The complete texts of the documents that tell the story of the clashes and compromises that gave birth to the Unites States of America.Should the members of the government be elected by direct vote of the people?Should the government be headed by a single executive, and how powerful should that executive be? Should immigrants be allowed into the United States?How should judges be appointed?What human rights should be safe from government in...

George Washington’s vision was a presidency free of party, a republican, national office that would transcend faction. That vision would remain strong in the administrations of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams, yet largely disappear under Andrew Jackson and his successors.This book is a comprehensive and pathbreaking study of the early presidency and the ideals behind it. Ralph Ketcham examines the roots of nonpartisan leadership in W...

Although the last half of the twentieth century has been called the Age of Democracy, the twenty-first has already demonstrated the fragility of its apparent triumph as the dominant form of government throughout the world.Reassessing the fate of democracy for our time, distinguished political theorist Ralph Ketcham traces the evolution of this idea over the course of four hundred years. He traces democracy’s bumpy ride in a book that is both an exercise in the history of ideas and ...

Restored to its original splendor, Montpelier is now a national shrine, but before Montpelier became a place of study and tribute, it was a home. Often kept from it by the business of the young nation, James and Dolley Madison could finally take up permanent residence when they retired from Washington in 1817. Their lifelong friend Thomas Jefferson predicted that, at Montpelier, the retiring Madison could return to his "books and farm, to tranquility, and independence," that he would be re...

Any searching look at the theory and practice of citizenship in the United States today is bewildering and disconcerting. Despite earnest concern for participation, access, and "leverage," there is a widespread perception that nothing citizens do has much meaning or influence. This book argues that for American democracy to work in the twenty-first century, renewed interest in teaching the nation's young citizens a sense of the public good is imperative.All of the nation's founders, especi...

The best one volume biography of Madison's life, Ketcham's biography not only traces Madison's career, it gives readers a sense of the man. As Madison said of his early years in Virginia under the study of Donald Robertson, who introduced him to thinkers like Montaigne and Montesquieu, "all that I have been in life I owe largely to that man." It also captures a side of Madison that is less rarely on display (including a portrait of the beautiful Dolley Madison)."Madison's personali...

Roots of the Republic shows how the Constitution was a product, not simply of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but of a legal and philosophical tradition almost two centuries old. The editors have selected eighteen key documents in the development of that tradition and reproduced them with essays that explain what they mean, why they were written, and why they are important today. Each key document is accompanied by an interpretive essay written by a contemporary scholar. These essay...

Birth of a White Nation is a fascinating new book on race in America that begins with an exploration of the moment in time when "white people,” as a separate and distinct group of humanity, were invented through legislation and the enactment of laws. The book provides a thorough examination of the underlying reasons as well as the ways in which “white people” were created. It also explains how the creation of this distinction divided laborers and ultimately served the interests of the elit...

The authoritative text on the libertarian political positionIn recent years, libertarian impulses have increasingly influenced national and economic debates, from welfare reform to efforts to curtail affirmative action. Murray N. Rothbard's classic The Ethics of Liberty stands as one of the most rigorous and philosophically sophisticated expositions of the libertarian political position.Rothbard’s unique argument roots the case for freedom in the c...

The unlikely story of how Americans canonized Adam Smith as the patron saint of free marketsOriginally published in 1776, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was lauded by America’s founders as a landmark work of Enlightenment thinking about national wealth, statecraft, and moral virtue. Today, Smith is one of the most influential icons of economic thought in America. Glory Liu traces how generations of Americans have read, reinterpreted, a...

An enlightened exploration of history to unite a deeply divided AmericaThe political dialogue in America has collapsed. Raw and bitter emotions such as anger and resentment have crowded out any logical debate. In this investigative tracing of our nation’s divergent roots, author Seth David Radwell explains that only reasoned analysis and historical perspective can act as salves for the irrational political discourse that is raging at present.Two disparate A...

American democracy owes its origins to the colonial settlement of North America by Europeans. Since the birth of the republic, observers such as Alexis de Tocqueville and J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur have emphasized how American democratic identity arose out of the distinct pattern by which English settlers colonized the New World. Empire of the People explores a new way of understanding this process—and in doing so, offers a fundamental reinterpretation of modern democratic th...