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 infringement? In 1787, these important questions and others were raised by such statesmen as Patrick Henry and John...
The complete texts of the documents that tell the story of the clashes and compromises that gave birth to the Unites States of America. ...
In the spirit of recent works such as Habits of the Heart and The Closing of the American Mind, Ralph Ketcham's Individualism and Public Life asks whether the individualism which has made possible so many of the material advances we enjoy may also be the cause of the shortcomings troubling our society today.
By tracing the development of individualism from its origins in classical and Judeo-Christian traditions, and enlisting the insights of East Asian cultures, Ketcham re-evaluates the individualism which characterizes contemporary American society. He then poses a new politics...
In the spirit of recent works such as Habits of the Heart and The Closing of the American Mind, Ralph Ketcham's Individualism and Public Life asks whe...
In Marbury v. Madison Chief Justice John Marshall defined the Constitution as "a superior, paramount law," one that superseded the laws passed by Congress and state legislatures. What makes it paramount? This book sets out to recover the enduring principles, purposes, and meanings that inform the founders' charter and continue to offer us political guidance more than 200 years later. In so doing it steers a middle course between "originalists" who constrict interpretation to constitutional specifics and "relativists" who adapt the Constitution to the moment by ignoring original...
In Marbury v. Madison Chief Justice John Marshall defined the Constitution as "a superior, paramount law," one that superseded the laws passed ...
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 Western thought and the particular influences on the founding fathers. Intellectual and political...
George Washington's vision was a presidency free of party, a republican, national office that would transcend faction. That vision would remain strong...
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).
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 Madi...
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, especially Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison, addressed the question of whether and how a...
Any searching look at the theory and practice of citizenship in the United States today is bewildering and disconcerting. Despite earnest concern f...
