Government Research Guide: eBooks

This volume looks at the law’s role in decisions about governance, the significance of state and local law and legal institutions, and the place of American law internationally.

Foundations explains the beginnings of the American political system, including historical background. Chapters introduce the concepts of a federal republic, with relevant facts that keep young adults engaged. Five unique handbooks comprise the new American Government series.

First published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee generated shock waves with its frank and heartbreaking depiction of the systematic annihilation of American Indian tribes across the western frontier. In this nonfiction account, Dee Brown focuses on the betrayals, battles, and massacres suffered by American Indians between 1860 and 1890. He tells of the many tribes and their renowned chiefs--from Geronimo to Red Cloud, Sitting Bull to Crazy Horse--who struggled to combat the destruction of their people and culture.Forcefully written and meticulously researched, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee inspired a generation to take a second look at how the West was won.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dee Brown including rare photos from the author's personal collection.

This book is an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families-and their country-proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it. While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history: women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men, often defending their very doorsteps.Roberts reveals the often surprising stories of these fascinating women, bringing to life the everyday trials and extraordinary triumphs of individuals like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Eliza Pinckney, Catherine Littlefield Green, Esther DeBerdt Reed and Martha Washington-proving that without our exemplary women, the new country might have never survived.

The United States and Canada have become beacons of democracy around the world. This book explores the two nations' histories from colonies to world powers, as well as the ways their governments have been structured. Readers will learn about the importance of checks and balances, limited government, and civic responsibility in both countries. They will gain a deep understanding about what it means to be a citizen of such representative democracies, and how that compares and contrasts to citizenship in other areas of the world. Fact-filled sidebars, primary sources, and breathtaking photographs support this learning experience.

This vibrant, illustrated guide to the ins and outs of United States politics provides a clearer understanding of the current events and regular processes that shape this nation and the world.Decipher the American political system with this clear, easy-to-understand guide to the basics of the United States political system, from the founding of the thirteen colonies, to the foundations of the constitution, to how elections work.

The evolution of the battle for true equality in America seen through the men, ideas, and politics behind the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments passed at the end of the Civil War. On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood in front of a crowd in Rochester, New York, and asked, "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" The audience had invited him to speak on the day celebrating freedom, and had expected him to offer a hopeful message about America; instead, he'd offered back to them their own hypocrisy. How could the Constitution defend both freedom and slavery? How could it celebrate liberty with one hand while withdrawing it with another? From the very beginning, American history can be seen as a battle to reconcile the large gap between America's stated ideals and the reality of its republic.

Though the Declaration of Independence stated that "all men are created equal," married women and girls in the early days of the United States had few rights. For better or worse, their lives were controlled by their husbands and fathers. Married women could not own property, and few girls were educated beyond reading and simple math. Women could not work as doctors, lawyers, or in the ministry. Not one woman could vote, but that would change with the tireless efforts of Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Jeannette Rankin, Alice Paul, and thousands of women across the nation. Rightfully Ours tells of the century-long struggle for woman suffrage in the United States, a movement that began alongside the abolitionist cause and continued through the ratification of the 19th amendment.

A history of the American Constitution's formative decades from a preeminent legal scholar When the US Constitution won popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of thirty years of passionate argument over the nature of government. But ratification hardly ended the conversation. For the next half century, ordinary Americans and statesmen alike continued to wrestle with weighty questions in the halls of government and in the pages of newspapers. In The Words that Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered. His account of the document's origins and consolidation is a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand America's Constitution today.

In this epic, ever-surprising book, Montefiore chronicles the world's great dynasties across human history through palace intrigues, love affairs, and family lives, linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, and technology to the people at the heart of the human drama. It features a cast of extraordinary diversity: in addition to rulers and conquerors, there are priests, charlatans, artists, scientists, tycoons, gangsters, lovers, husbands, wives, and children. These powerful families represent the breadth of human endeavor, with bloody succession battles, treacherous conspiracies, and shocking megalomania alongside flourishing culture, moving romances, and enlightened benevolence. A dazzling achievement as spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the whole human story in a single, masterful narrative.