More than almost any other nation in the world, the United States began as an idea. For this reason, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood believes that the American Revolution is the most important event in our history, bar none. Since American identity is so fluid and not based on any universally shared heritage, we have had to continually return to our nation's founding to understand who we are. In 'The Idea of America', Wood reflects on the birth of American nationhood and explains why the revolution remains so essential. In a series of elegant and illuminating essays, Wood explores the ideological origins of the revolution - from ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment - and the founders' attempts to forge an American democracy. As Wood reveals, while the founders hoped to create a virtuous republic of yeoman farmers and uninterested leaders, they instead gave birth to a sprawling, licentious, and materialistic popular democracy. Wood also traces the origins of American exceptionalism to this period, revealing how the revolutionary generation, despite living in a distant, sparsely populated country, believed itself to be the most enlightened people on earth. The revolution gave Americans their messianic sense of purpose-and perhaps our continued propensity to promote democracy around the world-because the founders believed their colonial rebellion had universal significance for oppressed peoples everywhere. Yet what may seem like audacity in retrospect reflected the fact that in the eighteenth century republicanism was a truly radical ideology-as radical as Marxism would be in the nineteenth-and one that indeed inspired revolutionaries the world over. Today there exists what Wood calls a terrifying gap between us and the founders, such that it requires almost an act of imagination to fully recapture their era. Because we now take our democracy for granted, it is nearly impossible for us to appreciate how deeply the founders feared their grand experiment in liberty could evolve into monarchy or dissolve into licentiousness. Gracefully written and filled with insight, 'The Idea of America' helps us to recapture the fears and hopes of the revolutionary generation and its attempts to translate those ideals into a working democracy.

    With style and lucidity, Delsol likens contemporary Western man to the mythical figure Icarus, fallen back to earth after trying to reach the sun, alive but badly shaken and confused. During the twentieth, century, Delsol argues, man flew too closely to the sun of utopian ideology. Having been burned, he is now groping for a way to orient himself. But the ideas he once held so dear--inevitable progress, the possibility of limitless social and self-transformation--are no longer believable, and he has, for the most part, long since rejected the religious tradition that might have provided an anchor. Delsol's portrait is engrossing. She explains how we have come simultaneously to embrace the good but reject the true; how we have sacralized rights and democracy; and how we have lost our sense of the tragic and embraced the idea of zero risk. Already a well-known political thinker in her native France, this is Delsol's first book to appear in English. Icarus Fallen should establish her as one of the most insightful social and cultural writers working on either side of the Atlantic.

    It also presents an engaging political history of the last several decades, including such events as the Spanish Civil War, the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the march on the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. The book highlights Chomsky's views on the uses and misuses of the university as an institution, his assessment of useful political engagement, and his doubts about postmodernism. Because Chomsky is given ample space to articulate his views on many of the major issues relating to his work, both linguistic and political, this book reads like the autobiography that Chomsky says he will never write.Barsky's account reveals the remarkable consistency in Chomsky's interests and principles over the course of his life. The book contains well-placed excerpts from Chomsky's published writings and unpublished correspondence, including the author's own years-long correspondence with Chomsky.*Not for sale in Canada

    Collected for the first time in this volume are Mill's three seminal and most widely read works: "On Liberty, The Subjection of Women, and Utilitarianism," A brilliant defense of individual rights versus the power of the state, "On Liberty" is essential reading for anyone interested in political thought and theory. As Bertrand Russell reflected, "On Liberty remains a classic . . . the present world would be better than it is, if Mill's] principles were more respected." This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes newly commissioned endnotes and commentary by Dale E. Miller, and an index.

    Aristotle wrote an important treatise on it and Demosthenes remains famous to this day for his skills as a rhetorician. But skill with rhetoric today is no longer admired. Rhetoric is often seen as a synonym for shallow, deceptive language-empty words, empty rhetoric--and therefore as something quite negative. But if we view rhetoric in more neutral terms, as the art of persuasion, it is clear that we are all forced to engage with it at some level, if only because we are constantly exposed to the rhetoric of others. In this Very Short Introduction, Richard Toye explores the purpose of rhetoric. Rather than presenting a defense of it, he considers it as the foundation-stone of civil society, and an essential part of any democratic process. Using wide-ranging examples from ancient Greece, medieval Islamic preaching, the wartime speeches of Winston Churchill, and modern cinema, Toye considers why we should all have an appreciation of the art of rhetoric.About the Series:Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

    For this new edition, Lakoff adds a preface and an afterword extending his observations to major ideological conflicts since the book's original publication, from the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the 2000 presidential election and its aftermath.

    In this new edition, John Gray argues that whereas liberalism was the political theory of modernity, it is ill-equipped to cope with the dilemmas of the postmodern condition. The task now, as Gray sees it, is to develop a pluralist theory, in which the liberal problem of finding a modus vivendi among rival communities and worldviews is solved in postliberal terms.Copublished with Open University Press

    While we may be united under one Constitution, separate and distinct states remain, each with its own constitution and culture. Geographic idiosyncrasies add more than just local character. Regional understandings of law and justice have shaped and reshaped our nation throughout history. America's Constitution, our founding and unifying document, looks slightly different in California than it does in Kansas. In The Law of the Land, renowned legal scholar Akhil Reed Amar illustrates how geography, federalism, and regionalism have influenced some of the biggest questions in American constitutional law. Writing about Illinois, "the land of Lincoln," Amar shows how our sixteenth president's ideas about secession were influenced by his Midwestern upbringing and outlook. All of today's Supreme Court justices, Amar notes, learned their law in the Northeast, and New Yorkers of various sorts dominate the judiciary as never before. The curious Bush v. Gore decision, Amar insists, must be assessed with careful attention to Florida law and the Florida Constitution. The second amendment appears in a particularly interesting light, he argues, when viewed from the perspective of Rocky Mountain cowboys and cowgirls. Propelled by Amar's distinctively smart, lucid, and engaging prose, these essays allow general readers to see the historical roots of, and contemporary solutions to, many important constitutional questions. The Law of the Land illuminates our nation's history and politics, and shows how America's various local parts fit together to form a grand federal framework.

    Though it's an ancient art form, the aphorism is as spritely and as apposite as ever. Challenging and subversive, aphorisms deliver the short, sharp shocks of old forgotten truths. They are literature's hand luggage: they're light and compact, you can take them anywhere, and they contain everything you need to get through a rough day at the office or a dark night of the soul. But more than just a literary history, The World in a Phrase is a personal memoir of how aphorisms changed Geary's life--and how, if not for an aphorism by W.H. Auden, he might never have met his wife. In our modern age of drive-through culture, pre-digested soundbites, and manufactured sentiment, The World in a Phrase explores how aphorisms still retain the power to instigate and inspire, enlighten and enrage, entertain and edify.

    By carefully introducing the letters and vowels of the Hebrew alphabet, the goal is to develop the reader's ability to decode written Hebrew words as well as to ground the learning of Hebrew in the broader sense of its use in Jewish life, ritual, study, and tradition. Each chapter introduces two or three Hebrew letters; through instructional drills and exercises, the reader progressively becomes familiar with key Hebrew vocabulary and its role in Jewish tradition, text, and prayer.

    These profound teachings point the way to love, peace, bliss and freedom, encouraging a transformation of consciousness and spiritual awakening.

    They told a story voters longed to hear. And in the absence of greater, more unifying narratives, then true or not, voters plumped for the best story available.Once upon a time our society was rich in stories. They brought us together and helped us to understand the world and ourselves. We called them myths. Today, we have a myth gap – a vacuum that Alex Evans argues powerfully and persuasively is both dangerous and an opportunity. In this time of global crisis and transition– mass migration, inequality, resource scarcity, and climate change - It is stories, rather than facts and pie-charts,that will animate us and bring us together. It is by finding new myths, those that speak to us of renewal and restoration, that we will navigate our way to a better future. Drawing on his first-hand experience as a political adviser within British government and at the United Nations, and examining the history of climate change campaigning and recent contests such as Brexit and the US presidential election, Alex Evans explores: *how tomorrow’s activists are using narratives for change, * how modern stories have been used and abused, * where we might find the right myths that will take us forward

    Once a leading attacker of the Clintons, David is now the progressive movement's pre-eminent defender and truth-teller. In this incisive, personal account, Brock disarms the far-reaching tentacles of the Republican Leviathan: the Koch Brothers, the Clinton-haters and the Fox Noise Machine. With the acumen of a seasoned political player, Brock takes readers inside his Democratic war rooms as they do battle, 24/7, with right-wing forces to shape the stories that will decide who will win the White House in 2016. And finally Brock discloses the real low-down playbook for what conservatives will do in the next election cycle to tear apart Americans and what honest, engaged and informed citizens can do to combat their dirty tricks.

    One of Canada's most revered governors general, David Johnston mines his long life and varied career to give Canadians twenty ways to make themselves, their institutions, and their country more worthy of trust.Many of these habits, attitudes, and approaches stem from his experiences serving as the representative of the head of state in Canada for seven years. Some ways are individual--listen first, never manipulate, be consistent in public and private. Some are geared toward leaders at all levels and of all stripes--be barn-raisers, tell everyone your plans, depend on those around you. And some are societal--apologize, cherish teachers, invite others to dance.As such, not only every Canadian, but also every person who cares about their democratic way of life is wise to heed David Johnston's polite yet pressing call. You can become more worthy of trust. You can spot and encourage this vital quality in others. You can be an instrumental force in restoring trust in your community and country--making them better for yourself and your fellow citizens, and the world better for all.