Choosing Presidents - 9781138520455

Taylor & Francis

In Choosing Presidents, Novak uses the election of an American president as a means to dissect the symbols of our national life and politics, exposing many as distorted perceptions of American realities. This work is a guide to the complexities of electoral politics and a lasting contribution to our understanding of the presidency.The author is Michael Novak.\n > One: Priest, Prophet, King; 1: Symbolic Realism; 2: What Are Symbols?; 3: Who Are We?; 4: Unseen Power; 5: Egalitarian and King; 6: Five Elements of Symbolic Power; 7: Making the Most of Improbable Talents; 8: A Professional's Memo; 9: The Liturgy of Leadership; Two: Moralism and Morality; 10: Being Moral and Being Practical; 11: The Constituency of Conscience; 12: That Word Moral; 13: Vietnam: More Moral Than Thou?; 14: The Rise and Fall of Liberal Moralism; 15: Beyond Niebuhr: Symbolic Realism; Three: The Civil Religions of America; 16: The Nation with the Soul of a Church; 17: The Innocence Lingers On; 18: The Civil Ret