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The cover of The Metaphysical Club · A Story of Ideas in America

The Metaphysical Club · A Story of Ideas in America

Louis Menand

How did the Civil War and a small circle of thinkers shape the way Americans think about ideas, chance and change?

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At a glance

Author
Louis Menand

Why read it

  • You will see how a war that left the form of government alone still remade the country
  • You will learn how thinking about chance and error led thinkers to treat ideas as things to check
  • You will meet the thinkers behind these ideas as real people, through their friendships, illness and failures

Who it is for

  • A reader curious where American habits of thought came from
  • A lawyer or professor drawn to Holmes, James and Peirce
  • Someone tired of certainty who wants a case for checking ideas

Contents

  1. PREFACE
  2. PART ONE
  3. ONE The Politics of Slavery
  4. TWO The Abolitionist
  5. THREE The Wilderness and After
  6. PART TWO
  7. FOUR The Man of Two Minds
  8. FIVE Agassiz
  9. SIX Brazil
  10. PART THREE
  11. SEVEN The Peirces
  12. EIGHT The Law of Errors
  13. NINE The Metaphysical Club
  14. PART FOUR
  15. TEN Burlington
  16. ELEVEN Baltimore
  17. TWELVE Chicago
  18. PART FIVE
  19. THIRTEEN Pragmatisms
  20. FOURTEEN Pluralisms
  21. FIFTEEN Freedoms
  22. EPILOGUE

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