Primer
For those looking to get involved but unsure where to place their feet, we’ve collected some of the most succinct and accessible touchstones for the idea of citizenship. Think of these as jumping-off points, or sources of inspiration. If we are to see further, we will do well to stand on the shoulders of giants….
Articles, Speeches and Publications
President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation (Text)
”…Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with
our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper
together.”
George Washington’s Farewell Address
Individualism and Commitment in American Life
–Lectures by Robert N. Bellah
”…It was the isolation of this form of individualism that Tocqueville
saw as undermining our free institutions because, if the citizens withdraw
into their “little circle of family and friends,” if they turn their backs on
the public world, if they do not participate in the structures, voluntary
and public structures, then, indeed-by sheer abdication-we will be ruled by administrative despots and not by ourselves. Tocqueville worried that our obsessive concern for material betterment and economic advancement was what drove us in this direction. He saw us as, of all peoples in the world, the ones most concerned with material comfort and economic advancement.”
Books
Washington Rules by Andrew Bacevich
Limits of Power by Andrew Bacevich
The New American Militarism by Andrew Bacevich
The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw
Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville
The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
