Download or read book Disunion written by Elizabeth R. Varon and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades of the early republic, Americans debating the fate of slavery often invoked the specter of disunion to frighten their opponents. As Elizabeth Varon shows, "disunion" connoted the dissolution of the republic--the failure of the founders' effort to establish a stable and lasting representative government. For many Americans in both the North and the South, disunion was a nightmare, a cataclysm that would plunge the nation into the kind of fear and misery that seemed to pervade the rest of the world. For many others, however, disunion was seen as the main instrument by which they could achieve their partisan and sectional goals. Varon blends political history with intellectual, cultural, and gender history to examine the ongoing debates over disunion that long preceded the secession crisis of 1860-61.
Download or read book The State of Disunion written by Nicole Mellow and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008-05-05 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are some eras of American politics characterized by broad, bipartisan harmony and others by rancorous partisanship? In The State of Disunion, Nicole Mellow argues that these oscillations are a product of how the two major parties respond, or fail to respond, to the demands of regional constituents. While scholars have long believed that in the twentieth century the nation supplanted regions as the engine of American politics, Mellow uncovers a contrary dynamic. She shows the ways that the clashes and confluences of regional interests reconstruct the nation. By giving regions pride of place, The State of Disunion offers a compelling explanation of how America went from the consensus of the early post-World War II decades to a fractured, "red versus blue" country at the close of the twentieth century. According to Mellow, regions remain a vital consideration in electoral battles because they fuse material and ideological expectations of voters. This wide-ranging analysis of congressional battles over trade, welfare, and abortion since the 1960s demonstrates how regional economic, racial, and cultural divisions have configured national party building and today's legislative conflicts and how these divisions will continue to shape American politics for years to come. The State of Disunion broadens social scientists' understanding of American politics by displaying the conceptual insights of political geography combined with the rich tapestry of political history. Mellow offers a new way to comprehend the meaning and significance of American partisanship for our time and for the future.
Download or read book Apostles of Disunion written by Charles B. Dew and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Dew’s Apostles of Disunion has established itself as a modern classic and an indispensable account of the Southern states’ secession from the Union. Addressing topics still hotly debated among historians and the public at large more than a century and a half after the Civil War, the book offers a compelling and clearly substantiated argument that slavery and race were at the heart of our great national crisis. The fifteen years since the original publication of Apostles of Disunion have seen an intensification of debates surrounding the Confederate flag and Civil War monuments. In a powerful new afterword to this anniversary edition, Dew situates the book in relation to these recent controversies and factors in the role of vast financial interests tied to the internal slave trade in pushing Virginia and other upper South states toward secession and war.
Download or read book The State of Our Disunion written by Eugene Goodheart and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US Constitution resists centralizing authority by granting equal power to the three branches of government, as well as the individual states. The risk inherent in the separation of powers is that the absence of a spirit of compromise can lead to the disintegration of the union. Eugene Good heart argues that the current union is in peril due to an unwillingness to cooperate on the part of contending parties. He explains how and why it has reached this point, while identifying common ground between thoughtful liberals and conservatives.Ironically, President Barack Obama, who from the outset affirmed the spirit of compromise and union, has governed in a time marked by apparently irreconcilable conflict between and within parties, and the branches of the government. Those on the extremes of the political spectrum view compromise as weakness and a lack of conviction, while those in the middle view it as necessary. Good heart argues that principle and compromise are not antagonists. He also describes the media's role in shaping and distorting public perception of political realities.Many themes that preoccupy our politics and will doubtless continue to do so in the future are addressed in this work, including gross income inequality, governmental regulation of the market, the US's role as superpower, and the relationship between liberty and equality. This book will be of interest to those concerned about contemporary political life.
Download or read book Disunion written by Nu-Anh Tran and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1950s, the domestic politics of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) has puzzled outside observers. To these external analysts, the American-backed regime seemed to be plagued by instability and factionalism for no apparent reason. Their bewilderment, however, has obscured a deep and complex history. In Disunion, Nu-Anh Tran shows how factional struggles in the Saigon-based republic reflected serious disagreements about political ideas at a pivotal moment in the lead-up to the Vietnam War. The book traces the emergence of Vietnam’s anticommunist nationalists back to the struggle for independence and explores how their alliances were tested and then broken during the rule of the RVN’s first president, Ngô Đình Diệm. The anticommunists rejected the authoritarianism and ideology of the Vietnamese communists and dreamed of building an independent, democratic government that would unite the Vietnamese nation. The RVN was supposed to be the fulfillment of this long-cherished vision. But discord soon erupted among the anticommunists. Politicians fiercely debated to what extent the government should be democratic and which groups had a legitimate place in political life. The unresolved disagreements provoked intense and continuous infighting that troubled the RVN throughout the regime’s existence. Ultimately, the animosity undermined any possibility of realizing the anticommunists’ shared vision for the country. Based on previously neglected primary sources and extensive research in Vietnamese and American archives, Disunion paints a rich and sensitive portrayal of leaders and activists in the RVN. Anticommunist nationalists were deeply devoted to their homeland and inspired by forward-looking visions, but they were also hobbled by their failure to live up to their lofty ideals. By examining these historical figures on their own terms, the book offers a fresh perspective on the political history of South Vietnam that has remained misunderstood to this day.
Download or read book The State of Our Disunion written by Eugene Goodheart and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US Constitution resists centralizing authority by granting equal power to the three branches of government, as well as the individual states. The risk inherent in the separation of powers is that the absence of a spirit of compromise can lead to the disintegration of the union. Eugene Good heart argues that the current union is in peril due to an unwillingness to cooperate on the part of contending parties. He explains how and why it has reached this point, while identifying common ground between thoughtful liberals and conservatives.Ironically, President Barack Obama, who from the outset affirmed the spirit of compromise and union, has governed in a time marked by apparently irreconcilable conflict between and within parties, and the branches of the government. Those on the extremes of the political spectrum view compromise as weakness and a lack of conviction, while those in the middle view it as necessary. Good heart argues that principle and compromise are not antagonists. He also describes the media's role in shaping and distorting public perception of political realities.Many themes that preoccupy our politics and will doubtless continue to do so in the future are addressed in this work, including gross income inequality, governmental regulation of the market, the US's role as superpower, and the relationship between liberty and equality. This book will be of interest to those concerned about contemporary political life.
Download or read book American Nationalisms written by Benjamin E. Park and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces how early Americans imagined what a 'nation' meant during the first fifty years of the country's existence.
Download or read book The State of Disunion written by Nicole Mellow and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008-04-04 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are some eras of American politics characterized by broad, bipartisan harmony and others by rancorous partisanship? In The State of Disunion, Nicole Mellow argues that these oscillations are a product of how the two major parties respond, or fail to respond, to the demands of regional constituents. While scholars have long believed that in the twentieth century the nation supplanted regions as the engine of American politics, Mellow uncovers a contrary dynamic. She shows the ways that the clashes and confluences of regional interests reconstruct the nation. By giving regions pride of place, The State of Disunion offers a compelling explanation of how America went from the consensus of the early post-World War II decades to a fractured, "red versus blue" country at the close of the twentieth century. According to Mellow, regions remain a vital consideration in electoral battles because they fuse material and ideological expectations of voters. This wide-ranging analysis of congressional battles over trade, welfare, and abortion since the 1960s demonstrates how regional economic, racial, and cultural divisions have configured national party building and today's legislative conflicts and how these divisions will continue to shape American politics for years to come. The State of Disunion broadens social scientists' understanding of American politics by displaying the conceptual insights of political geography combined with the rich tapestry of political history. Mellow offers a new way to comprehend the meaning and significance of American partisanship for our time and for the future.
Download or read book Disunion Within the Union written by Larry Wolff and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1772 and 1795, Russia, Prussia, and Austria concluded agreements to annex and eradicate the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. With the partitioning of Poland, the dioceses of the Uniate Church (later known as the Greek Catholic Church) were fractured by the borders of three regional hegemons. Larry Wolff's deeply engaging account of these events delves into the politics of the Episcopal elite, the Vatican, and the three rulers behind the partitions: Catherine II of Russia, Frederick II of Prussia, and Joseph II of Austria. Wolff uses correspondence with bishops in the Uniate Church and ministerial communiqus to reveal the nature of state policy as it unfolded. Disunion within the Union adopts methodologies from the history of popular culture pioneered by Natalie Zemon Davis (The Return of Martin Guerre) and Carlo Ginzburg (The Cheese and the Worms) to explore religious experience on a popular level, especially questions of confessional identity and practices of piety. This detailed study of the responses of common Uniate parishioners, as well as of their bishops and hierarchs, to the pressure of the partitions paints a vivid portrait of conflict, accommodation, and survival in a church subject to the grand designs of the late eighteenth century's premier absolutist powers.
Download or read book State Out of the Union written by Jeff Biggers and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the biggest issues facing Arizona--including immigration, guns, health care, the Tea Party and vigilantism--and how a radicalized Arizona has become a national bellwether.
Download or read book Acts of Union and Disunion written by Linda Colley and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United Kingdom; Great Britain; the British Isles; the Home Nations: such a wealth of different names implies uncertainty and contention - and an ability to invent and adjust. In a year that sees a Scottish referendum on independence, Linda Colley analyses some of the forces that have unified Britain in the past. She examines the mythology of Britishness, and how far - and why - it has faded. She discusses the Acts of Union with Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and their limitations, while scrutinizing England's own fractures. And she demonstrates how the UK has been shaped by movement: of British people to other countries and continents, and of people, ideas and influences arriving from elsewhere. As acts of union and disunion again become increasingly relevant to our daily lives and politics, Colley considers how - if at all - the pieces might be put together anew, and what this might mean. Based on a 15-part BBC Radio 4 series.
Download or read book Performing Disunion written by Lawrence T. McDonnell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-30 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces how and why the secession of the South during the American Civil War was accomplished at ground level through the actions of ordinary men. Adopting a micro-historical approach, Lawrence T. McDonnell works to connect small events in new ways - he places one company of the secessionist Minutemen in historical context, exploring the political and cultural dynamics of their choices. Every chapter presents little-known characters whose lives and decisions were crucial to the history of Southern disunion. McDonnell asks readers to consider the past with fresh eyes, analyzing the structure and dynamics of social networks and social movements. He presents the dissolution of the Union through new events, actors, issues, and ideas, illuminating the social contradictions that cast the South's most conservative city as the radical heart of Dixie.
Download or read book Divided We Fall written by David French and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David French warns of the potential dangers to the country—and the world—if we don’t summon the courage to reconcile our political differences. Two decades into the 21st Century, the U.S. is less united than at any time in our history since the Civil War. We are more diverse in our beliefs and culture than ever before. But red and blue states, secular and religious groups, liberal and conservative idealists, and Republican and Democratic representatives all have one thing in common: each believes their distinct cultures and liberties are being threatened by an escalating violent opposition. This polarized tribalism, espoused by the loudest, angriest fringe extremists on both the left and the right, dismisses dialogue as appeasement; if left unchecked, it could very well lead to secession. An engaging mix of cutting edge research and fair-minded analysis, Divided We Fall is an unblinking look at the true dimensions and dangers of this widening ideological gap, and what could happen if we don't take steps toward bridging it. French reveals chilling, plausible scenarios of how the United States could fracture into regions that will not only weaken the country but destabilize the world. But our future is not written in stone. By implementing James Madison’s vision of pluralism—that all people have the right to form communities representing their personal values—we can prevent oppressive factions from seizing absolute power and instead maintain everyone’s beliefs and identities across all fifty states. Reestablishing national unity will require the bravery to commit ourselves to embracing qualities of kindness, decency, and grace towards those we disagree with ideologically. French calls on all of us to demonstrate true tolerance so we can heal the American divide. If we want to remain united, we must learn to stand together again.
Download or read book European Disunion written by Stefan Auer and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European Union means many different things to its many peoples. In Germany, for example, the European project was conceived mainly as post-national, or even post-sovereign. In France, by contrast, President Emmanuel Macron has pursued the vision of a sovereign Europe; that is, an EU that would become a formidable geopolitical actor. Yet, instead, Europe has struggled to ascertain its values abroad and even domestically, facing a sovereignist rebellion from its newer member states, such as Hungary and Poland, and the departure of Britain. The eurozone crisis has undermined the EU’s economic credentials, the refugee crisis its societal cohesion, the failure to stand up to Russia its sense of purpose, and the Covid-19 pandemic its credibility as a protector of European citizens. The key argument of this book is that the multiple crises of the European project are caused by one underlying factor: its bold attempt to overcome the age of nation-states. Left unchecked, supranational institutions tend to become ever more bureaucratic, eluding control of the people they are meant to serve. The logic of technocracy is thus pitted against the democratic impulse, which the European Union is supposed to embody. Democracy in Europe has suffered as a result.
Download or read book Break It Up written by Richard Kreitner and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From journalist and historian Richard Kreitner, a "powerful revisionist account"of the most persistent idea in American history: these supposedly United States should be broken up (Eric Foner). The novel and fiery thesis of Break It Up is simple: The United States has never lived up to its name—and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but as Break It Up shows, the seduction of secession wasn’t limited to the South or the nineteenth century. It was there at our founding and has never gone away. With a scholar’s command and a journalist’s curiosity, Richard Kreitner takes readers on a revolutionary journey through American history, revealing the power and persistence of disunion movements in every era and region. Each New England town after Plymouth was a secession from another; the thirteen colonies viewed their Union as a means to the end of securing independence, not an end in itself; George Washington feared separatism west of the Alleghenies; Aaron Burr schemed to set up a new empire; John Quincy Adams brought a Massachusetts town’s petition for dissolving the United States to the floor of Congress; and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison denounced the Constitution as a pro-slavery pact with the devil. From the “cold civil war” that pits partisans against one another to the modern secession movements in California and Texas, the divisions that threaten to tear America apart today have centuries-old roots in the earliest days of our Republic. Richly researched and persuasively argued, Break It Up will help readers make fresh sense of our fractured age.
Download or read book Our Divided Political Heart written by E.J. Dionne Jr. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-05-22 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America today is at a political impasse; we face a nation divided and discontented. Acclaimed political commentator E.J. Dionne argues that Americans can't agree on who we are as a nation because we can't agree on who we've been, or what it is, philosophically and spiritually, that makes us "Americans." Dionne places our current quarrels in the long-standing tradition of struggle between two core values: the love of individualism and our reverence for community. Both make us who we are, and to ignore either one is to distort our national character. He sees the current Tea Party as a representation of hyper-individualism, and takes on their agenda-serving distortions of history, from the Revolution to the Civil War and the constitutional role of government. Tea Partiers have reacted fiercely to President Obama, who seeks to restore a communitarian balance - a cause in American liberalism which Dionne traces through recent decades. The ability of the American system to self-correct may be one of its greatest assets, but we have been caught in cycles of over-correcting. Dionne seeks, through an understanding of our factious past, to rediscover the idea of true progress, and the confidence that it can be achieved.
Download or read book By the Light of Burning Dreams written by David Talbot and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Northern California Book Award for General Nonfiction New York Times bestselling author David Talbot and New Yorker journalist Margaret Talbot illuminate “America’s second revolutionary generation” in this gripping history of one of the most dynamic eras of the twentieth century—brought to life through seven defining radical moments that offer vibrant parallels and lessons for today. The political landscape of the 1960s and 1970s was perhaps one of the most tumultuous in this country's history, shaped by the fight for civil rights, women’s liberation, Black power, and the end to the Vietnam War. In many ways, this second American revolution was a belated fulfillment of the betrayed promises of the first, striving to extend the full protections of the Bill of Rights to non-white, non-male, non-elite Americans excluded by the nation’s founders. Based on exclusive interviews, original documents, and archival research, By the Light of Burning Dreams explores critical moments in the lives of a diverse cast of iconoclastic leaders of the twentieth century radical movement: Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; Heather Booth and the Jane Collective, the first underground feminist abortion clinic; Vietnam War peace activists Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda; Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers; Craig Rodwell and the Gay Pride movement; Dennis Banks, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Russell Means and the warriors of Wounded Knee; and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s politics of stardom. Margaret and David Talbot reveal the epiphanies that galvanized these modern revolutionaries and created unexpected connections and alliances between individual movements and across race, class, and gender divides. America is still absorbing—and reacting against—the revolutionary forces of this tumultuous period. The change these leaders enacted demanded much of American society and the human imagination. By the Light of Burning Dreams is an immersive and compelling chronicle of seven lighting rods of change and the generation that engraved itself in American narrative—and set the stage for those today, fighting to bend forward the arc of history. By the Light of Burning Dreams includes a 16-page black-and-white photo insert.
