Synopses & Reviews
In A Necessary Evil, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills shows that distrust of government is embedded deep in the American psyche. From the revolt of the colonies against king and parliament to present-day tax revolts, militia movements, and debates about term limits, Wills shows that American antigovernment sentiment is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of our history. By debunking some of our fondest myths about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the taming of the frontier, Wills shows us how our tendency to hold our elected government in disdain is misguided.
Review
Michael Beschloss The Washington Post Book World Wills displays once again his relentlessly questioning, subtle, and versatile mind.
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Curtis Gans The Washington Post A lucid, important, and rigorous defense of government.
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Edmund S. Morgan The New York Review of Books A tract for the times...a plea for common sense in allowing government to do good without the paranoid obstructions of the misguided or malevolent.
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Taylor Branch The New Yorker Not since Hannah Arendt wrote on revolution and on totalitarian psychology has a scholar of such broad classical training addressed a popular readership on issues of such moment, and with such animating reverence for what Arendt called the public space among citizens.
About the Author
Garry Wills is an Emeritus Professor of History at Northwestern University. Born in Atlanta in 1934, he has taught widely throughout the United States. A prolific writer and scholar, Wills is the author of more than twenty books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln at Gettysburg, Papal Sin, and What Jesus Meant. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Table of Contents
ContentsKey to Brief Citations
Introduction
I. Revolutionary Myths
1. Minutemen2. Term Limits
II. Constitutional Myths
3. Sovereign States4. Checking Efficiency
5. Co-equal Branches
6. The Uses of Faction
7. Bill of Rights
8. No Standing Army
III. Nullifiers
9. John Taylor of Caroline: Father of Nullification10. Jefferson: Prophet of Nullification
11. Madison: Abettor of Nullification
12. Nullification North: Hartford Convention
13. Nullification South: John C. Calhoun
14. Academic Nullifiers
IV. Seceders
15. Civil War
V. Insurrectionists
16. From Daniel Shays to Timothy McVeigh17. Academic Insurrectionists
VI. Vigilantes
18. Groups: From Regulators to Clinic Bombings19. Individuals: Frontier
20. Individuals: NRA
VII. Withdrawers
21. Individuals: From Thoreau to Mencken22. Groups: From Brook Farm to Hippie Communes
VIII. Disobeyers
23. From Dr. King to SDS
IX. A Necessary Good
24. The Uses of Government25. The Uses of Fear
Conclusion
Notes
Index