The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders

Tarcher, 2002. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. The distinguished philosopher and bestselling author offers a compelling ne w understanding of the meaning of America, from the spiritual vision of its founding fathers to the hope it can offer to our increasingly threatened w orld. At the heart of Jacob Needleman's The American Soul is a call to rediscover the timeless truths hidden within the founding vision of the American nati on. Embedded in the ideals of democracy, individual liberty, and freedom of conscience is a view of human nature that echoes essential aspects of the wisdom that has guided every great civilization of the world. Free of all r eligious and philosophical dogma, and liberated from historical and politic al clichés, this uniquely American vision contains the power to speak again to the modern world's need for meaning and community. Throughout the book, Needleman takes a new sounding of the inner beliefs an d spiritual sensibilities of the great iconic figures of American history. His powerfully conceived portraits show us Washington as the great symbol o f selfless impartiality; Jefferson as the embodiment of the communal search for truth; Franklin as the seeker of knowledge in two worlds. Lincoln emer ges as the incarnation of the ideal of the individual; Frederick Douglass a s the voice of America's conscience; and the story of the Iroquois constitu tion reveals the cosmic dimensions of our own ideal of democracy. Needleman shows how the crimes and defeats of America -slavery, the destruction of the culture of the American Indian, the Vietnam war - cry out for a vision of a nation asleep to its own spiritual essence, while bringing home the depth of wh.