Woodrow Wilson, a practicing academic historian before he took to politics, defined the importance of history: -A nation which does not know what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today.- He, like many men of his generation, wanted to impose a version of America's founding identity: it was a land of the free and a home of the brave. But not the braves. Or the slaves. Or the disenfranchised women. So the history of Wilson's generation omitted a significant proportion of the population in favor of a perspective that was predominantly white, male and Protestant.
That flaw would...
Woodrow Wilson, a practicing academic historian before he took to politics, defined the importance of history: -A nation which does not know what it w...
Aaron Burr was an enigma even in his own day. Founding father and vice president, he engaged in a duel with Alexander Hamilton resulting in a murder indictment that effectively ended his legal career. And when he turned his attention to entrepreneurial activities on the frontier he was suspected of empire building--and worse. Burr was finally arrested as a threat to national security, under suspicion of fomenting insurrection against the young republic, and then held without bail for months. His trial, witnessing the unfortunate intrusion of partisan politics and personal animosity into...
Aaron Burr was an enigma even in his own day. Founding father and vice president, he engaged in a duel with Alexander Hamilton resulting in a murder i...
America's founders extolled a nation of laws, for they knew that only a fairly enforced legal system could protect liberty and property against corruption and tyranny. Nearly two and a half centuries later, that system remains the ultimate safeguard for us all. With concise but penetrating and provocative insights, the eminent Peter Charles Hoffer recaptures the spirit of this grand enterprise while never losing sight of its human face. The distillation of four decades of stellar writing, Hoffer's book is a wise and illuminating meditation on the key concepts, history, evolution, and...
America's founders extolled a nation of laws, for they knew that only a fairly enforced legal system could protect liberty and property against corrup...
The far-reaching Sedition Act of 1798 was introduced by Federalists to suppress Republican support of French revolutionaries and imposed fines and imprisonment "if any person shall write, print, utter or publish . . . scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States." Such a broadly and loosely defined offense challenged the freedom of the American press and gave the government the power to drag offending newspaper editors into court. The trial of Thomas Cooper in particular became an important showcase for debating the dangers and limits of the new...
The far-reaching Sedition Act of 1798 was introduced by Federalists to suppress Republican support of French revolutionaries and imposed fines and imp...
In the 1740s, two quite different developments revolutionized Anglo-American life and thought--the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. This book takes an encounter between the paragons of each movement--the printer and entrepreneur Benjamin Franklin and the British-born revivalist George Whitefield--as an opportunity to explore the meaning of the beginnings of modern science and rationality on one hand and evangelical religious enthusiasm on the other.
There are people who both represent the times in which they live and change them for the better. Franklin and Whitefield were two...
In the 1740s, two quite different developments revolutionized Anglo-American life and thought--the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. This book...
In For Ourselves and Our Posterity: The Preamble to the Federal Constitution in American History, author Peter Charles Hoffer offers a sweeping, dramatic narration of a crucial moment in Early American history. Over the course of five days in September 1787, five men serving on an ad hoc "Committee of Style and Arrangement" edited the draft of the federal Constitution at the Constitutional Convention, profoundly recasting the wording of the Preamble. In so doing, the committee changed a federation into a Union and laid out an ambitious program for national governance many years ahead...
In For Ourselves and Our Posterity: The Preamble to the Federal Constitution in American History, author Peter Charles Hoffer offers a sweepi...
Before colonial Americans could declare independence, they had to undergo a change of heart. Beyond a desire to rebel against British mercantile and fiscal policies, they had to believe that they could stand up to the fully armed British soldier. Prelude to Revolution uncovers one story of how the Americans found that confidence.
On April 19, 1775, British raids on Lexington Green and Concord Bridge made history, but it was an episode nearly two months earlier in Salem, Massachusetts, that set the stage for the hostilities. Peter Charles Hoffer has discovered records and...
Before colonial Americans could declare independence, they had to undergo a change of heart. Beyond a desire to rebel against British mercantile an...
-A learned, lively, and witty review of the history of historical writing... A deeply insightful analysis of the never-ending challenge that historians face in getting their story right.- - Richard R. Beeman, John Welsh Centennial Professor of History Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
-I cannot imagine a reader of this book who will not learn from it and be provoked to a new level of thoughtfulness by it.- - Michael Zuckerman, University of Pennsylvania
-Students and general readers will find no more engaging guide to the value and distinctiveness of what historians do.- -...
-A learned, lively, and witty review of the history of historical writing... A deeply insightful analysis of the never-ending challenge that histor...
Once the dust of the Revolution settled, the problem of reconciling the erstwhile warring factions arose, and as is often the case in the aftermath of violent revolutions, the matter made its way into the legal arena. Rutgers v. Waddington was such a case. Through this little-known but remarkable dispute over back rent for a burned-down brewery, Peter Charles Hoffer recounts a tale of political and constitutional intrigue involving some of the most important actors in America's transition from a confederation of states under the Articles of Confederation to a national republic under...
Once the dust of the Revolution settled, the problem of reconciling the erstwhile warring factions arose, and as is often the case in the aftermath of...
There are moments in American history when all eyes are focused on a federal court: when its bench speaks for millions of Americans, and when its decision changes the course of history. More often, the story of the federal judiciary is simply a tale of hard work: of finding order in the chaotic system of state and federal law, local custom, and contentious lawyering. The Federal Courts is a story of all of these courts and the judges and justices who served on them, of the case law they made, and of the acts of Congress and the administrative organs that shaped the courts. But, even more...
There are moments in American history when all eyes are focused on a federal court: when its bench speaks for millions of Americans, and when its deci...
