Daniel J. Elazar and the Covenant Tradition in Politics

This article assesses the ambitious four-volume study by Daniel J. Elazar on The Covenant Tradition in Politics, which was the central occupation of the final decade of his life. The content of the work is an examination from Hebrew antiquity to the American present of the interpenetrating of theological beliefs and political structures. The context of the work is an effort to seek linkages of the American Revolution with both Protestant reformation and scriptural revelation. In this way, Elazar converted the two great national passions of his life and career-the founding of the United States along federalist lines and the re-founding of Israel as a modern Jewish state-into a unified vision of politics. Even if one grants the imperfection and incompleteness of Elazar's synthesis, the monumental character of the enterprise offers us one of the towering achievements of the twentieth century-one that demands the attention and respect of those working in both normative political theory and empirical religious history. Copyright , Oxford University Press.