America Declares Independence

America Declares Independence PDF Author: Alan Dershowitz
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 0470303247
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
The Declaration of Independence as you've never seen it before Some of us cherish it with near-scriptural reverence. Others simply take it for granted. In this contentious new look at the Declaration of Independence, however, celebrated attorney Alan Dershowitz takes "America's birth certificate" and its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, to task. Dershowitz searches for the sources, history, and underlying reasoning that produced the Declaration and its particular language, from its reference to the "Laws of Nature and Nature's God" through the long list of complaints against the abuses of King George III. He points out contradictions within the document, notes how the meanings of Jefferson's words have changed over the centuries, and asks many disturbing questions, including: Where do rights come from? Do we have "unalienable rights"? Do rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" have any meaning? How could slaveowners claim to believe that "all men are created equal"? Is the God of the Declaration the God of the Bible? Does the Declaration establish a Christian State? Are there "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"? Challenging, upsetting, and controversial, this brilliant polemic may anger you, delight you, or force you to reexamine your opinions. One thing's for sure: after reading America Declares Independence, you'll never take the Declaration of Independence for granted again.

Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality

Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality PDF Author: Danielle Allen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871408139
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, Society of American Historians “A tour de force. . . . No one has ever written a book on the Declaration quite like this one.”—Gordon Wood, New York Review of Books Featured on the front page of the New York Times, Our Declaration is already regarded as a seminal work that reinterprets the promise of American democracy through our founding text. Combining a personal account of teaching the Declaration with a vivid evocation of the colonial world between 1774 and 1777, Allen, a political philosopher renowned for her work on justice and citizenship reveals our nation’s founding text to be an animating force that not only changed the world more than two-hundred years ago, but also still can. Challenging conventional wisdom, she boldly makes the case that the Declaration is a document as much about political equality as about individual liberty. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Our Declaration is an “uncommonly elegant, incisive, and often poetic primer on America’s cardinal text” (David M. Kennedy).

Declaring Independence

Declaring Independence PDF Author: Jay Fliegelman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804720762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Preoccupied with the spectacle of sincerity, the quest for a natural language led paradoxically to a greater theatricalization of public speaking as well as to a new social dramaturgy and a deeply self-conscious performative understanding of selfhood. Concerned with recovering what was assumed but not spoken in the realm of eighteenth-century speech and action, the book treats Jefferson (whose fascination with Homer, Ossian, Patrick Henry, and music theory all relate to the new oratorical ideal) as a conflicted participant in the new rhetoric and a witness to its social costs and benefits

Declaring Our Independence

Declaring Our Independence PDF Author: Kelly Rodgers
Publisher: Teacher Created Materials
ISBN: 1433388596
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Readers will learn the history behind the Declaration of Independence and what makes it such an important document in American history. This engaging title features colorful images, informative text, and interesting facts. Featuring a table of contents, glossary, and index, this book has all the tools readers will need to learn about American independence!

The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence PDF Author: David Armitage
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674022829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
In a stunningly original look at the American Declaration of Independence, David Armitage reveals the document in a new light: through the eyes of the rest of the world. Not only did the Declaration announce the entry of the United States onto the world stage, it became the model for other countries to follow. Armitage examines the Declaration as a political, legal, and intellectual document, and is the first to treat it entirely within a broad international framework. He shows how the Declaration arose within a global moment in the late eighteenth century similar to our own. He uses over one hundred declarations of independence written since 1776 to show the influence and role the U.S. Declaration has played in creating a world of states out of a world of empires. He discusses why the framers’ language of natural rights did not resonate in Britain, how the document was interpreted in the rest of the world, whether the Declaration established a new nation or a collection of states, and where and how the Declaration has had an overt influence on independence movements—from Haiti to Vietnam, and from Venezuela to Rhodesia. Included is the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and sample declarations from around the world. An eye-opening list of declarations of independence since 1776 is compiled here for the first time. This unique global perspective demonstrates the singular role of the United States document as a founding statement of our modern world.

Declaring Our Independence

Declaring Our Independence PDF Author: Corinne Brown
Publisher: Teacher Created Materials
ISBN: 0743905482
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Declaring Our Independence depicts the formation of the important document, the Declaration of Independence, through the sometimes nervous eyes of one of its originators, Roger Sherman. Sherman, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and many others risk treason in order to write a document that declares freedom to the citizens of a new government.

Declaring Our Independence

Declaring Our Independence PDF Author: Kelly Rodgers
Publisher: Free Spirit Publishing
ISBN: 1433388596
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description
Readers will learn the history behind the Declaration of Independence and what makes it such an important document in American history. This engaging title features colorful images, informative text, and interesting facts. Featuring a table of contents, glossary, and index, this book has all the tools readers will need to learn about American independence!

American Scripture

American Scripture PDF Author: Pauline Maier
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307791955
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Pauline Maier shows us the Declaration as both the defining statement of our national identity and the moral standard by which we live as a nation. It is truly "American Scripture," and Maier tells us how it came to be -- from the Declaration's birth in the hard and tortuous struggle by which Americans arrived at Independence to the ways in which, in the nineteenth century, the document itself became sanctified. Maier describes the transformation of the Second Continental Congress into a national government, unlike anything that preceded or followed it, and with more authority than the colonists would ever have conceded to the British Parliament; the great difficulty in making the decision for Independence; the influence of Paine's []Common Sense[], which shifted the terms of debate; and the political maneuvers that allowed Congress to make the momentous decision. In Maier's hands, the Declaration of Independence is brought close to us. She lets us hear the voice of the people as revealed in the other "declarations" of 1776: the local resolutions -- most of which have gone unnoticed over the past two centuries -- that explained, advocated, and justified Independence and undergirded Congress's work. Detective-like, she discloses the origins of key ideas and phrases in the Declaration and unravels the complex story of its drafting and of the group-editing job which angered Thomas Jefferson. Maier also reveals what happened to the Declaration after the signing and celebration: how it was largely forgotten and then revived to buttress political arguments of the nineteenth century; and, most important, how Abraham Lincoln ensured its persistence as a living force in American society. Finally, she shows how by the very act of venerating the Declaration as we do -- by holding it as sacrosanct, akin to holy writ -- we may actually be betraying its purpose and its power.

Declaring Our Independence 6-Pack

Declaring Our Independence 6-Pack PDF Author: Kelly Rodgers
Publisher: Teacher Created Materials
ISBN: 1433377268
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Readers will learn the history behind the Declaration of Independence and what makes it such an important document in American history. This engaging title features colorful images, informative text, and interesting facts. Featuring a table of contents, glossary, and index, this book has all the tools readers will need to learn about American independence! This 6-Pack includes six copies of this title and a lesson plan.

America Declares Independence

America Declares Independence PDF Author: Alan Dershowitz
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 0470303247
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
The Declaration of Independence as you've never seen it before Some of us cherish it with near-scriptural reverence. Others simply take it for granted. In this contentious new look at the Declaration of Independence, however, celebrated attorney Alan Dershowitz takes "America's birth certificate" and its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, to task. Dershowitz searches for the sources, history, and underlying reasoning that produced the Declaration and its particular language, from its reference to the "Laws of Nature and Nature's God" through the long list of complaints against the abuses of King George III. He points out contradictions within the document, notes how the meanings of Jefferson's words have changed over the centuries, and asks many disturbing questions, including: Where do rights come from? Do we have "unalienable rights"? Do rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" have any meaning? How could slaveowners claim to believe that "all men are created equal"? Is the God of the Declaration the God of the Bible? Does the Declaration establish a Christian State? Are there "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"? Challenging, upsetting, and controversial, this brilliant polemic may anger you, delight you, or force you to reexamine your opinions. One thing's for sure: after reading America Declares Independence, you'll never take the Declaration of Independence for granted again.

Inventing America

Inventing America PDF Author: Garry Wills
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385542836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
From one of America's foremost historians, Inventing America compares Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence with the final, accepted version, thereby challenging many long-cherished assumptions about both the man and the document. Although Jefferson has long been idealized as a champion of individual rights, Wills argues that in fact his vision was one in which interdependence, not self-interest, lay at the foundation of society. "No one has offered so drastic a revision or so close or convincing an analysis as Wills has . . . The results are little short of astonishing" —(Edmund S. Morgan, New York Review of Books)