Index; Biographical Note.