Ambition in America

Ambition in America
Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages : 0
Release :
ISBN-10 : 081314504X
ISBN-13 : 9780813145044
Rating : 4/5 (044 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Ambition in America by : Jeffrey A. Becker

Download or read book Ambition in America written by Jeffrey A. Becker and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most Americans admire the determination and drive of artists, athletes, and CEOs, but they seem to despise similar ambition in their elected officials. The structure of political representation and the separation of powers detailed in the United States Constitution were intended to restrain self-interested ambition. Because not all citizens have a desire to rule, republican democracies must choose leaders from pools of ambitious candidates while trying to prevent those same people from exploiting public power to dominate the less ambitious. Ambition in America: Political Power and the Collapse of Citizenship is an engaging examination of this rarely studied yet significant phenomenon. Author Jeffrey A. Becker explores how American political institutions have sought to guide, inspire, and constrain citizens' ambitions to power. Detailing the Puritans' government by "moral community," the Founders' attempts to curtail ambition, the influence of Jacksonian populism, and twentieth-century party politics, Becker presents an unfolding drama that culminates in a spirited discussion of the deficiencies in the current political system.This groundbreaking work reassesses the value and role of ambition in politics in order to identify the beliefs and practices that threaten self-government, as well as those that can strengthen democratic politics.


Ambition in America Related Books

Ambition in America
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Jeffrey A. Becker
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-04-16 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Most Americans admire the determination and drive of artists, athletes, and CEOs, but they seem to despise similar ambition in their elected officials. The stru
Ambition, A History
Language: en
Pages: 326
Authors: William Casey King
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-01-29 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Is “ambitious” a compliment? It depends: “[A] masterpiece of intellectual and cultural history.”—David Brion Davis, author of Inhuman Bondage: The Ris
Bobos in Paradise
Language: en
Pages: 361
Authors: David Brooks
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-05-11 - Publisher: Simon and Schuster

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In his bestselling work of “comic sociology,” David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today’s upper class—those who have wed the bourgeois worl
Ambition in America
Language: en
Pages: 211
Authors: Jeffrey A. Becker
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-04-18 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One of the largest southern cities and a hub for the cotton industry, Memphis, Tennessee, was at the forefront of black political empowerment during the Jim Cro
Hotel Dreams
Language: en
Pages: 328
Authors: Molly W. Berger
Categories: Technology & Engineering
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-04-18 - Publisher: JHU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Winner, 2012 Sally Hacker Prize, Society for the History of Technology Hotel Dreams is a deeply researched and entertaining account of how the hotel's material