Founding Fathers such as Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster, and Fisher Ames outlined principles for successful government as a legacy for future Americans. Revisit the counsel of great men and learn how to reclaim the quality of government we once enjoyed.

    Conservation/American Indian Culture. An important contribution to the body of indigenous cultural knowledge and a way to secure its continuance.

    Beginning with the swaggering John Smith at Jamestown and ending with the beleaguered Montcalm at Quebec, Arthur Quinn allows towering historical figures to emerge from an often beautiful, sometimes forbidding early American landscape and speak. An elderly William Bradford looks back with growing despair at the early promise of the Pilgrim colony at Plymouth. Governor John Winthrop tries to administer a dose of practicality to the Puritans of Massachusetts. Jesuit missionaries bring Christianity and disaster to the Huron Confederacy. A blustering Peter Stuyvesant watches Manhattan slip from Dutch grasp. William Penn's Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania goes increasingly awry. And, finally, the British and the French fight history's first world war for supremacy in the New World. Telling each story using the literary conventions of the day, Quinn casts North America's colonial beginnings as a multicultural epic, gripping the reader throughout with his uncanny eye and storytelling skill. The result is a history not just for scholars, but for all citizens of a nation whose birth came only through long struggle, and at a terrible cost to Europeans and Native Americans alike.

    After suffering a brief eclipse in the post-World War II period, pragmatism has experienced a revival, especially in literary theory and such areas as poststructuralism and deconstruction. In this critique of pragmatism and neopragmatism, one of our leading intellectual historians traces the attempts of thinkers from William James to Richard Rorty to find a response to the crisis of modernism. John Patrick Diggins analyzes the limitations of pragmatism from a historical perspective and dares to ask whether America's one original contribution to the world of philosophy has actually fulfilled its promise."Diggins, an eminent historian of American intellectual life, has written a timely and impressive book charting the rich history of American pragmatism and placing William James, Charles Peirce, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Sidney Hook, and Richard Rorty in their times and in the light of contemporary concerns. The book also draws on an alternative set of American thinkers to explore the blind spots in the pragmatic temper."—William Connolly, New York Times Book Review"An extraordinarily ambitious work of both analysis and synthesis. . . . Diggins's book is rewarding in its thoughtfulness and its nuanced presentation of ideas."—Daniel J. Silver, Commentary"Diggins's superbly informed book comprises a comprehensive history of American pragmatic thought. . . . It contains expert descriptions of James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce, the first generation of American pragmatists. . . . Diggins is just as good on the revival of pragmatism that's taken place over the last 20 years in America. . . . [A] richly intelligent book."—Mark Edmundson, Washington Post Book World

    Crampton and Steven Madsen retraced and mapped the entire 1,120- mile commercial route between Santa Fe and Los Angeles--a route that wove and meandered through six states. For use as both a trail guide and a history, the text reveals fascinating information about towns, historic and archaeological sites, and current places of interest.

    Earl Ofari Hutchinson offers a searing, controversial indictment of our society’s attitudes toward black men.The black male image, he argues, has been battered, maligned, and assaulted by academics, the press, and Hollywood, as well as by some black rappers, comedians, feminists, filmmakers, and novelists—many of whom he accuses of reinforcing, and profiting from, ethnic and sexual stereotypes. Offering both a wide historical perspective and acute insights into such racially charged events as the O. J. Simpson trial, the Clarence Thomas hearings, and the Million Man March, Hutchinson brilliantly counters the image of the black male as a figure entrenched in crime, drugs, and violence. At the same time, he issues a deeply moving call to rethink the way we view African American men.

    The powerful discussion is enhanced with nearly 200 photographs and illustrations, many of them from Native sources. "I am grateful that Native people have been contributors to this project," writes Dennis Banks in the foreword. "No longer will we have to sift though non-Indian writings looking for shreds of the truth." Edited by Duane Champagne, director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and of Chippewa descent, Native America thoughtfully articulates the values, struggles, triumphs, and spirit of Native communities and features hundreds of biographies of prominent historical figures and current leaders. Seventeen chapters written by experts with a diversity of viewpoints cover current and historical issues surrounding Native history and culture, protest movements, language, religion, health practices, art, literature, and media. Extensive information on Canadian Natives is also provided. Portrait of the Peoples should serve as a standard reference for anyone interested in Native cultures and issues.

    In a book that combines history and biography, drama and explication, Peter Irons tells the story of the two great adversaries, Justices William Brennan and William Rehnquist, who for 20 years fought for control of the Supreme Court on the central issues of our time.