Author: Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813946492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508
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Book Description
Already renowned as a statesman, Thomas Jefferson in his retirement from government turned his attention to the founding of an institution of higher learning. Never merely a patron, the former president oversaw every aspect of the creation of what would become the University of Virginia. Along with the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, he regarded it as one of the three greatest achievements in his life. Nonetheless, historians often treat this period as an epilogue to Jefferson’s career. In The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind, Andrew O’Shaughnessy offers a twin biography of Jefferson in retirement and of the University of Virginia in its earliest years. He reveals how Jefferson’s vision anticipated the modern university and profoundly influenced the development of American higher education. The University of Virginia was the most visible apex of what was a much broader educational vision that distinguishes Jefferson as one of the earliest advocates of a public education system. Just as Jefferson’s proclamation that "all men are created equal" was tainted by the ongoing institution of slavery, however, so was his university. O’Shaughnessy addresses this tragic conflict in Jefferson’s conception of the university and society, showing how Jefferson’s loftier aspirations for the university were not fully realized. Nevertheless, his remarkable vision in founding the university remains vital to any consideration of the role of education in the success of the democratic experiment.
Author: Alan Taylor
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393652432
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
“Taylor… probes [Jefferson’s] ambitious mission in clear prose and with great insight and erudition.” —Annette Gordon-Reed, Atlantic By turns entertaining and tragic, this elegant history reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. Thomas Jefferson shares center stage with his family and fellow planters, but at the crux are the enslaved black families on whom they depend. Taylor’s account of Jefferson’s campaign to save Virginia by building the university is dramatic, a contest for power and resources rich in political maneuver and eccentricities comic and cruel.
Author: John F. Kowal
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620975629
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 493
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Book Description
The 233-year story of how the American people have taken an imperfect constitution—the product of compromises and an artifact of its time—and made it more democratic Who wrote the Constitution? That’s obvious, we think: fifty-five men in Philadelphia in 1787. But much of the Constitution was actually written later, in a series of twenty-seven amendments enacted over the course of two centuries. The real history of the Constitution is the astonishing story of how subsequent generations have reshaped our founding document amid some of the most colorful, contested, and controversial battles in American political life. It’s a story of how We the People have improved our government’s structure and expanded the scope of our democracy during eras of transformational social change. The People’s Constitution is an elegant, sobering, and masterly account of the evolution of American democracy. From the addition of the Bill of Rights, a promise made to save the Constitution from near certain defeat, to the post–Civil War battle over the Fourteenth Amendment, from the rise and fall of the “noble experiment” of Prohibition to the defeat and resurgence of an Equal Rights Amendment a century in the making, The People’s Constitution is the first book of its kind: a vital guide to America’s national charter, and an alternative history of the continuing struggle to realize the Framers’ promise of a more perfect union.
Author: Naomi Wolf
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 141659258X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403
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Book Description
In Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, bestselling author Naomi Wolf illustrates the changes that can take place when ordinary citizens engage in the democratic system the way the founders intended and tells how to use that system, right now, to change your life, your community, and ultimately, the nation. As the practice of democracy becomes a lost art, Americans are increasingly desperate for a restored nation. Many have a general sense that the “system” is in disorder—if not on the road to functional collapse. But though it is easy to identify our political problems, the solutions are not always as clear. In Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, bestselling author Naomi Wolf illustrates the breathtaking changes that can take place when ordinary citizens engage in the democratic system the way the founders intended and tells how to use that system, right now, to change your life, your community, and ultimately, the nation.
Author: Natalie S. Bober
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813927329
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
A biography of the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States who was also a noted inventor, architect, farmer, statesman, and educator.
Author: Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300195249
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 876
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Book Description
Questioning popular belief, a historian and re-examines what exactly led to the British Empire’s loss of the American Revolution. The loss of America was an unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing book makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men who directed the British dimension of the war, historian Andrew O’Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve their surprising victory. In interlinked biographical chapters, the author follows the course of the war from the perspectives of King George III, Prime Minister Lord North, military leaders including General Burgoyne, the Earl of Sandwich, and others who, for the most part, led ably and even brilliantly. Victories were frequent, and in fact the British conquered every American city at some stage of the Revolutionary War. Yet roiling political complexities at home, combined with the fervency of the fighting Americans, proved fatal to the British war effort. The book concludes with a penetrating assessment of the years after Yorktown, when the British achieved victories against the French and Spanish, thereby keeping intact what remained of the British Empire. “A remarkable book about an important but curiously underappreciated subject: the British side of the American Revolution. With meticulous scholarship and an eloquent writing style, O'Shaughnessy gives us a fresh and compelling view of a critical aspect of the struggle that changed the world.”—Jon Meacham, author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Author: Rob Riemen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030015853X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 155
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Book Description
In a series of three essays, the author identifies nobility of spirit in the life and work of Spinoza and of Thomas Mann; explores the quest for the good society in our own times; and addresses the pursuit of truth and freedom that engaged figures as disparate as Socrates and Leone Ginzburg, a Jewish-Italian intellectual murdered by Nazis.
Author: Leonard J. Sadosky
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813928524
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
Old World, New World: America and Europe in the Age of Jefferson grew out of workshops in Salzburg and Charlottesville sponsored by Monticello’s International Center for Jefferson Studies, and revisits a question of long-standing interest to American historians: the nature of the relationship between America and Europe during the Age of Revolution. Study of the American-European relationship in recent years has been moved forward by the notion of Atlantic history and the study of the Atlantic world. The present volume makes a fresh contribution by refocusing attention on the question of the interdependence of Europe and America. Old World, New World addresses topics that are timely, given contemporary public events, but that are also of interest to early modern and modern historians. By turning attention from the Atlantic World in general to the relationship between America and Europe, as well as using Thomas Jefferson as a lens to examine this relationship, this book carves out its own niche in the history of the Atlantic world in the age of revolution.
Author: Philip Clayton
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725285835
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
2020 upended every aspect of our lives. But where is our world heading next? Will pandemic, protests, economic instability, and social distance lead to deeper inequalities, more nationalism, and further erosion of democracies around the world? Or are we moving toward a global re-awakening to the importance of community, mutual support, and the natural world? In our lifetimes, the future has never been so up for grabs. The New Possible offers twenty-eight unique visions of what can be, if instead of choosing to go back to normal, we choose to go forward to something far better. Assembled from global leaders on six continents, these essays are not simply speculation. They are an inspiration and a roadmap for action. With essays by: Kim Stanley Robinson, Michael Pollan, Varshini Prakash, Vandana Shiva, Jack Kornfield, Mamphela Ramphele, Justin Rosenstein, Jack Kornfield, Helena Nordberg-Hodge, David Korten, Tristan Harris, Eileen Crist, Francis Deng, Riane Eisler, Arturo Escobar, Rebecca Kiddle, Mike Joy, Natalie Foster, Jess Rimington, Jeremy Lent, Atossa Soltani, Mark Anielski, Ellen Brown, John Restakis, Zak Stein, Oren Slozberg, Anisa Nanavati, and Fr. Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam
Author: John B. Boles
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465094694
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 529
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Book Description
From an eminent scholar of the American South, the first full-scale biography of Thomas Jefferson since 1970 Not since Merrill Peterson's Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation has a scholar attempted to write a comprehensive biography of the most complex Founding Father. In Jefferson, John B. Boles plumbs every facet of Thomas Jefferson's life, all while situating him amid the sweeping upheaval of his times. We meet Jefferson the politician and political thinker -- as well as Jefferson the architect, scientist, bibliophile, paleontologist, musician, and gourmet. We witness him drafting of the Declaration of Independence, negotiating the Louisiana Purchase, and inventing a politics that emphasized the states over the federal government -- a political philosophy that shapes our national life to this day. Boles offers new insight into Jefferson's actions and thinking on race. His Jefferson is not a hypocrite, but a tragic figure -- a man who could not hold simultaneously to his views on abolition, democracy, and patriarchal responsibility. Yet despite his flaws, Jefferson's ideas would outlive him and make him into nothing less than the architect of American liberty.
