Reviews

The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders by Jacob Needleman

bob_muller's review against another edition

2.0

While the ideas in the book are interesting, I found the writing almost impossible to get through. It's kind of like diving deep in the ocean: you can suit up with helmet and air tether and not get the real experience (read this book), or you can don scuba gear (read the usual histories), or you can develop gills (read the original letters, memoirs, and diaries). Each has advantages and disadvantages. Also, the focus of the book is on religion as the defining mode of understanding America (and mythologizing it, as the author puts it). I prefer more secular understanding based on modern stoic philosophies.