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Tags: u.s. bill of rights

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The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787
by Gordon S. Wood
During the Revolutionary era, American political theory underwent a fundamental transformation that carried the nation out of a basically classical and medieval world of political discussion into a milieu that was recognizably modern. This volume is essentially a study of that transformation. The author describes in rich detail the evolution of political thought from the Declaration of Independence to the... (more)
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Benjamin Franklin
An American Life
by Walter Isaacson
Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us, the one who seems made of flesh rather than marble. In this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson shows how the most fascinating of America's founders helped define our national character. In a sweeping narrative that follows Franklin's life from Boston to Philadelphia to London and Paris and back, Isaacson chronicles the... (more)
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The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
by Bernard Bailyn
In this 25th anniversary edition, Bailyn has added a substantial essay, "Fulfillment", as a Postscript to the original text. In it he discusses the intense, nation-wide debate on the ratification of the constitution, stressing the continuities between that struggle over the foundations of the national government and the original principles of the Revolution. This study of the persistence of the nation's... (more)
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Democracy in America
by Alexis De Tocqueville
In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville <1805-1859> and Gustave de Beaumont <fl.1835> were sent to the United States by the French government to study American prisons, which were renowned for their progressive and humane methods. They were pleased to accept this assignment because they were intrigued by the idea of American democracy. Tocqueville and Beaumont spent nine months in the country, traveling as far... (more)
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The War on the Bill of Rights-and the Gathering Resistance
by Nat Hentoff
"Hentoff's concise, remarkably comprehensive and highly readable book will be distressingly informative for many."- Los Angeles Times "Eloquent . . . Hentoff has written a deft primer that forcefully makes the civil libertarian's case against the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies. . . . The book is a call-to-arms for citizens to fight back and defend their liberties."- The Washington Post "Anyone... (more)
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Naming Names
by Victor S. Navasky
“An astonishing work concerning personal honor and dishonor, shame and shamelessness. A book of stunning insights and suspense.” — Studs TerkelHalf a century later, the investigation of Hollywood radicals by the House Committee on Un-American Activities still haunts the public conscience. Naming Names, reissued here with a new afterword by the author, is the definitive account of the hearings, a National Book... (more)
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The Bill of Rights, the Courts & the Law: The Landmark Cases : Cases That Have Shaped American Society
The Bill of Rights, perhaps the single most important document in American history, has provided a strong and remarkably durable framework in which the limits of government, the scope of individual liberty, and the nature of our democratic system have been defined for more than two hundred years. In the past several decades in particular, the American Bill of Rights has been subject to virtually continual... (more)
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The Framing of the Constitution of the United States
by Max Farrand
Not intended to be a complete history, it is a brief but poignant presentation of the author's personal interpretation of what took place in the Federal Convention framing the Constitution.
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The Federalist Papers
Hamilton, Madison, Jay
by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
The documents that shaped a nation. Three of the founding fathers brilliantly defend their revolutionary charter: the Constitution of the United States, a milestone in political science and a classic of American history.