Why do so many different people with widely dissimilar ideas and customs get along as Americans? In American Beliefs, John McElroy identifies and explains those essential ideas of American culture that promote the unity of a vast nation and a diverse people -- because they have been shared and acted upon by generations of Americans. Tracing these ideas historically from the earliest experiences of the American colonists on the Atlantic coastal plain of North America, he shows how work shaped the primary beliefs of Americans. He goes on to discuss beliefs that grew from the experiences of immigrants, from life on the frontier, and from the ideas that Americans developed about religion and morality, politics, human nature, and the working of society. American Beliefs is a powerful antidote to the many examinations of American culture that concentrate on the differences among Americans. Here, instead, is why they are so much alike.

1. What Do We Mean by "Culture"?
2. How American Culture Was Formed
3. Primary Beliefs of American Culture
4. Immigrant Beliefs
5. Frontier Beliefs
6. Religious and Moral Beliefs
7. Social Beliefs
8. Political Beliefs
9. Beliefs on Human Nature
10. American Culture Today, and Tomorrow
App List of American Cultural Beliefs
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index