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 emphasises a common moral tenor, an instrumental conception of knowledge, and a broad, ethical conception of art.