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Book Reviews: Political Theory
A characteristic shortcoming of studies that address political-philosophic themes in the work of literary writers is that readers learn much more about the writers than they do about politics. They will usually gain new appreciation for a writer's work and, often enough, for the scholar who interprets that work. Still, they may find themselves thinking that the philosophical takeaway is rather meager. This caveat applies in some measure to Nathaniel Hawthorne as Political Philosopher.
The larger part of the book consists, unsurprisingly, of interpretations of Hawthorne's works--to be sure, with an eye to questions of political-philosophic interest. But John Alvis has done something more by including sections given over to his own reflections on the American Declaration of Independence (the "Revolutionary Principles" of the subtitle). His interpretations show the cross-pollinating effects of two distinct bodies of scholarly literature. (The book includes a bibliographic essay in two parts, one devoted to the Declaration of Independence and the other to Hawthorne.) As Alvis concedes, his interest in the Declaration for its own sake is one feature that makes his book unusual among studies of its kind, but it does recommend the work to political scientists. Another unusual feature is his willingness to aver that he views the Declaration in a positive light, as expressing the principles of "a founding uncommonly well devised" and worthy of being defended (p. 4).
Why Hawthorne? Alvis identifies him with a set of mid-nineteenth-century writers--James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville are also named--who "took upon themselves the project of defining America, the polity" (p. 1). For reasons that might well have been spelled out in greater detail, he finds Hawthorne's work to be most suitable for examination: "[S]uch...