American Mourning

How does the way in which a democratic polity mourn its losses shape its political outcomes? How might it shape those outcomes? American Mourning: Tragedy Democracy Resilience answers these questions with a critical study of American public mourning. Employing mourning as a lens through which to view the shortcomings of American democracy it offers an argument for a tragic complex and critical mode of mourning that it contrasts with the nationalist romantic and nostalgic responses to loss that currently dominate and damage the polity. Offering new readings of key texts in Ancient political thought and American political history it engages debates central to contemporary democratic theory concerned with agonism acknowledgment hope humanism patriotism and political resilience. The book outlines new ways of thinking about and responding to terrorism racial conflict and the problems of democratic military return.