Common sense [electronic resource] : a political history / Sophia Rosenfeld.

ISBN:

9780674061286

Title:

Author:

Rosenfeld, Sophia A.

Personal Author:

Rosenfeld, Sophia A.

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (337 pages, [14] pages of plates) : illustrations

Contents:

The ghost of common sense: London, 1688-1739 -- Everyman's perception of the world: Aberdeen, 1758-1770 -- The radical uses of bon sens: Amsterdam, 1760-1775 -- Building a common sense republic: Philadelphia, 1776 -- Making war on revolutionary reason: Paris, 1790-1792 -- Konigsberg to New York: the fate of common sense in the modern world.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Personal Subject:

Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809. Common sense.

Title Subject:

Common sense (Paine, Thomas) (OCoLC)fst01357815

Subject Term:

Political science -- History -- 18th century.

Democracy -- United States.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783.

France -- Politics and government -- 1789-1799.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2011

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
320.011 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Common sense has always been a cornerstone of American politics. In 1776, Tom Paine's vital pamphlet with that title sparked the American Revolution. And today, common sense--the wisdom of ordinary people, knowledge so self-evident that it is beyond debate--remains a powerful political ideal, utilized alike by George W. Bush's aw-shucks articulations and Barack Obama's down-to-earth reasonableness. But far from self-evident is where our faith in common sense comes from and how its populist logic has shaped modern democracy. Common Sense: A Political History is the first book to explore this essential political phenomenon.

The story begins in the aftermath of England's Glorious Revolution, when common sense first became a political ideal worth struggling over. Sophia Rosenfeld's accessible and insightful account then wends its way across two continents and multiple centuries, revealing the remarkable individuals who appropriated the old, seemingly universal idea of common sense and the new strategic uses they made of it. Paine may have boasted that common sense is always on the side of the people and opposed to the rule of kings, but Rosenfeld demonstrates that common sense has been used to foster demagoguery and exclusivity as well as popular sovereignty. She provides a new account of the transatlantic Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions, and offers a fresh reading on what the eighteenth century bequeathed to the political ferment of our own time. Far from commonsensical, the history of common sense turns out to be rife with paradox and surprise.

Author Notes

Rosenfeld Sophia :

Sophia Rosenfeld is Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia.

Reviews (2)

Choice Review

Historian Rosenfeld (Univ. of Virginia) answers this question: "How--and with what lingering consequences--did common sense develop its special relationship in modern times with the kind of popular rule that we call democracy?" That question originates in her reading of Hannah Arendt, who saw "common sense as the lifeblood of democracy." Providing a narrative of what happened while aiming to determine "whether Arendt was right," Rosenfeld's is a "philosophical history." Her wide-ranging account begins in the wake of the English Glorious Revolution of 1688, when "the modern history of common sense takes off." Important was Shaftesbury's essay "Sensus Communis" (1709). A key chapter explores the "Common Sense philosophers" (Thomas Reid, James Beattie, and James Oswald) in 18th-century Aberdeen. Also key was Philadelphia, where Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" (1776) employed common sense as "a weapon to be deployed against the sense of things that was ... actually common." For Rosenfeld, "populism" is not a 19th-century invention, but originates instead with James Cannon and others who drafted the "radical" Philadelphia Constitution of 1776. Chapter five explores revolutionary Paris. A concluding chapter, as its subtitle indicates, considers "The Fate of Common Sense in the Modern World." Summing Up: Recommended. Research libraries. M. G. Spencer Brock University

Library Journal Review

We often hear politicians and pundits speak of "common sense." Now Rosenfeld (history, Univ. of Virginia; A Revolution in Language) insightfully traces the turns the phrase has taken since it came into use in 18th-century urban centers. She covers London, where Joseph Addison and Richard Steele offered common sense in The Spectator as a calming answer to conflicting opinion after the Glorious Revolution; Aberdeen, where a group of Presbyterians found a shared capacity to see waywardness in the skeptical thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment; Amsterdam, where a circle of French writers used the term impiously to mock conventional wisdom; and Philadelphia, where Thomas Paine employed common sense as a means to bring down a government. Here, too, is Paris, where those against the Revolution used common sense to critique democracy. Rosenfeld treats the post-18th-century era more briefly in a final chapter. VERDICT Readers may only be disappointed that Rosenfeld does not cover recent times, most especially today's conservative purveyors of common sense. Her book is a model of how a fine work of history may enlighten readers about polemics without being a polemic itself. Rich, graceful, often witty, this is very highly recommended for academic and serious readers.-Bob Nardini, Nashville (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.