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Revised and updated, this long-awaited second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to what the most thoughtful Americans have said about the American experience from the colonial period to the present. The book examines the political thought of the most important American statesmen, activists, and writers across era and ideologies, helping another generation of students, scholars, and citizens to understand more fully the meaning of America. This new second edition of the book includes chapters on several additional historical figures, including Walt Whitman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, as well as a new chapter on Barack Obama, who was not prominent in public life when the first edition was published. Significant revisions and additions have also been made to many of the original chapters, most notably on Antonin Scalia, which now updates his full legacy, increasing the breadth and depth of the collection.
In recent years the Supreme Court has been at the center of such political issues as abortion rights, the administration of police procedures, and the determination of the 2000 presidential election. The checks and balances provided by the three branches of federal government are essential to nurturing and maintaining American democracy. With the guidance of coeditors Kermit L. Hall and Kevin T. McGuire, this volume of essays examines the role of the Judicial Branch in American democracy and the dynamic between the other branches of government, compares international models, and discusses possible measures for reform. The Judicial Branch considers the impact of courts on American life and ad...
Recovers a contested, evolving tradition of conservative constitutional argument that shaped the past and is bidding to make the future.
Party and Nation examines immigration as a means to understand party competition in American history. The rise of Donald Trump reflects an ongoing regime change in the U.S., in which multiculturalism and nationalism have emerged as central aspects of the major parties’ ideological and coalitional bases. This phenomenon of a multiculturalist Democratic Party and a nationalist Republican Party, the authors suggest, is a dramatic departure from the first American political regime. That older regime was grounded in the Founding generation’s commitment to the principle of natural rights and the shaping of a national culture to support that principle. Partisan debates over immigration set into...
Unlike many other books about the American founding, this new work by two of the most prominent scholars of American political history emphasizes the coherence and intelligibility of the social compact theory. Social compact theory, the idea that government must be based on an agreement between those who govern and those who consent to be governed, was one of the Founders' few unifying philosophical positions, and it transcended the partisan politics of that era. Contributors to this volume present a comprehensive overview of the social compact theory, discussing its European philosophical origins, the development of the theory into the basis of the fledgling government, and the attitudes of some of the founders toward the theory and its traditional proponents. The authors argue forcefully and convincingly that the political ideas of the American Founders cannot be properly understood without understanding social compact theory and the exalted place it held in the construction of the American system of government.
Government by Consent By: John Darash This book is the product of 12 years of research and the developing and organizing of National Liberty Alliance with a mission to properly educate the People as to their heritage and how to have government by consent by resurrecting “Committees of Safety” in every county in America. And then, and only then, will We the People be able to reinstate our Natural Law Republic and experience true Liberty. Thomas Jefferson, the man who discovered America’s freedom formula wrote the foundation of our “Natural Law Republic” via the Declaration of Independence building America upon Eight Ancient Biblical Principles that build “Sound Government”they a...
The gap between the U.S. military and society has widened in recent years, posing problems for the constitutional order. The gap is especially acute in major universities. Arms and the University probes various dimensions of the tense relationship between the military and the university. Developing and applying a theory of civic and liberal education, this book shows how some military presence on campus can contribute to the diversity of ideas and the education of all students.
The United States Constitution's provisions for selecting, replacing, and punishing presidents contain serious weaknesses that could lead to constitutional controversies. In this compelling and fascinating book, Brian Kalt envisions six such controversies, such as the criminal prosecution of a sitting president, a two-term president's attempt to stay in power, the ousting of an allegedly disabled president, and more. None of these things has ever occurred, but in recent years many of them almost have. Besides being individually dramatic, these controversies provide an opportunity to think about how constitutional procedures can best be designed, interpreted, and repaired. Also, because the events Kalt describes would all carry enormous political consequences, they shed light on the delicate and complicated balance between law and politics in American government.
Constructivism dominates over other theories of knowledge in much of western academia, especially the humanities and social sciences. In Exposing the Roots of Constructivism: Nominalism and the Ontology of Knowledge, R. Scott Smith argues that constructivism is linked to the embrace of nominalism, the theory that everything is particular and located in space and time. Indeed, nominalism is sufficient for a view to be constructivist. However, the natural sciences still enjoy great prestige from the “fact-value split.” They are often perceived as giving us knowledge of the facts of reality, and not merely our constructs. In contrast, ethics and religion, which also have been greatly influe...
Since the end of the Cold War, the human face of economics has gained renewed visibility and generated new conversations among economists and other social theorists. The monistic, mechanical "economic systems" that characterized the capitalism vs. socialism debates of the mid-twentieth century have given way to pluralistic ecologies of economic provisioning in which complexly constituted agents cooperate via heterogeneous forms of production and exchange. Through the lenses of multiple disciplines, this book examines how this pluralistic turn in economic thinking bears upon the venerable social–theoretical division of cooperative activity into separate spheres of impersonal Gesellschaft (c...