Democratic Vistas

Democratic Vistas, prose pamphlet by Walt Whitman, published in 1871. The work comprises three essays that outline the author’s ideas about the role of democracy in establishing a new cultural foundation for America. Writing a few years after the American Civil War, Whitman suggested that some notion of heroism and honour had been lost by Americans. He particularly criticized the materialism and the preoccupation with business he observed in society. The antidote, he felt, was...