States Rights

Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right.

In his 60-plus years as a trial lawyer, Gerry Spence has never represented a person accused of a crime in which the police hadn't themselves violated the law. Whether by covering up their own corrupt dealings, by the falsification or manufacture of evidence, or by the outright murder of innocent civilians, those individuals charged with upholding the law break it every day - in ways more scandalous than the courts have dared admit.

By the end of the 20th century there had been a veritable deluge of philosophical essays and books about children’s rights, adultery, family violence, the ethics of divorce, the limits of state intervention in the family, gay marriage, filial duties, and the right to have and raise children. There is now a substantial body of writing on these and other related topics for interested readers and scholars. While sorting through the past 45 years of my own research and writing about family law and family ethics, I discovered that most of it fits into one of four thematic areas: children’s ...

The teaching of history has long been the subject of partisan warfare. Religion often plays a prominent role in these debates, as secular progressives and conservative Christians disagree over which historical figures are worthy of study, how (or whether) certain events should be portrayed, and ultimately how tax dollars should be spent. But what about students who are educated outside the public schools, either in religious schools or at home? How are they learning history, and what effect does that have on our democracy?

An exploration of how and why the Constitution's plan for independent courts has failed to protect individuals' constitutional rights, while advancing regressive and reactionary barriers to progressive regulation.

In 1789, James Madison and James Monroe ran against each other for Congress-the only time that two future presidents have contested a congressional seat. But what was at stake, as author Chris DeRose reveals in Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe, the Bill of Rights, and the Election That Saved a Nation, was more than personal ambition. This was a race that determined the future of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the very definition of the United States of America.

The Radio Right tells the story of the 1960s far right, who were frustrated by what they perceived to be liberal bias in the national media, particularly the media's sycophantic relationship with the John F. Kennedy administration. By the early 1960s, millions of Americans listened each week to conservative broadcasters, the most prominent of which were clergy or lay broadcasters from across the religious spectrum, including Carl McIntire, Billy James Hargis, and Clarence Manion.

A riveting investigation into how a restive region of China became the site of a nightmare Orwellian social experiment - the definitive police state - and the global technology giants that made it possible.

In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.

A Queer History of the United States abounds with startling examples of unknown or often ignored aspects of American history - the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the impact of new technologies on LGBT life in the 19th century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the devastating backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s. Bronski documents how, over centuries, various incarnations of social purity movements have consistently attempted to regulate all sexuality, including fantasies, masturbation, and queer sex.

Michael Posner (executive director of Human Rights First) wisely said, "If we are going to transform the Middle East, we have to be law-abiding and uphold the values we want them to embrace - otherwise it is not going to work." We must respond to acts of terrorism, but before we respond hastily with hostility to further perpetuate an endless cycle of violence, we must be willing to ask ourselves the sources of our enemies’ hatred—the root of the problem—which we must honestly deal with in order to respond correctly to transform the world in which we live to be a safer more tolerant ...

In The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn’t make it into the textbooks. Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers. Through meticulous research, she discovers history’s unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light for the first time.

The Civil Rights Movement in America is a broad term for the movement in the mid-20th century among and for the African American community in pursuit of equal protection and rights under the law. In reality, it began much earlier than the 1950s and continues until this day. What is more, it was about so much more than the extension of universal rights; the Civil Rights Movement is about the story of the long struggle to overcome the legacies of slavery and racism. It is a story of triumph over adversity and perseverance in the face of great hardship.

Less than three weeks before the 1960 presidential election, 31-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested at a sit-in at Rich's Department Store in Atlanta. That day would lead to the first night King had ever spent in jail - and the time that King's family most feared for his life. Based on fresh interviews, newspaper accounts, and extensive archival research, Nine Days is the first full recounting of an event that changed the course of one of the closest elections in American history.

"Carl Schurz' "States' Rights and Byron Paine" was an address he delivered at Albany Hall, Milwaukee, March 23, 1859. In it, he defended his position, which no doubt was also the position of the bulk of the anti-slavery men of the time, of states rights and the compact theory of the union.

American History for Teens: The Stories, Struggles, and Heroes That Shaped the United States History comes alive like never before in this fast-moving, visually rich exploration of America’s past! From the arrival of the first Indigenous Americans to the triumphs of the civil rights movement and the drama of the Space Race, this book takes teens on an unforgettable journey through centuries of inspiring stories and pivotal moments. Packed with educational images, easy-to-understand maps, and interactive activities, this book transforms history into an engaging and accessible adventure. ...

America has a God-shaped hole in its heart, argues New York Times best-selling author Ben Shapiro, and we shouldn't fill it with politics and hate.

Young listeners are encouraged to take a closer look at the U.S. Constitution's first ten Amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. Citizens of the newly independent United States proposed several freedoms, including speech, assembly, and worship—many of which are still recognized and honored today.

In The Accident of Color, Daniel Brook journeys to 19th-century New Orleans and Charleston and introduces us to cosmopolitan residents who elude the racial categories the rest of America takes for granted. Before the Civil War, these free, openly mixed-race urbanites enjoyed some rights of citizenship and the privileges of wealth and social status. But after Emancipation, as former slaves move to assert their rights, the black-white binary that rules the rest of the nation begins to intrude.

The little-known and under-studied 1807 Insurrection Act was passed to give the president the ability to deploy federal military forces to fend off lawlessness and rebellion, but it soon became much more than the sum of its parts. Its power is integrally linked to the perceived threat of Black American equity in what lawyer and critic Hawa Allan demonstrates is a dangerous paradox. While the act was initially used to repress rebellion against slavery, during Reconstruction it was invoked by President Grant to quell white-supremacist uprisings in the South.