The complicated history of how America elects presidents and why this matters to the next electionAn engaging mix of history and political science*, Distorting Democracy* will awaken Americans to the perils of our system by unveiling the Electoral College’s origins, history, and current problems. This book demonstrates that the system has no principled foundation, that it has changed dramatically over its 230–year history, and that it now threatens the legitimacy o...

Most statements today about higher education begin with the assumption that it should be relevant. That it should be relevant, however, does not settle the matter. The significance of relevance depends on the power of something else that is more fundamental. Relevance may be a true standard of judgment, but it does not stand by itself. Assuming higher education should be relevant, the question emerges, relevant to what? Why? How? At what costs? And, relevant in what sense? These are some o...

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton--two of the most influential Founding Fathers--were also fierce rivals with two opposing political philosophies and two radically different visions for America.While Jefferson is better remembered today, it is actually Hamilton’s political legacy that has triumphed--a legacy that has subverted the Constitution and transformed the federal government into the very leviathan state that our forefathers fought against in the Ameri...

The veteran journalist presents "an illuminating history and analysis" of the American electoral system—and a bold call for change ( Kirkus).The framers of the Constitution battled over it. Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule....

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian recounts the tale of the unwanted president who ran afoul of Congress over Reconstruction and was nearly removed from officeAndrew Johnson never expected to be president. But just six weeks after becoming Abraham Lincoln's vice president, the events at Ford's Theatre thrust him into the nation's highest office.Johnson faced a nearly impossible task—to succeed America's greatest chief executive, to bind the nation's wounds ...

Now with a new epilogue-- an unprecedented and unwavering history of the Supreme Court showing how its decisions have consistently favored the moneyed and powerful.Few American institutions have inflicted greater suffering on ordinary people than the Supreme Court of the United States. Since its inception, the justices of the Supreme Court have shaped a nation where children toiled in coal mines, where Americans could be forced into camps because of their race, and...

Praised by the late John Lewis, this is the seminal book about the long and ongoing struggle to win voting rights for all citizens by the president of The Brennan Center, the leading organization on voter rights and election security, now newly revised to describe today’s intense fights over voting.As Rep. Lewis said, and recent events in state legislatures across the country demonstrate, the struggle for the right to vote is not over. In this “important and powerf...

On March 18, 2008, after the Jeremiah Wright incident, Senator Barack Obama went on national television and delivered what many called one of the most inspiring and thought provoking speeches ever delivered on the issue of race. After the speech, several news organizations reported that it was time for America to engage in discussions on race. Over the years, we have had several discussions on the subject, most of which focused on the relationship between blacks and whites but seldom have ...

The full-scale assault on public education threatens not just public education but American democracy itselfPublic education as we know it is in trouble. Derek W. Black, a legal scholar and tenacious advocate, shows how major democratic and constitutional developments are intimately linked to the expansion of public education throughout American history. Schoolhouse Burning is grounded in pathbreaking, original research into how the nation, in its infancy,...

The Civil War may have ended on the battlefield, but the fight for equality never didIn 1865, the Confederacy was comprehensively defeated, its economy shattered, its leaders in exile or in jail. Yet in the years that followed, Lincoln’s vision of a genuinely united country never took root. Apart from a few brief months, when the presence of the Union army in the South proved liberating for newly freed Black Americans, the military victory was squandered. Old white...

An incisive account of the tumultuous relationship between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and of the origins of our wealthy yet highly unequal nationIn the history of American politics there are few stories as enigmatic as that of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison's bitterly personal falling out. Together they helped bring the Constitution into being, yet soon after the new republic was born they broke over the meaning of its founding document. Hamilton em...

The three most important documents in American history—expanded and explained.In the centuries since the creation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as well as its Bill of the Rights, the liberties set forth within these documents have faced many challenges, including war, unrest, political debate, and legal disputes. Such trials persist today, but the initial strength of our founding papers—shining as beacons of hope and f...