American Political Theory

We are living in an age of conspiracy theories, whether it's an enduring, widely held belief such as government involvement in the Kennedy assassination, fears of a powerful infiltrating group, or modern fringe movements of varying popularity such as birtherism and trutherism. What is it in American culture that makes conspiracy theories proliferate? Who is targeted, and why? Are we in the heyday of the conspiracy theory, or is it in decline? American Conspiracy Theories is the first to use broad, long-term empirical data to analyze this popular American tendency.

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular liberalelites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course.

In the summer of 1975, 17-year-old Eva Dillon's family was living in New Delhi when her father was exposed as a CIA spy. Eva had long believed that her father was a US State Department employee. She had no idea that he was handling the CIA's highest ranking double agent - Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov, a Soviet general whose code name was TOPHAT. Dillon's father and Polyakov had a close friendship that went back years, to their first meeting in Burma in the mid-1960s.

The Fall of Wisconsin is a deeply reported, searing account of how the state’s progressive tradition was undone and turned into a model for national conservatives bent on remaking the country. Dan Kaufman, a Wisconsin native who has been covering the story for several years, traces the history of progressivism that made Wisconsin so widely admired. Kaufman reveals how the “divide-and-conquer” strategy of Governor Scott Walker and his allies pitted Wisconsin’s citizens against one another, so powerful corporations and donors could effectively take control of state government.

There is a point in everybody's life at which a tough decision will have to be made - a hard call. For inspiration and direction, we can look to the remarkable individuals in John McCain and Mark Salter's book, which dramatically describes the anatomy of a great decision.

Though the Constitution was ratified in 1788, its impact on our lives is as recent as today's news. Informed by the latest scholarship and exploring the major themes that have shaped American constitutional history: federalism, the balance of powers, property, representation, equality, rights, and security, this book places constitutional history within the context of American political and social history. As our nation's circumstances have changed, so has our Constitution.

In Created Equal, Dr. Carson uses his own personal experiences as a member of a racial minority, along with the writings and experiences of others from multiple backgrounds and demographics, to analyze the current state of race relations in America. Instead of using race as an excuse to remake America into something completely antithetical to the Constitution, Dr. Carson suggests ways to enhance and bring great success to our nation and all multiethnic societies by magnifying America's incredible strengths instead of her historical weaknesses.

In 31 Days, Barry Werth takes listeners inside the White House during the tumultuous days following Nixon's resignation and the swearing-in of America's "accidental president", Gerald Ford. The congressional hearings, Nixon's increasing paranoia, and, finally, the devastating revelations of the White House tapes had torn the country apart. Within the White House and the Republican Party, Nixon's resignation produced new fissures and battle lines and new opportunities for political advancement.

Jesse J. Holland's The Invisibles is the first book to tell the story of the executive mansion's most unexpected residents: the African American slaves who lived with the US presidents who owned them. Interest in African Americans and the White House are at an all-time high due to the historic presidency of Barack Obama and the soon-to-be-opened Smithsonian National Museum of African American Culture and History.

The tumultuous Flint sit-down strike of 1936-1937 was the birth of the United Auto Workers, which set the standard for wages in every industry. Midnight in Vehicle City tells the gripping story of how workers defeated General Motors, the largest industrial corporation in the world. Their victory ushered in the golden age of the American middle class and created a new kind of America, one in which every worker had a right to a share of the company’s wealth.

Before he grew up and became one of Washington's most respected reporters and editors, Andrew Ferguson was, of all things, a Lincoln buff, with the photos hung on his bedroom wall to prove it. Decades later, Ferguson's latent buffdom is reignited. In Land of Lincoln, he embarks on a curiosity-fueled coast-to-coast journey through contemporary Lincoln Nation, encountering everything from hatred to adoration to opportunism and all manner of reaction in between.

The era known as Reconstruction is one of the unhappiest times in American history. It succeeded in reuniting the nation politically after the Civil War but in little else. Among its chief failures was the inability to chart a progressive course for race relations after the abolition of slavery and rise of Jim Crow. Reconstruction also struggled to successfully manage the Southern resistance towards a Northern, free-labor pattern. But the failures cannot obscure a number of notable accomplishments, with decisive long-term consequences for American life.

In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”

Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation.

An acclaimed chronicler of the Civil Rights Movement, Peniel Joseph presents this sweeping overview of a key component of the struggle for racial equality: the Black Power movement. This is the story of the men and women who sacrificed so much to begin a more vocal and radical push for social change in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1983 Chicago elected Harold Washington as the city's first black mayor. This is the story of Washington's improbable victory over Jane Byrne, heir to the late Richard J. Daley's political empire, and over Daley's eldest son. It's the story of a coalition outside the party's mainstream coming to power and ruling in the country's most political of cities. In Fire on the Prairie, Gary Rivlin reveals the personalities and philosophies of those who were at the center of events, from black separatists such as Lu Palmer to community organizers such as Jesse Jackson....

During the worst smallpox epidemic in Boston history, Mather convinced Doctor Boylston to try a procedure that he believed would prevent death - by making an incision in the arm of a healthy person and implanting it with smallpox. "Inoculation" led to vaccination, one of the most profound medical discoveries in history.

The history and future of our democracy's ultimate sanction, presidential impeachment, and a guide to how it should be used now. To End a Presidency addresses one of today's most urgent questions: when and whether to impeach a president. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz provide an authoritative guide to impeachment's past and a bold argument about its proper role today. In an era of expansive presidential power and intense partisanship, we must rethink impeachment for the 21st century.

Prejudential is a concise, authoritative exploration of America’s relationship with race and Black Americans through the lens of the presidents who have been elected to represent all of its people.

In a remote corner of Oregon, James Pogue found himself at the heart of a rebellion. Granted unmatched access by Ammon Bundy to the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Pogue met ranchers and militiamen ready to die fighting the federal government. He witnessed the fallout of communities riven by politics and the danger (and allure) of uncompromising religious belief. The occupation ended in the shooting death of one rancher, the imprisonment of dozens more, and a firestorm over the role of government that engulfed national headlines.