political conflict; and how it is possible to sustain a high incidence of competitive value-laden argument and principled political conflict within a stable political order. The
fundamental aim of this study is to examine the traditions and usages of American political ideas within the arena of practical politics. By locating them in their respective contexts, it will be possible to assess both their changing meanings and their shifting relationships to one another. In surveying America's core ideas both in isolation and in combination, the book facilitates an informed awareness of their political and cultural leverage as forms of persuasion and
sources of legitimacy. American Credo roots the examination of American political ideas firmly in the milieu of social drives, political movements and contemporary issues within which the ideas
themselves are embedded. This not only allows the study to investigate the interior properties and traditional priorities of America's key values but permits the theoretical implications and practical consequences of these ideas to be traced and evaluated. By marshalling a wide variety of evidence from different disciplines and perspectives, and by employing innovative principles of organisation, the study offers clarity and depth in support of an inventive explanatory scheme. It concludes
with a review of the current and likely future challenges to the protocols and conventions surrounding the matrix of ideational coexistence.
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