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Elizabeth Amato is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Gardner-Webb University. She is the author of The Pursuit of Happiness and the American Regime: Political Theory in Literature (Lexington Books, 2018).

January 31, 2020|The Pursuit of Happiness, Walker Percy

The American Pursuit of Happiness

by Elizabeth Amato|

Louisiana novelist Walker Percy (1916-1990) sits in his Covington, Louisiana, backyard with his dog Sweet Thing. Image: Bettmann/Corbis.

Percy’s novels may have unresolved endings, but all of Percy’s stories end with good news.

December 24, 2018|Alexis de Tocqueville, Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, Self-Interest

A Tocquevillean Christmas Fable

by Elizabeth Amato|

Still image of Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Image: 20th Century Fox.

Americans are, as Tocqueville says, better than they say, but the doctrine lets Americans appear more self-sufficient than they really are.

September 18, 2018|Anti-Federalist, Federalist, Federalist 49, Herbert Storing, Impartial Examiner, Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving

Rip Van Winkle and the Spirit of ’76

by Elizabeth Amato|

John Quidor, "The Return of Rip Van Winkle," oil painting, 1849, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art, 1942.8.10 (Image: Everett Art/Shutterstock.com).

Storytelling offers an underappreciated ground for defending liberty, and Washington Irving's classic story still offers rich lessons.

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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