The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson

The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson

Author: Thomas Jefferson

Publisher: Modern Library

Published: 1998-11-10

Total Pages: 738

ISBN-13: 0375752188

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“Jefferson aspired beyond the ambition of a nationality, and embraced in his view the whole future of man.”—Henry Adams Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) left a vast literary legacy in the form of journal entries, notes, addresses, and seventy thousand letters. This extraordinary volume represents many of his most important contributions to American political thought. It features his Autobiography, which contains the original and revised versions of the Declaration of Independence; the Anas, or Notes (1791–1809); Biographical Sketches; selections from Notes on the State of Virginia, the Travel Journals, and Essay on Anglo-Saxon; a portion of his public papers, including his first and second inaugural addresses; and more than two hundred letters. Taken together, these writings offer indispensable insight into the mind of the man who was instrumental in formulating and guiding this nation’s principles. From the Preface: This selection from the writings of Thomas Jefferson is planned to be a comprehensive presentation of his thought. The greatest amount of space has been allotted to his letters, in the belief that they are of primary importance in revealing the man and his intellect. Jefferson’s two original full-length works, the Notes on Virginia and the Autobiography, are given virtually complete. Along with his best-known public papers, selections from his minor writings are also included. Together, all these serve to depict the man who more aptly than any of his countrymen might be called the American Leonardo.


Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State

Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State

Author: Daniel Dreisbach

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2003-10

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0814719368

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No phrase in American letters has had a more profound influence on church-state law, policy, and discourse than Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation between church and state," and few metaphors have provoked more passionate debate.


Globalization and Educational Rights

Globalization and Educational Rights

Author: Joel Spring

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-08

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1135646880

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This is the first book to explore the meaning of equality and freedom of education in a global context and their relationship to the universal right to education. It also proposes evaluating school systems according to their achievement of equality and freedom. Education in the 21st century is widely viewed as a necessary condition for the promotion of human welfare, and thus identified as a basic human right. Educational rights are included in many national constitutions written since the global spread of human rights ideas after World War II. But as a global idea, the meaning of educational rights varies between civilizations. In this book, which builds on the concept of the universal right to education set forth in Spring's The Universal Right to Education: Justification, Definition, and Guidelines, his intercivilizational analysis of educational rights focuses on four of the world's major civilizations: Confucian, Islamic, Western, and Hindu. Spring begins by considering educational rights as part of the global flow of ideas and the global culture of schooling. He also considers the tension this generates within different civilizational traditions. Next, he proceeds to: *examine the meaning of educational rights in the Confucian tradition, in the recent history of China, and in the Chinese Constitution; *look at educational rights in the context of Islamic civilization and as presented in the constitutions of Islamic countries, including an analysis of the sharp contrast between the religious orientation of Islamic educational rights and those of China and the West; *explore the problems created by the Western natural rights tradition and the eventual acceptance of educational rights as represented in European constitutions, with a focus on the development and prominence given in the West to the relationship between schooling and equality of opportunity; and, *investigate the effect of global culture on India and the blend of Western and Hindu ideas in the Indian constitution, highlighting the obstacles to fulfillment of educational rights created by centuries of discrimination against women and lower castes. In his conclusion, Spring presents an educational rights statement based on his intercivilizational analysis and his examination of national constitutions. This statement is intended to serve as a model for the inclusion of educational rights in national constitutions.


The Aristocracy of Talent

The Aristocracy of Talent

Author: Adrian Wooldridge

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-07-13

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 1510768629

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The Times (UK) book of the year! Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their birth. While this initially seemed like a novel concept, by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? In The Aristocracy of Talent, esteemed journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities, and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocratic system. Wooldridge also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted and argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of failure to complete the meritocratic revolution. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal.


This Hemisphere of Liberty

This Hemisphere of Liberty

Author: Michael Novak

Publisher: American Enterprise Institute

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 9780844737362

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As nations undergo radical transformation in every quarter of the world, we have a greater need than ever before to re-examine the sources of strength and weakness in our political, social and economic institutions. This book explores fundamental questions of wealth and poverty, of freedom and responsibility, and traces our ideas about them to their sources in Aristotle, Aquinas, and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Novak shows how an understanding of these sources can liberate human potential for creativity, reinvigorate our institutions and lay the foundations for economic progress. Special attention is given to the roots of Latin America's problems of debt, capital flight, and poverty in its religious and philosophical outlook.


The Seekers

The Seekers

Author: Daniel J. Boorstin

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 1998-12-03

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 0679462708

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Throughout history, from the time of Socrates to our own modern age, the human race has sought the answers to fundamental questions of life: Who are we? Why are we here? In his previous national bestsellers, The Discoverers and The Creators , Daniel J. Boorstin first told brilliantly how e discovered the reality of our world, and then he celebrated man's achievements in the arts. He now turns to the great figures in history who sought meaning and purpose in our existence. Boorstin says our Western culture has seen three grand epics of Seeking. First there was the heroic way of prophets and philosophers--men like Moses or Job or Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as those in the communities of the early church universities and the Protestant Reformation--seeking salvation or truth from the god above or the reason within each of us. Then came an age of communal seeking, with people like Thucydides and Thomas More and Machiavelli and Voltaire pursuing civilization and the liberal spirit. Finally, there was an age of the social sciences, when man seemed ruled by the forces of history. Here are the absorbing stories of exceptional men such as Marx, Spengler, and Toynbee, Carlyle and Emerson, and Malraux, Bergson, and Einstein. These great thinkers still have the power to speak to us, not always so much for their answers as for their way of asking the questions that never cease either to intrigue or to obsess us. In this impressive climax to a monumental trilogy, Daniel J. Boorstin once again shows that his ability to present challenging ideas, coupled with sharp portraits of great writers and thinkers, remains unparalleled.


A Great Disorder

A Great Disorder

Author: Richard Slotkin

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2024-03-05

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 0674297024

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Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award in Nonfiction “Sweeping...A new way to make sense not only of the past, but of the contemporary culture wars.” —New York Times Book Review “A provocative culmination of Slotkin’s field-defining arguments on the place of violence in creating America.” —Kathleen Belew “Brisk, bold, and thought-provoking.” —Daniel Lazare, Arts Fuse “[An] exciting and detailed new decoder ring of a book...While it is usually hyperbolic to claim that a book will change your life, this one may well have a permanent effect on how you consume and think about American political news.” —Tom Zoellner, Los Angeles Review of Books Red America and Blue America are so divided they could be two different countries, with wildly diverging views of why government exists and who counts as American. Their ideologies are grounded in different versions of American history, endorsing irreconcilable visions of patriotism and national identity. A Great Disorder is a bold, urgent work that helps us make sense of today’s culture wars through a brilliant reconsideration of America’s foundational myths and their use in contemporary politics. Richard Slotkin identifies five key narratives that have shaped our conception of what it means to be American: the myths of the Frontier, the Founding, the Civil War (with dueling views of it as Liberation or the Lost Cause), and the Good War. Today, Slotkin argues, Trump and his MAGA followers play up a frontier-inspired hostility to the federal government, and rally around Confederate symbols to champion a racially exclusive definition of American nationality; meanwhile, Blue America takes its cue from the protest movements of the 1960s, envisioning a limitlessly pluralistic country in which the federal government is the ultimate enforcer of rights and opportunities. With these opposing perspectives, American history—and the foundations of our democracy—has become a battleground. It remains to be seen which vision will prevail.


Assimilation

Assimilation

Author: Catherine S. Ramírez

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2020-12-08

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0520971965

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For over a hundred years, the story of assimilation has animated the nation-building project of the United States. And still today, the dream or demand of a cultural "melting pot" circulates through academia, policy institutions, and mainstream media outlets. Noting society’s many exclusions and erasures, scholars in the second half of the twentieth century persuasively argued that only some social groups assimilate. Others, they pointed out, are subject to racialization. In this bold, discipline-traversing cultural history, Catherine Ramírez develops an entirely different account of assimilation. Weaving together the legacies of US settler colonialism, slavery, and border control, Ramírez challenges the assumption that racialization and assimilation are separate and incompatible processes. In fascinating chapters with subjects that range from nineteenth century boarding schools to the contemporary artwork of undocumented immigrants, this book decouples immigration and assimilation and probes the gap between assimilation and citizenship. It shows that assimilation is not just a process of absorption and becoming more alike. Rather, assimilation is a process of racialization and subordination and of power and inequality.


Alfarabi's Book of Dialectic (Kit?b al-Jadal)

Alfarabi's Book of Dialectic (Kit?b al-Jadal)

Author: Fārābī

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-10-10

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1108417531

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Provides the first complete English translation of a central text in the Islamic philosophical tradition, with meticulously researched commentary and interpretation.


Putting Ideas to Work

Putting Ideas to Work

Author: Mark Mattern

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2006-07-08

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 1461641594

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In this innovative new text, Mark Mattern offers a unique alternative to the traditional approaches to the study and teaching of political philosophy. Rather than approaching it solely as a world of abstractions, Putting Ideas to Work emphasizes its practical task. Political ideas drawn from historical and analytical political philosophy are used to help rethink current public problems and imagine potential solutions to them. Putting Ideas to Work is organized around five central tensions in political theory and practice: individual and community, freedom and equality, justice and political order, democracy and capitalism, and power and citizenship. Each section begins with a description and analysis of several contemporary public problems arising from these tensions. Key political thinkers are then drawn upon to help understand the genesis of the public problems, and to offer alternative ways of thinking about them. The text is anchored throughout to an idea of strong democracy that functions as a standard against which theory and practice are measured.