We the People, Volume 3 PDF Download

Author: Bruce Ackerman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067441649X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
The Civil Rights Revolution carries Bruce Ackerman's sweeping reinterpretation of constitutional history into the era beginning with Brown v Board of Education. Laws that ended Jim Crow and ensured equal rights at work, in schools, and in the voting booth gained congressional approval only after the American people mobilized their support.

Author: Bruce Ackerman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674003977
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
Constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, and refined, has in fact been a revolutionary process from the first, as Bruce Ackerman makes clear in We the People: Transformations. The Founding Fathers, hardly the genteel conservatives of myth, set America on a remarkable course of revolutionary disruption and constitutional creativity that endures to this day. After the bloody sacrifices of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party revolutionized the traditional system of constitutional amendment as they put principles of liberty and equality into higher law. Another wrenching transformation occurred during the Great Depression, when Franklin Roosevelt and his New Dealers vindicated a new vision of activist government against an assault by the Supreme Court. These are the crucial episodes in American constitutional history that Ackerman takes up in this second volume of a trilogy hailed as "one of the most important contributions to American constitutional thought in the last half-century" (Cass Sunstein, New Republic). In each case he shows how the American people--whether led by the Founding Federalists or the Lincoln Republicans or the Roosevelt Democrats--have confronted the Constitution in its moments of great crisis with dramatic acts of upheaval, always in the name of popular sovereignty. A thoroughly new way of understanding constitutional development, We the People: Transformations reveals how America's "dualist democracy" provides for these populist upheavals that amend the Constitution, often without formalities. The book also sets contemporary events, such as the Reagan Revolution and Roe v. Wade, in deeper constitutional perspective. In this context Ackerman exposes basic constitutional problems inherited from the New Deal Revolution and exacerbated by the Reagan Revolution, then considers the fundamental reforms that might resolve them. A bold challenge to formalist and fundamentalist views, this volume demonstrates that ongoing struggle over America's national identity, rather than consensus, marks its constitutional history.

Author: Bruce Ackerman
Publisher: Harvard + ORM
ISBN: 0674261364
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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“Audacious . . . offers a fierce critique of democracy’s most dangerous adversary: the abuse of democratic power by democratically elected chief executives.” (Benjamin R. Barber, New York Times bestselling author of Jihad vs. McWorld ) Bruce Ackerman shows how the institutional dynamics of the last half-century have transformed the American presidency into a potential platform for political extremism and lawlessness. Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the War on Terror are only symptoms of deeper pathologies. Ackerman points to a series of developments that have previously been treated independently of one another?from the rise of presidential primaries, to the role of pollsters and media gurus, to the centralization of power in White House czars, to the politicization of the military, to the manipulation of constitutional doctrine to justify presidential power-grabs. He shows how these different transformations can interact to generate profound constitutional crises in the twenty-first century?and then proposes a series of reforms that will minimize, if not eliminate, the risks going forward. “The questions [Ackerman] raises regarding the threat of the American Executive to the republic are daunting. This fascinating book does an admirable job of laying them out.” —The Rumpus “Ackerman worries that the office of the presidency will continue to grow in political influence in the coming years, opening possibilities for abuse of power if not outright despotism.” —Boston Globe “A serious attention-getter.” —Joyce Appleby, author of The Relentless Revolution “Those who care about the future of our nation should pay careful heed to Ackerman’s warning, as well as to his prescriptions for avoiding a constitutional disaster.” —Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times

Author: Margaret Canovan
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745628222
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Political myths surround the figure of the people and help to explain its influence; should the people itself be regarded as fictional? This original and accessible study sheds a fresh light on debates about popular sovereignty, and will be an important resource for students and scholars of political theory.

Author: Bruce Ackerman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674238842
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
A robust defense of democratic populism by one of America’s most renowned and controversial constitutional scholars—the award-winning author of We the People. Populism is a threat to the democratic world, fuel for demagogues and reactionary crowds—or so its critics would have us believe. But in his award-winning trilogy We the People, Bruce Ackerman showed that Americans have repeatedly rejected this view. Now he draws on a quarter century of scholarship in this essential and surprising inquiry into the origins, successes, and threats to revolutionary constitutionalism around the world. He takes us to India, South Africa, Italy, France, Poland, Burma, Israel, and Iran and provides a blow-by-blow account of the tribulations that confronted popular movements in their insurgent campaigns for constitutional democracy. Despite their many differences, populist leaders such as Nehru, Mandela, and de Gaulle encountered similar dilemmas at critical turning points, and each managed something overlooked but essential. Rather than deploy their charismatic leadership to retain power, they instead used it to confer legitimacy to the citizens and institutions of constitutional democracy. Ackerman returns to the United States in his last chapter to provide new insights into the Founders’ acts of constitutional statesmanship as they met very similar challenges to those confronting populist leaders today. In the age of Trump, the democratic system of checks and balances will not survive unless ordinary citizens rally to its defense. Revolutionary Constitutions shows how activists can learn from their predecessors’ successes and profit from their mistakes, and sets up Ackerman’s next volume, which will address how elites and insiders co-opt and destroy the momentum of revolutionary movements.

Author: Scott Kelby
Publisher: Pearson Education
ISBN: 0321934946
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Furnishes an overview of digital photography, covering such topics as cameras, exposure, lighting, shutter speed, depth of field, and resolution--and tips on how to avoid hours of photo-editing by taking great photographs the first time.

Author: Vanessa B. Beasley
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603442987
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
New in paperback As we ask anew in these troubled times what it means to be an American, You, the People provides perspective by casting its eye over the answers given by past U.S. presidents in their addresses to the public. Who is an American, and who is not? And yet, as Vanessa Beasley demonstrates in this eloquent exploration of a century of presidential speeches, the questions are not new. Since the Founders first identified the nation as “we, the people,” the faces and accents of U.S. citizens have changed dramatically due to immigration and other constitutive changes. U.S. presidents have often spoken as if there were one monolithic American people. Here Beasley traces rhetorical constructions of American national identity in presidents’ inaugural addresses and state of the union messages from 1885 through 2000. She argues convincingly that while the demographics of the voting citizenry changed rapidly during this period, presidential definitions of American national identity did not. Chief executives have consistently employed a rhetoric of American nationalism that is simultaneously inclusive and exclusive; Beasley examines both the genius and the limitations of this language.

Author: Jacqueline Noll Zimmerman
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 1417503351
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
The stigmatization of mental illness in film has been well documented in literature. Little has been written, however, about the ability of movies to portray mental illness sympathetically and accurately. People Like Ourselves: Portrayals of Mental Illness in the Movies fills that void with a close look at mental illness in more than seventy American movies, beginning with classics such as The Snake Pit and Now, Voyager and including such contemporary successes as A Beautiful Mind and As Good as It Gets. Films by legendary directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and John Cassavetes are included. Through the examination of universal themes relating to one's self and society, the denial of reality, the role of women, creativity, war, and violence, Zimmerman argues that these ground-breaking films defy stereotypes, presenting sympathetic portraits of people who are mentally ill, and advance the movie-going public's understanding of mental illness, while providing insight into its causes, diagnosis, and treatment. More importantly, they portray mentally ill people as ordinary people with conflicts and desires common to everyone. Like the motion pictures it revisits, this fascinating book offers insight, entertainment, and a sense of understanding.

Author: Nancy Shapiro
Publisher: Empowering Alphabets
ISBN: 0711264805
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
No matter who they are or where they come from, everyone deserves the right to have their say. This is called a democracy. An ABC of Democracy introduces complicated concepts to the youngest of children.

Author: Bruce Ackerman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674018662
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Based on seven years of archival research, the book describes previously unknown aspects of the electoral college crisis of 1800, presenting a revised understanding of the early days of two great institutions that continue to have a major impact on American history: the plebiscitarian presidency and a Supreme Court that struggles to put the presidency's claims of a popular mandate into constitutional perspective. Through close studies of two Supreme Court cases, Ackerman shows how the court integrated Federalist and Republican themes into the living Constitution of the early republic.