Bryce's Treatise on Liberal Thought, The Hindrances to Good Citizenship, Signed by Bryce

James Bryce

First Edition

BRYCE, James Viscount. The Hindrances to Good Citizenship. London: Yale University Press, 1919. First Edition, Fifth Printing. Signed James Bryce: August 1921 on half-title page in large, elegant hand. Octavo. 138 pages. Publisher's original blue cloth boards. Deckle edges. Historian, jurist, diplomat, and member of Parliament, Viscount James Bryce (1838-1922) lived one of those remarkably full and fruitful nineteenth-century public lives that remain a wonder today. He served as ambassador to the United States from 1907 to 1913 and was one of the most knowledgeable, perceptive, and sympathetic interpreters of American civilization since Tocqueville. Bryce's writings reveal a constant and deep concern with the nature and maintenance of democracy. Hindrances to Good Citizenship, first presented as a series of lectures at Yale in 1908, addresses the special problems of civic duty in a democracy to outstanding rhetorical effect. It is an outstanding example of classic liberal thought. A society's standard of civic duty, according to Bryce, depends on a reasonable balance between the principles of obedience and independence, the submission of the individual will to other wills and the assertion of that will against other wills. He defines three essential elements in public life that may potentially upset that balance and foster bad citizenship: indolence, selfish personal interest, and party spirit. Bumping to corners and head and tail of spine. Original ownership signature on front free endpaper. In very good condition, with tight textblock and clean pages.

Item #17101

Price: $275.00