Sentimental Democracy: The Evolution of America's Romantic Self-Image

by Andrew Burstein

The provocative interpretation of American political rhetoric Americans like to use words of sentiment and sympathy, passion and power, to explain their democracy. In a provocative new work, Andrew Burstein examines the metaphorically rich language which Americans developed to express their guiding that the New World would improve upon the Old. In journals, letters, speeches, and books, an impassioned rhetoric of "feeling" set the tone for American patriotism. Burstein shows how the eighteenth century "culture of sensibility" encouraged optimism about a global the new nation would succeed. Americans believed, as much by sublime feeling as by intellectual achievement or political liberty. As they grew more self-confident, this pacific ideal acquired noble Washington and humane Jefferson yielded to boisterous Jackson, and the language of gentle feeling to the force of Manifest Destiny. Yet Americans never stopped celebrating what they believed was their innate impulse to do good.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

432 pages, Paperback

Published May 24, 2000

About the author

Andrew Burstein is the Charles P. Manship Professor of History at Louisiana State University, and the author of The Passions of Andrew Jackson, Jefferson’s Secrets, and Madison and Jefferson, among others. Burstein’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, and Salon.com, and he advised Ken Burns’s production "Thomas Jefferson." He has been featured on C-SPAN's American Presidents Series and Booknotes, as well as numerous NPR programs, including Talk of the Nation and The Diane Rehm Show. He lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.