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April 1, 2019
The Panic of 1819: The First Great Depression
The Panic of 1819 tells the story of the first nationwide economic collapse to strike the United States. Much more than a banking crisis or real estate bubble, the Panic was the culmination of an economic wave that rolled through the United States, forming before the War of 1812, cresting with the land and cotton boom […]
March 1, 2019
The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era: An Intellectual History
Scholars have long debated the meaning of the pursuit of happiness, yet have tended to define it narrowly, focusing on a single intellectual tradition, and on the use of the term within a single text, the Declaration of Independence. In this insightful volume, Prof. Carli N. Conklin considers the pursuit of happiness across a variety […]
December 1, 2018
The Myth of Coequal Branches: Restoring the Constitution’s Separation of Functions
The idea that the three branches of the U.S. government are equal in power is taught in classrooms, proclaimed by politicians, and referenced in the media. But, as David Siemers shows, that idea is a myth, neither intended by the Founders nor true in practice. Siemers explains how adherence to this myth normalizes a politics […]
June 1, 2018
Aristocracy in America: From the Sketch-Book of a German Nobleman
In Jacksonian America, as Grund exposes, the wealthy inhabitants of northern cities and the plantation South may have been willing to accept their poorer neighbors as political and legal peers, but rarely as social equals. In this important work, he thus sheds light on the nature of the struggle between “aristocracy” and “democracy” that loomed […]
December 1, 2017
From Oligarchy to Republicanism: The Great Task of Reconstruction
On December 4, 1865, members of the 39th United States Congress walked into the Capitol Building to begin their first session after the end of the Civil War. They understood their responsibility to put the nation back on the path established by the American Founding Fathers. The moment when the Republicans in the Reconstruction Congress […]
June 1, 2017
Bureaucracy in America: The Administrative State’s Challenge to Constitutional Government
The U.S. Constitution requires laws to be made by elected representatives. Today, most policies are made by administrative agencies whose officials are not elected. Not coincidentally, many Americans increasingly question whether the political system works for the good of the people. In this trenchant intellectual history, Postell demonstrates how modern administrative law has attempted to […]