Average Americans Were the True Framers of the Constitution Woody Holton upends what we think we know of the Constitution's origins by telling the history of the average Americans who challenged the framers of the Constitution and forced on them the revisions that produced the document we now venerate. The framers who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 were determined to reverse America's post–Revolutionary War slide into democracy. They believed too many middling Americans exercised too much influence over state and national policies. That the framers were only partially successful in curtailing citizen rights is due to the reaction, sometimes violent, of unruly average Americans. If not to protect civil liberties and the freedom of the people, what motivated the framers? In Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, Holton provides the startling discovery that the primary purpose of the Constitution was, simply put, to make America more attractive to investment. And the linchpin to that endeavor was taking power away from the states and ultimately away from the people. In an eye-opening interpretation of the Constitution, Holton captures how the same class of Americans that produced Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts (and rebellions in damn near every other state) produced the Constitution we now revere. Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution is a 2007 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The American Revolution was supported by many private creditors, who were among the Constitution’s most ardent supporters. However, Beard’s interpretation does not explain the enthusiasm that the proposed national government inspired in men such as Madison and Alexander Hamilton. #2 The American economy was in dire need of capital in 1787, and the framers believed that a national government was the only way to attract it. They believed that a virtuous government would attract capital, and that cracking down on debtors and taxpayers would end the terrible recession that had followed the Revolutionary War. #3 In 1786, Madison and Monroe bought land on the Mohawk River, nine miles from the site of the Stanwix treaty. They knew their plan contained a fatal flaw, as Americans were becoming more and more reluctant to lend money to their fellow citizens. #4 Americans, just like James Madison, were frustrated with the economic situation in their country. They were unable to borrow money, and this led to many ambitious men trying to find ways to get loans so they could buy land and expand their trade networks.

A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters. Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a “spirited account” (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. “It is all one story,” prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes. Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans—enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters—and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. Thousands of enslaved Americans exploited the chaos of war to obtain their own freedom, while others were given away as enlistment bounties to whites. Women provided material support for the troops, sewing clothes for soldiers and in some cases taking part in the fighting. Both sides courted native people and mimicked their tactics. Liberty Is Sweet is a “must-read book for understanding the founding of our nation” (Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin), from its origins on the frontiers and in the Atlantic ports to the creation of the Constitution. Offering surprises at every turn—for example, Holton makes a convincing case that Britain never had a chance of winning the war—this majestic history revivifies a story we thought we already knew.

Introduction to American politics that provides a critical examination of both political institutions and political behavior. Analyzing major political institutions such as Congress, the courts, the presidency, and the media, this book chronicles how the interests of affluent Americans—particularly business, professional, and corporate interests—dominate over those of “average” citizens. Anthony R. DiMaggio examines American political behavior, as it relates to lobbying, citizen activism, media consumption, and voting, to demonstrate how the public is often misinformed and manipulated regarding major political and economic matters. However, record public distrust of the government and the increasing popularity of mass protests suggest that most Americans are deeply unhappy with the political status quo, and many are willing to fight for change. Political Power in America details this interplay between a political system dominated by the affluent few and the rise of mass political distrust and protest. It offers information and tools needed to better understand the democratic deficit in American politics, while providing opportunities for discussing what we might do to address the mounting crisis of declining democracy. “An original and refreshing introductory text on the United States political system. The originality, coupled with an accessibility of critical concepts, makes this book truly one of a kind.” — Mark Major, author of The Unilateral Presidency and the News Media: The Politics of Framing Executive Power

“Eminently readable, and anybody who cares about the future of American democracy in these perilous times can only hope that it will be widely read and carefully considered.” —James Pope, Washington Post “Fishkin and Forbath’s accessible work serves as both history lesson and political playbook, offering the Left an underutilized—and perhaps counterintuitive—tool in the present-day fight against social and economic injustice: the Constitution.” —Benjamin Morse, Jacobin “Rousing and authoritative...attempt[s] to recover the Constitution’s pivotal role in shaping claims of justice and equality...Makes even the present court’s capture by the ideological right a compelling platform for a revived social-democratic constitutional politics.” —New Republic Oligarchy is a threat to the American republic. When too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands, we risk losing the “republican form of government” the Constitution requires. Today, courts enforce the Constitution as if it had almost nothing to say about this threat. But as this revolutionary retelling of constitutional history shows, a commitment to prevent oligarchy once stood at the center of a robust tradition in American political and constitutional thought. Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath demonstrate that reformers, legislators, and even judges working in this “democracy-of-opportunity” tradition understood that the Constitution imposes a duty on legislatures to thwart oligarchy and promote a broad distribution of wealth and political power. These ideas led Jacksonians to fight special economic privileges for the few, Populists to try to break up monopoly power, and Progressives to fight for the constitutional right to form a union. But today, as we enter a new Gilded Age, this tradition in progressive American economic and political thought lies dormant. The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution begins the work of recovering it and exploring its profound implications for our deeply unequal society and badly damaged democracy.

In retelling the story of the Radical Alexander Hamilton, Parenti rewrites the history early America and global economic history writ large. For much of the twentieth century, Hamilton - sometimes seen as the bad boy of the founding fathers or portrayed as the patron saint of bankers- was out of fashion. In contrast his rival Thomas Jefferson, the patrician democrat and slave owner who feared government overreach, was claimed by all. But more recently, Hamilton has become a subject of serious interest again. He was a contradictory mix: a tough soldier, austere workaholic, exacting bureaucrat, yet also a sexual libertine, and a glory-obsessed romantic with suicidal tendencies. As Parenti argues, we have yet to fully appreciate Hamilton as the primary architect of American capitalism and the developmental state. In exploring his life and work, Parenti rediscovers this gadfly as a path breaking political thinker and institution builder. In this vivid historical portrait, Hamilton emerges as a singularly important historical figure: a thinker and politico who laid the foundation for America's ascent to global supremacy - for better or worse.

William Livingston's American Revolution explores how New Jersey's first governor experienced the American Revolution and managed a state government on the war's front lines. A wartime bureaucrat, Livingston played a pivotal role in a pivotal place, prosecuting the war on a daily basis for eight years. Such second-tier founding fathers as Livingston were the ones who actually administered the war and guided the day-to-day operations of revolutionary-era governments, serving as the principal conduits between the local wartime situation and the national demands placed on the states. In the first biography of Livingston published since the 1830s, James J. Gigantino's examination is as much about the position he filled as about the man himself. The reluctant patriot and his roles as governor, member of the Continental Congress, and delegate to the Constitutional Convention quickly became one, as Livingston's distinctive personality molded his office's status and reach. A tactful politician, successful lawyer, writer, satirist, political operative, gardener, soldier, and statesman, Livingston became the longest-serving patriot governor during a brutal war that he had not originally wanted to fight or believed could be won. Through Livingston's life, Gigantino examines the complex nature of the conflict and the choice to wage it, the wartime bureaucrats charged with administering it, the constant battle over loyalty on the home front, the limits of patriot governance under fire, and the ways in which wartime experiences affected the creation of the Constitution.

The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution introduces scholars, students and generally interested readers to the formative event in American history. In thirty-three individual essays, the Handbook provides readers with in-depth analysis of the Revolution's many sides.

“Thought-provoking—a must read for [everyone] seeking a firm grasp of accurate American history." —Kirkus (starred review) Brilliant, readable, and raw. Maj. (ret.) Danny Sjursen, who served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at West Point, delivers a true epic and the perfect companion to Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Sjursen shifts the lens and challenges readers to think critically and to apply common sense to their understanding of our nation's past—and present—so we can view history as never before. A True History of the United States was inspired by a course that Sjursen taught to cadets at West Point, his alma mater. With chapter titles such as "Patriots or Insurgents?" and "The Decade That Roared and Wept", A True History is accurate with respect to the facts and intellectually honest in its presentation and analysis. Essential reading for every American with a conscience. Meticulously researched, Sjursen provides a more complete sense of history and encourages readers to view our country objectively. Sjursen’s powerful storytelling reveals balanced portraits of key figures and the role they played. "Sjursen exposes the dominant historical narrative as at best myth, and at times a lie . . . He brings out from the shadows those who struggled, often at the cost of their own lives, for equality and justice. Their stories, so often ignored or trivialized, give us examples of who we should emulate and who we must become." —Chris Hedges, author of Empire of Illusion and America: The Farewell Tour

Locates the origins of the modern sense of a Founder's Constitution in Antebellum debates over slavery in the nation's capital.