The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America 1650-1870

About this book

Thomas Jeffersons conviction that the health of the nations democracy would depend on the existence of an informed citizenry has been a cornerstone of our political culture since the inception of the American republic. Even todays debates over education reform and the need to be competitive in a technologically advanced global economy are rooted in the idea that the education of rising generations is crucial to the nations future. In this book Richard Brown traces the development of the ideal of an informed citizenry in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries and assesses its continuing influence and changing meaning.