You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Lance Banning's powerful and persuasive reexamination of Madison's thought at the critical early and central stages of his career now changes that presumption, and provides a new base from which thinking about Madison and the Founding must start.
This revisionary study offers a convincing new interpretation of Jeffersonian Republican thought in the 1790s. Based on extensive research in the newspapers and political pamphlets of the decade as well as the public and private writings of party leaders, it traces the development of party ideology and examines the relationship of ideology to party growth and actions.
The author claims that liberal assumptions color everything American, from ideas about human nature to fears about big government. Not the dreaded "L" word of the 1988 presidential campaign; liberalism in its historical context emerged from the modern faith in free inquiry, natural rights, economic liberty, and democratic government. The author contrasts this view with classical republicanism--ornate, aristocratic, prescriptive, and concerned with the common good. The two concepts, as the author shows, posed choices in their day and in ours, specifically in addressing the complex relations between individual and community, personal liberty and the common good, aspiration and practical wisdom.
Beyond Confederation scrutinizes the ideological background of the U.S. Constitution, the rigors of its writing and ratification, and the problems it both faced and provoked immediately after ratification. The essays in this collection question much of the heritage of eighteenth-century constitutional thought and suggest that many of the commonly debated issues have led us away from the truly germane questions. The authors challenge many of the traditional generalizations and the terms and scope of that debate as well. The contributors raise fresh questions about the Constitution as it enters its third century. What happened in Philadelphia in 1787, and what happened in the state ratifying c...
As controversial and explosive as it is elegant and learned, The Long Affair is Conor Cruise O'Brien's examination of Thomas Jefferson, as man and icon, through the critical lens of the French Revolution. O'Brien offers a provocative analysis of the supreme symbol of American history and political culture and challenges the traditional perceptions of both Jeffersonian history and the Jeffersonian legacy. "The book is an attack on America's long affair with Jeffersonian ideology of radical individualism: an ideology that, by confusing Jefferson with a secular prophet, will destroy the United States from within."—David C. Ward, Boston Book Review "With his background as a politician and a di...
Maltz (law, Rutgers U.) discusses the often discongruous nature of the Burger Court, explaining its generally centrist proceedings, yet acknowledging that it, at times, produced decisions even more liberal than that of the Warren Court, its liberal predecessor. At the same time this book shows patterns that explain the doctrinal positions adopted by the majority in each case. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
Within three years of the inauguration of the Constitution, its greatest champions found themselves irreparably divided over what that Constitution meant and how to shape the Union it had been created to perfect. Within a decade, the division at the heights of national politics had spread into a full-scale party war, the first, the most ferocious, and perhaps the most instructive in all of American history. Never since have clashing ideologies been quite so central to a party struggle and never has such a giant set of democratic statesmen argued so profoundly over concepts that are at the root of the American political tradition. Conceived in Liberty probes the fundamentals of the great dispute among John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and their followers over the sort of country the United States should be. In clear and concise prose, Lance Banning clarifies the foundations of the first great party struggle--and thus of nineteenth-century America.
Lance Banning was one of the most distinguished historians of his generation. His first book, The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology, was a groundbreaking study of the ideas and principles that influenced political conflict in the early American Republic. His revisionist masterpiece, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic, received the Merle Curti Award in Intellectual History from the Organization of American Historians and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Banning was assembling this collection of his best and most representative writings on the Founding era when his untimely death stalled the project just short of its completion. Now, thanks to the efforts of editor Todd Estes, this illuminating resource is finally available. Founding Visions showcases the work of a historian who shaped the intellectual debates of his time. Featuring a foreword by Gordon S. Wood, the volume presents Banning's most seminal and insightful essays to a new generation of students, scholars, and general readers.
Republics Ancient and Modern, Volume I: The Ancien Regime in Classical Greece"
Lincoln's death, like his life, was an event of epic proportions. When the president was struck down at his moment of triumph, writes Merrill Peterson, "sorrow--indescribable sorrow" swept the nation. After lying in state in Washington, Lincoln's body was carried by a special funeral train to Springfield, Illinois, stopping in major cities along the way; perhaps a million people viewed the remains as memorial orations rang out and the world chorused its sincere condolences. It was the apotheosis of the martyred President--the beginning of the transformation of a man into a mythic hero. In Lincoln in American Memory, historian Merrill Peterson provides a fascinating history of Lincoln's place...