triumph of liberal democracy in the face of the discrediting of communist ideology in Europe, and others of whom, citing the dangers to the same idealism, declare that higher education in the U.S. has done nothing so much as fail democracy and impoverish the souls of today's college students. Meanwhile, there is the example of To Renew America, a treatment of the state of American culture published under the byline of Rep. Newt Gingrich. The thread running throughout the work nothing short of a declared concern to "reassert and renew American civilization". In context, American civilization turns out to mean a set of commonly held cultural assumptions, principles, and values that give meaning to life in the United States and more, that made the country great. Gingrich's understanding of the content of those principles and values is what he describes as romantic idealism, a value that, from 1965 onward, says he, has been in precipitous decline because of deliberate or irresponsible (or both) marginalization or rejec
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