"Winner of the Best Book Award, American Political Thought Section of the American Political Science Association" Alex Zakaras is associate professor of political science at the University of Vermont and the author of Individuality and Mass Democracy: Mill, Emerson, and the Burdens of Citizenship. He lives in Burlington, Vermont. A panoramic history of American individualism from its nineteenth-century origins to today's bitterly divided politics Individualism is a defining feature of American public life. Its influence is pervasive today, with liberals and conservatives alike promising to expand personal freedom and defend individual rights against unwanted intrusion, be it from big government, big corporations, or intolerant majorities. The Roots of American Individualism traces the origins of individualist ideas to the turbulent political controversies of the Jacksonian era (1820-1850) and explores their enduring influence on American politics and culture. Alex Zakaras plunges readers into the spirited and rancorous political debates of Andrew Jackson's America, drawing on the stump speeches, newspaper editorials, magazine articles, and sermons that captivated mass audiences and shaped partisan identities. He shows how these debates popularized three powerful myths that celebrated the young nation as an exceptional land of liberty: the myth of the independent proprietor, the myth of the rights-bearer, and the myth of the self-made man. The Roots of American Individualism reveals how generations of politicians, pundits, and provocateurs have invoked these myths for competing political purposes. Time and again, the myths were used to determine who would enjoy equal rights and freedoms and who would not. They also conjured up heavily idealized, apolitical visions of social harmony and boundless opportunity, typically centered on the free market, that have distorted American political thought to this day. "In crystal clear prose, Zakaras takes readers from the founding era to the age of Jackson to trace how three animating myths of individualism shaped American beliefs about markets, government, and equality. This richly researched book is among those few works that help us understand how we got to be the way we are."-Nancy L. Rosenblum, coauthor of A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy "A profound exploration of the peculiarly American myth of the self-made man: independent, propertied, deeply hostile to government, and trusting in the providential power of the free market. Zakaras lays bare the origins of ideas that still hold many Americans in thrall. A marvelous achievement."-Stephen Macedo, Princeton University "The Roots of American Individualism is a beautifully written, meticulously researched, and boldly imagined tour de force. Alex Zakaras takes a fresh look at the American idea of individualism and charts both its power and its perils. Highly recommended."-James A. Morone, author of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History

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