Product Description: A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams presents a collection of original historiographic essays contributed by leading historians that cover diverse aspects of the lives and politics of John and John Quincy Adams and their spouses, Abigail and Louisa Catherine...read more

Product Description: This companion provides a comprehensive survey of the life, work and legacy of Benjamin Franklin - the oldest, most distinctive, and multifaceted of the founders. Includes contributions from across a range of academic disciplines Combines traditional and cutting-edge scholarship, from accomplished and emerging experts in the field Pays special attention to the American Revolution, the Enlightenment, journalism, colonial American society, and themes of race, class, and gender Places Franklin in the context of recent work in political theory, American Studies, American literature, material culture studies, popular culture, and international relations...read more

Taking on decades of received wisdom, David Waldstreicher has written the first book to recognize slavery’s place at the heart of the U.S. Constitution. Famously, the Constitution never mentions slavery. And yet, of its eighty-four clauses, six were directly concerned with slaves and the interests of their owners. Five other clauses had implications for slavery that were considered and debated by the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the citizens of the states during ratification. This “peculiar institution” was not a moral blind spot for America’s otherwise enlightened framers, nor was it the expression of a mere economic interest. Slavery was as important to the making of the Constitution as the Constitution was to the survival of slavery. By tracing slavery from before the revolution, through the Constitution’s framing, and into the public debate that followed, Waldstreicher rigorously shows that slavery was not only actively discussed behind the closed and locked doors of the Constitutional Convention, but that it was also deftly woven into the Constitution itself. For one thing, slavery was central to the American economy, and since the document set the stage for a national economy, the Constitution could not avoid having implications for slavery. Even more, since the government defined sovereignty over individuals, as well as property in them, discussion of sovereignty led directly to debate over slavery’s place in the new republic. Finding meaning in silences that have long been ignored, Slavery’s Constitution is a vital and sorely needed contribution to the conversation about the origins, impact, and meaning of our nation’s founding document.

Product Description: Now an established classic, Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism was the first book to explore this alternative current of American political thought. Stemming back to the seventeenth-century English Revolution, many questioned private property, the sovereignty of the nation-state, and slavery, and affirmed the common man's ability to govern...read more

Product Description: Scientist, abolitionist, revolutionary: that is the Benjamin Franklin we know and celebrate. To this description, the talented young historian David Waldstreicher shows we must add runaway, slave master, and empire builder. But Runaway America does much more than revise our image of a beloved founding father...read more

In pursuit of a more sophisticated and inclusive American history, the contributors to Beyond the Founders propose new directions for the study of the political history of the republic before the Civil War. In ways formal and informal, symbolic and tactile, this political world encompassed blacks, women, entrepreneurs, and Native Americans, as well as the Adamses, Jeffersons, and Jacksons, all struggling in their own ways to shape the new nation and express their ideas of American democracy.Taking inspiration from the new cultural and social histories, these political historians show that the early history of the United States was not just the product of a few "founding fathers," but was also marked by widespread and passionate popular involvement; print media more politically potent than that of later eras; and political conflicts and influences that crossed lines of race, gender, and class.Contributors:John L. Brooke, The Ohio State University Andrew R. L. Cayton, Miami University (Ohio)Saul Cornell, The Ohio State UniversitySeth Cotlar, Willamette UniversityReeve Huston, Duke University Nancy Isenberg, University of TulsaRichard R. John, University of Illinois at ChicagoAlbrecht Koschnik, Florida State University Rich Newman, Rochester Institute of TechnologyJeffrey L. Pasley, University of Missouri, ColumbiaAndrew W. Robertson, City University of New YorkWilliam G. Shade, Lehigh UniversityDavid Waldstreicher, Temple UniversityRosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University

Product Description: Thomas Jefferson published one book, Notes on the State of Virginia, and ever since, it has been the touchstone for understanding Jefferson's ideas about republican government, the environment, education, race and slavery, and Native-white relations...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Presents and places in context original illustrations and documents about the origins of slavery, African Americans in the Revolution, antislavery movements, various types of resistance, and the coming of emancipation. (view table of contents)

Product Description: In this innovative study, David Waldstreicher investigates the importance of political festivals in the early American republic. Drawing on newspapers, broadsides, diaries, and letters, he shows how patriotic celebrations and their reproduction in a rapidly expanding print culture helped connect local politics to national identity...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

A biography of the political activist who was imprisoned and deported for advocating such causes as anarchism, birth control, women's rights, and for opposing the draft during World War I

Discusses the history, culture, and religion of the Aremenians, factors encouraging their emigration, and their acceptance as an ethnic group in North America.