Hume's Reception in Early America

Hume's Reception in Early America: An Anthology brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest philosophers, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes a comprehensive index and updated further readings suggestions, reflecting recent Hume scholarship over the last decade.

From letters, pamphlets and poems to newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, extracts come from a wide variety of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains dozens of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his character and death. Each of these parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides a list of bibliographical references.

Packed with new insights into Hume and modern American philosophers, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, religious, and aesthetic debates.