Common Sense
Author: Thomas Paine
Publisher:
Published: 1918
Total Pages: 88
ISBN-13:
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The American Revolution
Author: Robert J. Allison
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2015
Total Pages: 161
ISBN-13: 0190225068
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBetween 1760 and 1800, the people of the United States created a new nation, based on the idea that all people have the right to govern themselves. This Very Short Introduction recreates the experiences that led to the Revolution; the experience of war; and the post-war creation of a new political society.
The War That Forged a Nation
Author: James M. McPherson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2015-02-12
Total Pages: 232
ISBN-13: 0199375798
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMore than 140 years ago, Mark Twain observed that the Civil War had "uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." In fact, five generations have passed, and Americans are still trying to measure the influence of the immense fratricidal conflict that nearly tore the nation apart. In The War that Forged a Nation, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson considers why the Civil War remains so deeply embedded in our national psyche and identity. The drama and tragedy of the war, from its scope and size--an estimated death toll of 750,000, far more than the rest of the country's wars combined--to the nearly mythical individuals involved--Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson--help explain why the Civil War remains a topic of interest. But the legacy of the war extends far beyond historical interest or scholarly attention. Here, McPherson draws upon his work over the past fifty years to illuminate the war's continuing resonance across many dimensions of American life. Touching upon themes that include the war's causes and consequences; the naval war; slavery and its abolition; and Lincoln as commander in chief, McPherson ultimately proves the impossibility of understanding the issues of our own time unless we first understand their roots in the era of the Civil War. From racial inequality and conflict between the North and South to questions of state sovereignty or the role of government in social change--these issues, McPherson shows, are as salient and controversial today as they were in the 1860s. Thoughtful, provocative, and authoritative, The War that Forged a Nation looks anew at the reasons America's civil war has remained a subject of intense interest for the past century and a half, and affirms the enduring relevance of the conflict for America today.
The Constitution Today
Author: Akhil Reed Amar
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2016-09-13
Total Pages: 466
ISBN-13: 0465096344
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA leading legal scholar addresses the most important constitutional controversies of the past two decades and illuminates the Constitution's spirit and ongoing relevance America's Constitution, Chief Justice John Marshall famously observed in McCulloch v. Maryland, aspires "to endure for ages to come." The daily news has a shorter shelf life, and when the issues of the day involve momentous constitutional questions, present-minded journalists and busy citizens cannot always see the stakes clearly. In The Constitution Today, Akhil Reed Amar, America's preeminent constitutional scholar, considers the biggest and most bitterly contested debates of the last two decades and provides a passionate handbook for thinking constitutionally about today's headlines. Amar shows how the Constitution's text, history, and structure are a crucial repository of collective wisdom, providing specific rules and grand themes relevant to every organ of the American body politic. Prioritizing sound constitutional reasoning over partisan preferences, he makes the case for diversity-based affirmative action and a right to have a gun in one's home for self-protection, and against spending caps on independent political advertising and bans on same-sex marriage. He explains what's wrong with presidential dynasties, advocates a "nuclear option" to restore majority rule in the Senate, and suggests ways to reform the Supreme Court. And he revisits three dramatic constitutional conflicts -- the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the contested election of George W. Bush, and the fight over Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act -- to show what politicians, judges, and journalists got right as events unfolded and what they missed. Leading readers through the particular constitutional questions at stake in each episode while outlining his abiding views regarding the Constitution's letter, its spirit, and the direction constitutional law must go, Amar offers an essential guide for anyone seeking to understand America's Constitution and its relevance today.
A Revolution in Eating
Author: James E. McWilliams
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 414
ISBN-13: 9780231129923
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHistory of food in the United States.
The Will of the People
Author: T. H. Breen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2019-09-17
Total Pages: 273
ISBN-13: 0674242068
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Important and lucidly written...The American Revolution involved not simply the wisdom of a few great men but the passions, fears, and religiosity of ordinary people.” —Gordon S. Wood In this boldly innovative work, T. H. Breen spotlights a crucial missing piece in the stories we tell about the American Revolution. From New Hampshire to Georgia, it was ordinary people who became the face of resistance. Without them the Revolution would have failed. They sustained the commitment to independence when victory seemed in doubt and chose law over vengeance when their communities teetered on the brink of anarchy. The Will of the People offers a vivid account of how, across the thirteen colonies, men and women negotiated the revolutionary experience, accepting huge personal sacrifice, setting up daring experiments in self-government, and going to extraordinary lengths to preserve the rule of law. After the war they avoided the violence and extremism that have compromised so many other revolutions since. A masterful storyteller, Breen recovers the forgotten history of our nation’s true founders. “The American Revolution was made not just on the battlefields or in the minds of intellectuals, Breen argues in this elegant and persuasive work. Communities of ordinary men and women—farmers, workers, and artisans who kept the revolutionary faith until victory was achieved—were essential to the effort.” —Annette Gordon-Reed “Breen traces the many ways in which exercising authority made local committees pragmatic...acting as a brake on the kind of violent excess into which revolutions so easily devolve.” —Wall Street Journal
The American Revolution
Author: Gordon S. Wood
Publisher: Modern Library
Published: 2002-03-05
Total Pages: 204
ISBN-13: 1588361586
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “An elegant synthesis done by the leading scholar in the field, which nicely integrates the work on the American Revolution over the last three decades but never loses contact with the older, classic questions that we have been arguing about for over two hundred years.”—Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers A magnificent account of the revolution in arms and consciousness that gave birth to the American republic. When Abraham Lincoln sought to define the significance of the United States, he naturally looked back to the American Revolution. He knew that the Revolution not only had legally created the United States, but also had produced all of the great hopes and values of the American people. Our noblest ideals and aspirations-our commitments to freedom, constitutionalism, the well-being of ordinary people, and equality-came out of the Revolutionary era. Lincoln saw as well that the Revolution had convinced Americans that they were a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty. The Revolution, in short, gave birth to whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose Americans have had. No doubt the story is a dramatic one: Thirteen insignificant colonies three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization fought off British rule to become, in fewer than three decades, a huge, sprawling, rambunctious republic of nearly four million citizens. But the history of the American Revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed simply as a story of right and wrong from which moral lessons are to be drawn. It is a complicated and at times ironic story that needs to be explained and understood, not blindly celebrated or condemned. How did this great revolution come about? What was its character? What were its consequences? These are the questions this short history seeks to answer. That it succeeds in such a profound and enthralling way is a tribute to Gordon Wood’s mastery of his subject, and of the historian’s craft.
The American Revolution and the Politics of Liberty
Author: Robert H. Webking
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 1989-01-01
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9780807114384
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn recent years historians of the American Revolution have become increasingly convinced that political ideas, rather than material interests, were what ultimately led American colonists to fight for independence from Great Britain. During the years preceding the Revolution, Americans explained their resistance to British rule in principled terms. They understood liberty to be something real, valuable, and seriously threatened by British actions that were not merely impolitic but fundamentally unjust. American statesmen contended that certain basic principles had to rule governments, and they developed careful, complex arguments to persuade others, in the colonies and in Britain, that the British government was violating these principles to an extent that prudent, well-informed citizens could not allow. The American Revolution and the Politics of Liberty is a systematic account of the political thought of the leaders of the American Revolution. In his first six chapters, Robert H. Webking analyzes in turn the ideas of James Otis, Patrick Henry, John Dickinson, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Webking examines the political contributions of each of these men and explicates the assumptions and implications of their arguments against the British. He explains their ideas about the goals of American politics, the methods that ought to be used to reach those goals, and the circumstances that would make revolution just and prudent. In the ensuing chapters Webking presents an overview of the political thought behind the American Revolution based on his analysis of these six political leaders. He addresses the average colonial American's level of political sophistication, the American conception of liberty and its importance, and the American perception of the British threat to that liberty.The thinkers that Webking studies are recognized now, as they were in their time, as the major figures in American Revolutionary thought. The principles that they discussed, refined, and implemented continue to serve as the foundation for American government. The American Revolution and the Politics of Liberty offers a complete and sophisticated understanding of the contribution these leaders made to American politics.
American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804
Author: Alan Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2016-09-06
Total Pages: 387
ISBN-13: 0393253872
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Excellent . . . deserves high praise. Mr. Taylor conveys this sprawling continental history with economy, clarity, and vividness.”—Brendan Simms, Wall Street Journal The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the nation its democratic framework. Alan Taylor, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history. The American Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain’s colonies, fueled by local conditions and resistant to control. Emerging from the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, the revolution pivoted on western expansion as well as seaboard resistance to British taxes. When war erupted, Patriot crowds harassed Loyalists and nonpartisans into compliance with their cause. The war exploded in set battles like Saratoga and Yorktown and spread through continuing frontier violence. The discord smoldering within the fragile new nation called forth a movement to concentrate power through a Federal Constitution. Assuming the mantle of “We the People,” the advocates of national power ratified the new frame of government. But it was Jefferson’s expansive “empire of liberty” that carried the revolution forward, propelling white settlement and slavery west, preparing the ground for a new conflagration.
Desperate Sons
Author: Les Standiford
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2012-11-06
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 0062218123
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Popular history in its most vital and accessible form. Standiford has recovered the mentality of America’s first group of young radicals, the Sons of Liberty, and tells their story with flair and grace.” —Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Founding Brothers Les Standiford’s Last Train to Paradise, the fascinating true account of the building of a railroad “across the ocean” from Miami to Key West, is already a classic of popular history. With Desperate Sons, the New York Times bestselling author of Bringing Adam Home tells the remarkable story of America’s first patriots, the Sons of Liberty, whose revolutionary acts have become legend. With all the suspense and power of a historical action thriller, Standiford’s Desperate Sons recounts the courage and tenacity of a hardy group that included Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock—radical activists who were responsible for some of the most notorious events leading up to the American Revolution, from the Boston Tea Party to Paul Revere’s fabled midnight ride. Fans of David McCullough’s John Adams and 1776 will be riveted by this true history of young men inflamed by the fires of common purpose who helped a new nation to rise up against its British oppressor.
