Beginning with the debate between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton over the future of the nation and continuing through the Civil War, the New Deal, the Reagan Revolution, and Obama and the Tea Party, many pols have asked, "What would the Founders do?" instead of "What is the common good today?" Recently, both the Right and the Left have used the Founders to sort through such issues as voting rights, campaign finance, free speech, gun control, taxes, and war and peace. They have used an outdated context to make sense of contemporary concerns. This oversimplification obscures our real issues. From Jefferson to this very day we have looked to the eighteenth century to solve our problems, even though the Fathers themselves were a querulous and divided group who rarely agreed. Coming to terms with the past, David Sehat suggests, would be the start of a productive debate. And in this account, which is by turns informative, colorful, and witty, he shows us why.

Product Description: It may be surprising to even history buffs that Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were at odds for years after the American Revolution. Each held tightly to their opposing views of how the new nation should be governed...read more

Product Description: Before the advent of modern antibiotics, one’s life could be abruptly shattered by contagion and death, and debility from infectious diseases and epidemics was commonplace for early Americans, regardless of social status. Concerns over health affected the founding fathers and their families as it did slaves, merchants, immigrants, and everyone else in North America...read more

Product Description: Women of the Constitution follows in the footsteps of the 1912 work The Wives of the Signers, which was devoted to biographical sketches of the spouses of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. This new publication will be the first work devoted exclusively to brief biographies of the forty-three wives of the signers of the U...read more

Product Description: According to most versions of history, America’s founders were united in their moderate political philosophy. But in fact the Revolution was nearly derailed by extremists who wanted to transform the entire society. If not for a small circle of conservatives who kept radicalism in check and promoted capitalism, a strong military, and the preservation of tradition, our country would be vastly different today...read more

Product Description: This book is about values and principles that have formed the backbone of the exceptionality of America. These values and principles have shaped the way leadership in America has evolved and prescribed the way leaders have practiced their craft...read more

Professor Brion McClanahan shows how patriots like Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton laid the foundations of American civil liberty and had a better understanding of the problems facing us today than does our current Congress. This brand new P.I. Guide will vindicate our Founding Fathers and hold them up for what they truly are: the pillars of American society.

Product Description: Why do Americans care so much about the Founding Fathers? After all, the French don't ask themselves, "What would Napoleon do?" But Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Adams built our country, wrote our user's manuals--the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution--and ran the nation while it was still under warranty and could be returned to the manufacturer...read more