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America’s Philosopher - John Locke in American Intellectual Life

University of Chicago Press

By Claire Rydell Arcenas

A commonly held position in post-WWII American intellectual life was that John Locke's Second Treatise of Government underpinned not only the Declaration of Independence, but also the American Political Tradition more generally. But as Claire Rydell Arcenas's book shows, the centrality of Locke is largely a 20th century creation. In her often surprising account of America’s engagement with Locke from the early eighteenth century to the late twentieth, Arcenas suggests that successive generations of American readers found different aspects of Locke thought to be significant, although much less his political philosophy than his epistemology and his thoughts on self-development. The book is a masterfully written and well-researched work of intellectual history.

Listen to an Interview with Claire Rydell Arcenas here: