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In A Nation Forged by Crisis, Kinder Institute Chair in Constitutional Democracy Jay Sexton contends that our national narrative is not one of halting yet inevitable progress but of repeated disruptions brought about by shifts in the international system. Sexton shows that the American Revolution was a consequence of the increasing integration of the British […]

In the 1930s, buoyed by the potential of the New Deal, child welfare reformers hoped to formalize and modernize their methods, partly through professional casework but more importantly through the loving care of temporary, substitute families. Today, however, the foster care system is widely criticized for failing the children and families it is intended to […]

Electing the House is the first book-length study to explore how the US came to adopt the single-member district system, how it solidified into a seemingly permanent fixture of American government, and whether it performs well by the standards it was intended to achieve. Dow traces the history of the present system from its origins […]

British Imperialism and ‘The Tribal Question’ reconstructs the history of Britain’s presence in the deserts of the interwar Middle East, making the case for its significance to scholars of imperialism and of the region’s past. It tells the story of what happened when the British Empire and Bedouin communities met on the desert frontiers between […]

2014 Mount Vernon George Washington Book Prize Finalist This is the first study in half a century to focus on the election of 1796. At first glance, the first presidential contest looks unfamiliar—parties were frowned upon, there was no national vote, and the candidates did not even participate (the political mores of the day forbade […]