Eight brilliant and original American thinkers – Edwards, Franklin, John Adams, Emerson, Peirce, William James, Dewey, and Santayana – are the subject of this widely admired book by one of America's foremost writers of intellectual history. In this study, the author finds a degree of continuity and some elements of underlying unity in the varied and idiosyncratic thoughts of these men. Instead of superficial similarities, he emphasizes a common moral tenor, an instrumental conception of knowledge, and a broad, ethical conception of art.