American Thought

[T]he history of evolution in America... has been from the cosmic to the organic, has passed through the logical phases from supernatural election to natural selection.
-from "The Forerunners of Evolutionism"

From his perch at the beginning of the enlightened and scientific 20th century, Woodbridge Riley surveys the history of intellectualism in America. First published in 1915 and still delightfully informative, included is a comprehensive overview of philosophical movements in the United States:

Puritanism (of the early colonials)
Early Idealism (of Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Edwards)
Deism (of Franklin and Jefferson)
Materialism (and the influence of the French)
Realism (and the influence of the Scottish)
Transcendentalism (of Emerson, et. al.)
Evolutionism (of John Fiske and James Mark Baldwin)
Modern Idealism (and the influence of the Germans)
Pragmatism (of John Dewey and William James)
Modern Realism (of the scientific 20th century)

From how we as a would-be nation conceived of God's place in politics before the Revolution to how we think about modern art and modern science, this is an invigorating read.

American scholar WOODBRIDGE RILEY (1869-1933) was professor of philosophy at Vassar College and lecturer at the Sorbonne. He is also the author of The Founder of Mormonism (1903), and was a contributor to the four-volume Cambridge History of English Literature (1917-1921).