Plato's American Republic: Done out of the original: Play Guide and Free Edition
Plato's American Republic: Done out of the original: author and translator credits, catalogue synopsis, subjects and links to the Gutenberg reading formats.
Plato's American Republic: Done out of the original is catalogued by Project Gutenberg with author credits for Woodruff, Douglas (1897–1978).
Catalogue synopsis
Project Gutenberg supplies this automated synopsis of the opening text:
"Plato's American Republic" by Douglas Woodruff is a satirical philosophical dialogue written in the early 20th century. It stages Socrates and his companions debating the character of modern America, skewering its faith in Progress, mass opinion, industrialism, and reformist zeal. In playful Platonic fashion, the work takes aim at cars and commerce, Prohibition, politics, and higher education to question what a good life and a good polity require. The opening of the work places Socrates in “Athens, 1925,” where Agathon, Lysis, and Phaelon draw him into a comic-earnest inquiry sparked by an American who wants to buy the Parthenon. Agathon recounts Socrates’ disappointing U.S. lecture tour (outshone by Xantippe’s praise of American womanhood), which leads Socrates to dissect America’s worship of numbers and “Progress,” its fixation on automobiles, and the absurdities of parking and speed. The dialogue then widens to the Civil War’s legacy, the dominance of a vast federal machine, and the alliance of manufacturers and preachers (amplified by propaganda) in shaping “public opinion,” treated as a tyrant of souls. Socrates lampoons Prohibition as the product of that alliance (with women’s support), notes how it corrodes respect for law, and contrasts Ellis Island’s “undesirables” with the Statue of Liberty marooned offshore. Turning to education, he attacks swollen universities, fundraising presidents, timid faculties, and the cult of “facts” and experts, and proposes training a female guardian class to reorient the nation’s aims. The section closes with a plan to limit numbers and dethrone the card‑index mentality, all delivered in witty, Plato-like exchanges that mix satire with serious critique.
Book and edition facts
- Title: Plato's American Republic: Done out of the original
- Author credits: Woodruff, Douglas (1897–1978)
- Catalogue language: English
Catalogue subjects
- United States -- Civilization
Gutenberg collections
- Category: British Literature
- Category: Humour
- Category: Philosophy & Ethics
- Category: Plays/Films/Dramas
- Category: Politics
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View the complete Gutenberg catalogue record. Project Gutenberg identifies this edition as public domain in the United States; that designation does not establish its copyright status in every country.
Source notes
Catalogue metadata is public domain and is supplied through Gutendex, which imports Gutenberg's machine-readable catalogue. The automated synopsis is source-supplied, not an independently verified review. Author dates above describe the credited people; no ebook release date is presented as the book's original publication date.
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