Filling in the missing spaces left by traditional textbooks on American political thought Reconsidering American Political Thought uses race gender and ethnicity as a lens through which to engage ongoing debates on American values and intellectual traditions. Weaving document-based texts analysis with short excerpts from classics in American literature this book presents a re-examination of the political and intellectual debates of consequence throughout American history. Purposely beginning the story in 1619 Saladin Ambar reassesses the religious political and social histories of the colonial period in American history. Thereafter Ambar moves through the story of America with each chapter focusing on a different era in American history up to the present day. Ambar threads together analysis of periods including Thomas Jefferson’s aspiration to create an Empire of Liberty the ethnic racial and gender-based discourse instrumental in creating a Yankee industrial state between 1877 and 1932 and the intellectual cultural and social forces that led to the political rise of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama in recent decades. In closing Ambar assesses the prospects for a new more invigorated political thought and discourse to reshape and redirect national energies and identity in the Trump presidency. Reconsidering American Political Thought presents a broad and subjective view about critical arguments in American political thought giving future generations of students and lecturers alike an inclusive understanding of how to teach research study and think about American political thought. | Reconsidering American Political Thought A New Identity