American Democracy: 21 Historic Answers to 5 Urgent Questions,Nicholas Lemann

Résumé

the book presents key writings from the American past that speak to five contemporary flashpoints in our political landscape: race, gender, immigration, and citizenship; opportunity and inequality; the purpose and powers of the federal government; money, special privilege, and corruption; and protest and civil disobedience.

Some of the selections are well-known–George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the 4th of July, Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from Birmingham Jail–while others will be new to many readers–Horace Mann argument for public schools as a means of fighting inequality, Jane Addams’s perceptive analysis of gender and social class in charity work, Randolph Bourne envisioning a Trans-National America.

 American Democracy presents a remarkable range of insightful and eloquent American political writing, while serving as an invaluable resource for concerned citizens who wish to become better-informed participants in the ongoing drama of our democracy.

-Contents
Introduction 
QUESTION 1
Citizenship: Who Are “We the People”?

George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island
Frederick Douglass: from What to the Slave is the 4th of July?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Solitude of Self
Henry Cabot Lodge: Speech in the Senate on Immigration
Randolph S. Bourne: Trans-National America
QUESTION 2
Equality: How Can It Be Achieved?

Horace Mann: from Twelfth Annual Report to the Massachusetts Board of Education
Abraham Lincoln: Speech to the 166th Ohio Regiment
Jane Addams: from The Subtle Problems of Charity
W.E.B. Du Bois: from Black Reconstruction
QUESTION 3
A More Perfect Union: What Is the Government For?

James Madison: The Federalist No. 51
John Marshall: from Opinion for the Court in McCulloch v. Maryland
Alexis de Tocqueville: from Democracy in America
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Address to the Commonwealth Club of California
Paul Nitze et al.: from NSC-68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security
QUESTION 4
The Power of Money: How to Control It?

Andrew Jackson: from Veto of the Bank Charter
Carl Schurz: from Address on Civil Service Reform
Theodore Roosevelt: The New Nationalism
John Paul Stevens: from Dissent in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
QUESTION 5
Protest: Can We Disobey the Law?

Henry David Thoreau: from Civil Disobedience
Martin Luther King, Jr.: Letter from Birmingham Jail
Hannah Arendt: from Civil Disobedience
Sources and Acknowledgments

-Caractéristiques

Date de parution : 6 octobre 2020

Editeur : Library of America

ISBN :978-2-228-92221-0

 ASIN : B083RYGMF7

Nb. de pages : 300 pages

Dimensions : 11,0 cm × 17,0 cm × 0,7 cm    

 Langue  : Anglais