Toward a new society

About this book

The author chronicles the breakdown of Enlightenment values as the elitist and rationalist legacy of Jeffersonianism gave way to the populist and capitalist fervor of the Jacksonian era. Documenting the bewildering political and cultural changes between 1800 and 1830, Matthews demonstrates how the questions raised in all areas of cultural and intellectual life were fundamentally about the nature of the Republic itself.