The American democrat and other political writings

the long version

"Author James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), best known for the creation of Natty Bumppo and the Leatherstocking Tales, also wrote profound social criticism of the Jacksonian era. Yet, while these three works - Notions of the Americans, A Letter to His Countrymen, and The American Democrat - come from a distant era of American history, Cooper's thoughts on republicanism remain as relevant today as they were in the 1820s and 1830s. His argument, that the real American should be one rooted in virtue, honor, and honesty, transcend time and historical era. This edition is the first to combine all three works - the entirety of Letter and The American Democrat, and numerous excerpts from Notions.". "Cooper's three works add not only to our understanding of him as a novelist and great American, but also to our understanding of a watershed in American political life - when America began the shift from republican to mass democratic forms of governance. In Cooper, the American political tradition has one of its greatest public defenders of republicanism, whose roots, Cooper says, lie in ancient Greece and Rome."--BOOK JACKET.