The Laws That Shaped America

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The Laws That Shaped America

Author : Dennis W. Johnson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 544 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2009-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781135837563

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The Laws That Shaped America by Dennis W. Johnson Pdf

For better and sometimes for worse, Congress is a reflection of the aspirations, wants, and priorities of the American people. It reflects the kaleidoscope of special interests and unselfish service to others, of favors sought and sacrifices made. During each two-year session of Congress, thousands of pieces of legislation are proposed, many hundreds are given serious consideration, but far fewer are eventually enacted into law. Most enactments have limited impact, affect few, and are quietly forgotten in the flow of legislative activity. However, a small number of laws have risen to the level of historical consequence. These are the laws that have shaped America, and they are the subject of this book. Which pieces of legislation were the most significant for the development of the nation? Which have had an immediate or lasting impact on our society? Which laws so affected us that we could not imagine how our lives would be without them? Dennis W. Johnson vividly portrays the story of fifteen major laws enacted over the course of two centuries of American democracy. For each law, he examines the forces and circumstances that led to its enactment--the power struggles between rival interests, the competition between lawmakers and the administration, the compromises and principled stands, and the impact of the legislation and its place in American history.

The Laws That Shaped America

Author : Dennis W. Johnson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 545 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2009-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781135837570

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The Laws That Shaped America by Dennis W. Johnson Pdf

For better and sometimes for worse, Congress is a reflection of the aspirations, wants, and priorities of the American people. It reflects the kaleidoscope of special interests and unselfish service to others, of favors sought and sacrifices made. During each two-year session of Congress, thousands of pieces of legislation are proposed, many hundreds are given serious consideration, but far fewer are eventually enacted into law. Most enactments have limited impact, affect few, and are quietly forgotten in the flow of legislative activity. However, a small number of laws have risen to the level of historical consequence. These are the laws that have shaped America, and they are the subject of this book. Which pieces of legislation were the most significant for the development of the nation? Which have had an immediate or lasting impact on our society? Which laws so affected us that we could not imagine how our lives would be without them? Dennis W. Johnson vividly portrays the story of fifteen major laws enacted over the course of two centuries of American democracy. For each law, he examines the forces and circumstances that led to its enactment--the power struggles between rival interests, the competition between lawmakers and the administration, the compromises and principled stands, and the impact of the legislation and its place in American history.

Laws that Changed America

Author : Jules Archer
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 1967
Category : Law
ISBN : LCCN:ac68003078

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Laws that Changed America by Jules Archer Pdf

Examines 169 laws enacted by Congress to provide Americans with greater opportunity or protection in banking, natural resources, the draft, civil rights, labor, business, and many other areas.

Laws that Changed America

Author : Jules Archer
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2017-06-27
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781510707092

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Laws that Changed America by Jules Archer Pdf

Jules Archer begins with laws that opened up America—public lands and homesteading—and continues with banking, the Bill of Rights, subversion and sedition, foreign policy. Natural resources, labor, business, education and welfare, farming, Prohibition, the New Deal, the draft and G. I. Bills, slavery and civil rights. Archer chronicles the history of laws in America. Each chapter opens with a dramatic incident, and then develops the laws relating to it. Brisk up-to-date, authoritative, informative—this volume will be valuable a supplementary reading in the classroom, as well as a welcome addition to libraries across the country. Readers of all ages will find this an exciting approach to what is usually considered difficult material.

Law in America

Author : Lawrence M. Friedman
Publisher : Modern Library
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2004-10-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812972856

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Law in America by Lawrence M. Friedman Pdf

Throughout America’s history, our laws have been a reflection of who we are, of what we value, of who has control. They embody our society’s genetic code. In the masterful hands of the subject’s greatest living historian, the story of the evolution of our laws serves to lay bare the deciding struggles over power and justice that have shaped this country from its birth pangs to the present. Law in America is a supreme example of the historian’s art, its brevity a testament to the great elegance and wit of its composition.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Author : Richard Rothstein
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2017-05-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781631492860

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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein Pdf

New York Times Bestseller • Notable Book of the Year • Editors' Choice Selection One of Bill Gates’ “Amazing Books” of the Year One of Publishers Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the Hillman Prize for Nonfiction Gold Winner • California Book Award (Nonfiction) Finalist • Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) Finalist • Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize This “powerful and disturbing history” exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review). Widely heralded as a “masterful” (Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers “the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation” (William Julius Wilson). Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.

Law in America

Author : Lawrence M. Friedman
Publisher : Modern Library
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2002-07-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781588362506

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Law in America by Lawrence M. Friedman Pdf

“Law in America is a little gem. It is a peerless introduction to our legal history—concise, clear, tellingly told, and beautifully written. The greatest living historian of American law has done it again.” —Stanley N. Katz, former president of the American Society for Legal History and the Organization of American Historians “All societies have laws, but neither all laws nor all legal systems are alike. No one has thought more deeply or written more clearly about the peculiar role of law in American life than Lawrence Friedman. In this trenchant, illuminating book, he distills a lifetime of scholarship and teaching into a concise and provocative explanation of the role that law has played in shaping the distinctive contours of American history and culture.” —David M. Kennedy, professor of history at Stanford University and author of Freedom from Fear Throughout America’s history, our laws have been a reflection of who we are, of what we value, of who has control. They embody our society’s genetic code. In the masterful hands of the subject’s greatest living historian, the story of the evolution of our laws serves to lay bare the deciding struggles over power and justice that have shaped this country from its birth pangs to the present. Law in America is a supreme example of the historian’s art, its brevity a testament to the great elegance and wit of its composition.

The Law of the Land

Author : Akhil Reed Amar
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2015-04-14
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780465065899

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The Law of the Land by Akhil Reed Amar Pdf

From Kennebunkport to Kauai, from the Rio Grande to the Northern Rockies, ours is a vast republic. 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.

Court-Martial: How Military Justice Has Shaped America from the Revolution to 9/11 and Beyond

Author : Chris Bray
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2016-05-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780393243413

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Court-Martial: How Military Justice Has Shaped America from the Revolution to 9/11 and Beyond by Chris Bray Pdf

A timely, provocative account of how military justice has shaped American society since the nation’s beginnings. Historian and former soldier Chris Bray tells the sweeping story of military justice from the earliest days of the republic to contemporary arguments over using military courts to try foreign terrorists or soldiers accused of sexual assault. Stretching from the American Revolution to 9/11, Court-Martial recounts the stories of famous American court-martials, including those involving President Andrew Jackson, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Lieutenant Jackie Robinson, and Private Eddie Slovik. Bray explores how encounters of freed slaves with the military justice system during the Civil War anticipated the civil rights movement, and he explains how the Uniform Code of Military Justice came about after World War II. With a great eye for narrative, Bray hones in on the human elements of these stories, from Revolutionary-era militiamen demanding the right to participate in political speech as citizens, to black soldiers risking their lives during the Civil War to demand fair pay, to the struggles over the court-martial of Lieutenant William Calley and the events of My Lai during the Vietnam War. Throughout, Bray presents readers with these unvarnished voices and his own perceptive commentary. Military justice may be separate from civilian justice, but it is thoroughly entwined with American society. As Bray reminds us, the history of American military justice is inextricably the history of America, and Court-Martial powerfully documents the many ways that the separate justice system of the armed forces has served as a proxy for America’s ongoing arguments over equality, privacy, discrimination, security, and liberty.

A Court That Shaped America

Author : Richard Cahan
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2002-12-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9780810119819

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A Court That Shaped America by Richard Cahan Pdf

A revealing account of the court that put Chicago in the headlines

Political Groups, Parties, and Organizations That Shaped America [3 volumes]

Author : Scott H. Ainsworth Ph.D.,Brian M. Harward
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 1005 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2019-07-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9798216129424

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Political Groups, Parties, and Organizations That Shaped America [3 volumes] by Scott H. Ainsworth Ph.D.,Brian M. Harward Pdf

This three-volume set explores the multiple roles that parties and interest groups have played in American politics from the nation's beginnings to the present. This set serves as an essential resource for analyzing the emergence and impact of parties and interest groups in the American political system and for understanding the systematic and structural bases for interest group and party behavior. Volume One opens with an introduction by the editors that provides a general overview of the eras and identifies important themes and events, laying a foundation on which the subsequent essays and primary documents for each interest group or political party builds. Narrative essays focus on how specific parties or interest groups have shaped or reflect a particular set of events or general themes in each of the eras in American political history. Topical entries reflect key themes developed throughout the volumes. Entries range from important founding groups and parties to contemporary political action committees and policy advocacy groups. The set also includes primary source documents (e.g., letters, platform documents, court decisions, flyers, etc.) that reveal important dimensions of the corresponding group's political influence.

Judgment Days

Author : Nick Kotz
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 556 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0618641831

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Judgment Days by Nick Kotz Pdf

Opposites in almost every way, mortally suspicious of each other at first, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., were thrust together in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Both men sensed a historic opportunity and began a delicate dance of accommodation that moved them, and the entire nation, toward the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on a wealth of newly available sources -- Johnson's taped telephone conversations, voluminous FBI wiretap logs, previously secret communications between the FBI and the president -- Nick Kotz gives us a dramatic narrative, rich in dialogue, that presents this momentous period with thrilling immediacy. Judgment Days offers needed perspective on a presidency too often linked solely to the tragedy of Vietnam.We watch Johnson applying the arm-twisting tactics that made him a legend in the Senate, and we follow King as he keeps the pressure on in the South through protest and passive resistance. King's pragmatism and strategic leadership and Johnson's deeply held commitment to a just society shaped the character of their alliance. Kotz traces the inexorable convergence of their paths to an intense joint effort that made civil rights a legislative reality at last, despite FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's vicious whispering campaign to destroy King.Judgment Days also reveals how this spirit of teamwork disintegrated. The two leaders parted bitterly over King's opposition to the Vietnam War. In this first full account of the working relationship between Johnson and King, Kotz offers a detailed, surprising account that significantly enriches our understanding of both men and their time.

American Exceptionalism

Author : Hilde Eliassen Restad
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2014-12-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781135048587

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American Exceptionalism by Hilde Eliassen Restad Pdf

How does American exceptionalism shape American foreign policy? Conventional wisdom states that American exceptionalism comes in two variations – the exemplary version and the missionary version. Being exceptional, experts in U.S. foreign policy argue, means that you either withdraw from the world like an isolated but inspiring "city upon a hill," or that you are called upon to actively lead the rest of the world to a better future. In her book, Hilde Eliassen Restad challenges this assumption, arguing that U.S. history has displayed a remarkably constant foreign policy tradition, which she labels unilateral internationalism. The United States, Restad argues, has not vacillated between an "exemplary" and a "missionary" identity. Instead, the United States developed an exceptionalist identity that, while idealizing the United States as an exemplary "city upon a hill," more often than not errs on the side of the missionary crusade in its foreign policy. Utilizing the latest historiography in the study of U.S. foreign relations, the book updates political science scholarship and sheds new light on the role American exceptionalism has played – and continues to play – in shaping America’s role in the world. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of US foreign policy, security studies, and American politics.

American Contagions

Author : John Fabian Witt
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2020-08-31
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780300257779

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American Contagions by John Fabian Witt Pdf

A concise history of how American law has shaped—and been shaped by—the experience of contagion“Contrarians and the civic-minded alike will find Witt’s legal survey a fascinating resource”—Kirkus, starred review “Professor Witt’s book is an original and thoughtful contribution to the interdisciplinary study of disease and American law. Although he covers the broad sweep of the American experience of epidemics from yellow fever to COVID-19, he is especially timely in his exploration of the legal background to the current disaster of the American response to the coronavirus. A thought-provoking, readable, and important work.”—Frank Snowden, author of Epidemics and Society From yellow fever to smallpox to polio to AIDS to COVID-19, epidemics have prompted Americans to make choices and answer questions about their basic values and their laws. In five concise chapters, historian John Fabian Witt traces the legal history of epidemics, showing how infectious disease has both shaped, and been shaped by, the law. Arguing that throughout American history legal approaches to public health have been liberal for some communities and authoritarian for others, Witt shows us how history’s answers to the major questions brought up by previous epidemics help shape our answers today: What is the relationship between individual liberty and the common good? What is the role of the federal government, and what is the role of the states? Will long-standing traditions of government and law give way to the social imperatives of an epidemic? Will we let the inequities of our mixed tradition continue?

1001 People Who Made America

Author : Alan Axelrod, Ph.D.
Publisher : National Geographic Books
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2008-02-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781426202681

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1001 People Who Made America by Alan Axelrod, Ph.D. Pdf

Who are the pivotal figures in American history, the men and women who have helped shape us as a people and have influenced how we perceive ourselves as Americans? In this companion to his popular 1001 Events That Made America, Alan Axelrod looks into all areas of our collective past and highlights the famous as well as the infamous, the virtuous as well as the notorious, from the nation’s earliest days to the present. Serving up history in lively, accessible bites, the book presents a Who’s Who in American politics, arts, science, business, religion, and pop culture, along with concise explanations of each figure’s historical significance. Featured personalities range from Jesse James to Al Capone, Harriet Beecher Stowe to Betty Friedan, George Washington to George W. Bush, Harriet Tubman to Martin Luther King, Jr., Stephen Foster to Elvis, John L. Sullivan to Muhammad Ali, Edwin Booth to Marlon Brando, Washington Irving to Thomas Pynchon, and John Jacob Astor to Bill Gates. Packed with information and insight, 1001 People Who Made America gives readers a deeper understanding of what it means to be an American. The appealing design and easy-to-read format invite browsing and sharing.