Age of the City, The: Ethnic City, The
Some cities are marked by clearly-defined ethnic neighborhoods, others are more diverse. Among immigrant families, men are usually the first to arrive, hoping to earn enough money to take back home. Historians call these immigrants "birds of passage...
Washington, Jefferson and the French Revolution
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn talks about the challenge facing the United States (and Thomas Jefferson, in particular) when the French Revolution turned especially violent and brutal. Professor Bailyn explains that Jefferson had been close to ...
American Heritage: A Nation of Nations
The Framers of the Constitution excluded many people from active participation in the newly-created government, but the fact that the language of the Constitution they created was inclusive, provided the opening for excluded groups to be brought int...
American Heritage: Building on Historic Origins
American politics today--complex, forceful, and sometimes confusing--can only be understood against the backdrop of the nation's heritage. "Europeans often think of us as historically shallow, " notes Bernard Bailyn, but "we're exceptionally close ...
Washington Forms the Executive Branch (Part Two)
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn continues his discussion of the challenges facing President Washington as he sought to preside over the federal government during his administration. One of Washington's most difficult challenges was maintaining a...
Washington Forms the Executive Branch (Part One)
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn explains that George Washington realized that some kind of Cabinet structure would be necessary, even though there's nothing about a Cabinet written into the Constitution. President Washington named Thomas Jeffers...
American Heritage: Government of the People
The American political system must respond to competing interests that result from the nation's size, diversity and economic complexity, and yet it remains the most stable, continuous political system in the world As Robert Reich cautions, we must n...
American Heritage: Guarding Against Overreaching Power
The federalist system that characterizes U. S. government has different branches that exercise checks and balances on each other in order to prevent any one branch from acquiring too much power. The rule of law embodied by the Constitution also limi...
American Heritage: Americans Linked by Ideals, Not Ancestry
Ideals rather than common ancestry serve as the basis of the common identity Americans share. Many of these ideals--belief in the autonomy of the individual, limited government that depends on the consent of the governed, and the capacity to share i...
Struggle for Equality, The: Long Struggle for Citizenship and Right to Vote
Each excluded group first had to obtain citizenship. The only exception was white women who were citizens without political rights. As a result of the Civil War the rights of blacks were spelled out in the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Cons...