America, Empire of Liberty

Author: David Reynolds
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465020054
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 584

Book Description
"The best one-volume history of the United States ever written" (Joseph J. Ellis) It was Thomas Jefferson who envisioned the United States as a great "empire of liberty." This paradoxical phrase may be the key to the American saga: How could the anti-empire of 1776 became the world's greatest superpower? And how did the country that offered unmatched liberty nevertheless found its prosperity on slavery and the dispossession of Native Americans? In this new single-volume history spanning the entire course of US history—from 1776 through the election of Barack Obama—prize-winning historian David Reynolds explains how tensions between empire and liberty have often been resolved by faith—both the evangelical Protestantism that has energized American politics for centuries and the larger faith in American righteousness that has driven the country's expansion. Written with verve and insight, Empire of Liberty brilliantly depicts America in all of its many contradictions.

Empire of Liberty

Author: Anthony Bogues
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 1584659408
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 175

Book Description
An original and stimulating critique of American empire

Empire of Liberty

Author: Gordon S. Wood
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199741093
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 802

Book Description
The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, two New York Times bestsellers, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. Now, in the newest volume in the series, one of America's most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812. As Wood reveals, the period was marked by tumultuous change in all aspects of American life--in politics, society, economy, and culture. The men who founded the new government had high hopes for the future, but few of their hopes and dreams worked out quite as they expected. They hated political parties but parties nonetheless emerged. Some wanted the United States to become a great fiscal-military state like those of Britain and France; others wanted the country to remain a rural agricultural state very different from the European states. Instead, by 1815 the United States became something neither group anticipated. Many leaders expected American culture to flourish and surpass that of Europe; instead it became popularized and vulgarized. The leaders also hope to see the end of slavery; instead, despite the release of many slaves and the end of slavery in the North, slavery was stronger in 1815 than it had been in 1789. Many wanted to avoid entanglements with Europe, but instead the country became involved in Europe's wars and ended up waging another war with the former mother country. Still, with a new generation emerging by 1815, most Americans were confident and optimistic about the future of their country. Named a New York Times Notable Book, Empire of Liberty offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era when America took its first unsteady steps as a new and rapidly expanding nation.

Foreign in a Domestic Sense

Author: Christina Duffy Burnett
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822326984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Book Description
DIVA number of leading legal scholars address different aspects of the American experience of territorial government in areas unincorporated for reasons of geography and the cultural and racial makeup of their peoples with special emphasis on the status of P/div

How Failed Attempts to Amend the Constitution Mobilize Political Change

Author: Roger C. Hartley
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 0826503969
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
Since the Constitution's ratification, members of Congress, following Article V, have proposed approximately twelve thousand amendments, and states have filed several hundred petitions with Congress for the convening of a constitutional convention. Only twenty-seven amendments have been approved in 225 years. Why do members of Congress continue to introduce amendments at a pace of almost two hundred a year? This book is a demonstration of how social reformers and politicians have used the amendment process to achieve favorable political results even as their proposed amendments have failed to be adopted. For example, the ERA "failed" in the sense that it was never ratified, but the mobilization to ratify the ERA helped build the feminist movement (and also sparked a countermobilization). Similarly, the Supreme Court's ban on compulsory school prayer led to a barrage of proposed amendments to reverse the Court. They failed to achieve the requisite two-thirds support from Congress, but nevertheless had an impact on the political landscape. The definition of the relationship between Congress and the President in the conduct of foreign policy can also be traced directly to failed efforts to amend the Constitution during the Cold War. Roger Hartley examines familiar examples like the ERA, balanced budget amendment proposals, and pro-life attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade, but also takes the reader on a three-century tour of lesser-known amendments. He explains how often the mere threat of calling a constitutional convention (at which anything could happen) effected political change.

Empire of Political Thought

Author: Bruce Buchan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317314654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
A book about how European colonists in Australia represented the Indigenous peoples they found there, and the tasks of governing them within the terms of Western political thought. It emphasises how the framework of ideas drawn from the traditions of Western political thought was employed in the imperial government of Indigenous peoples.

The Revolution of 1800

Author: James J. Horn
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813924137
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 460

Book Description
George W. Bush and Al Gore were by no means the first presidential hopefuls to find themselves embroiled in a hotly contested electoral impasse. Two hundred years earlier, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams endured arguably the most controversial and consequential election in American history. Focusing on the wide range of possible outcomes of the 1800-1801 melee, this collection of essays situates the American "Revolution of 1800" in a broad context of geo-political and racial developments in the Atlantic world as a whole. In essays written expressly for this volume, leading historians of the period examine the electoral, social, and political outcome of Jefferson's election in discussions strikingly relevant in the aftermath of the 2000 election. Contributors Joyce Appleby, University of California, Los AngelesMichael Bellesiles, Emory UniversityJeanne Boydston, University of WisconsinSeth Cotlar, Willamette UniversityGregory Evans Dowd, University of Notre DameLaurent Dubois, Michigan State UniversityDouglas R. Egerton, Le Moyne College, SyracuseJoanne Freeman, Yale UniversityJames E. Lewis Jr., independent scholar Robert M. S. McDonald, United States Military Academy, West PointJames Oakes, City University of New York Graduate CenterJeffrey Pasley, University of Missouri, ColumbiaJack N. Rakove, Stanford UniversityBethel Saler, Haverford CollegeJames Sidbury, University of TexasAlan Taylor, University of California, Davis

The Story of Religion in America

Author: James P. Byrd
Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing Corp
ISBN: 1646982223
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Book Description
Written primarily for undergraduate classes in American religious history and organized chronologically, this new textbook presents the broad scope of the story of religion in the American colonies and the United States. While following certain central narratives, including the long shadow of Puritanism, the competition between revival and reason, and the defining role of racial and ethnic diversity, the book tells the story of American religion in all its historical and moral complexity. To appeal to its broad range of readers, this textbook includes charts, timelines, and suggestions for primary source documents that will lead readers into a deeper engagement with the material. Unlike similar history books, The Story of Religion in America pays careful attention to balancing the story of Christianity with the central contributions of other religions.

American Empire in Global History

Author: Shigeru Akita
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000530884
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Book Description
This book shows how the predominantly national focus that characterises studies of the United States after 1783 can be integrated with global trends, as viewed from the perspective of imperial history. The book also argues that historians of European empires have much to gain by considering the United States after 1783 as a newly-decolonised country that acquired overseas territorial possessions in 1898 and remained a member of the Western ‘imperial club’ until the mid-twentieth century. The wide-ranging synthesis by A. G. Hopkins, American Empire: A Global History (2018), provides the starting point for contributions that appraise its main theme and take it in new directions. The first three chapters identify fresh approaches to U.S. history between the Revolution and the Civil War, suggesting ways in which the United States can be considered as a newly-decolonised country, examining shifting meanings of the term ‘empire,’ and reassessing the character of continental expansion. The second group deals with initiatives and responses in the Philippines and Cuba, reconsidering the character of nationalism in two of the most important overseas territories that were either ruled directly or controlled indirectly by the United States, and placing it an international context. The third group examines the exercise of U.S. power in the twentieth century, identifying aspects of international law that have been overlooked and reviewing the extensive literature on the controversial themes of the Cold War and informal empire after 1945. The ten chapters in this edited volume bring together noted specialists on the history of international relations, the United States, and the insular empire it ruled in the twentieth century. The chapters were originally published as articles in a special issue of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.

Purpose and Power

Author: Donald Stoker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009257277
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 873

Book Description
A new account of grand strategy critical to understanding how America has used its power in both peace and war.