No Democracy Lasts Forever argues that the Constitution has become a threat to American democracy and must be dramatically changed or replaced if secession is to be avoided. Deeply troubled by the Constitution's inherent flaws, Erwin Chemerinsky, the renowned dean of Berkeley law school, came to the sobering conclusion that our nearly 250-year-old founding document is responsible for the crisis now facing American democracy.

The devastation of 7 October 2023 and the horrors that followed astounded the world. But the Israel-Palestine conflict didn't start on 7 October. It didn't start in 1967 either, when Israel occupied the West Bank, or in 1948 when the state of Israel was declared. It started in 1882, when the first Zionist settlers arrived in what was then Ottoman Palestine. Ilan Pappe untangles the history of two peoples, now sharing one land.

A sweeping narrative that remakes our understanding of perhaps the most consequential period in American history, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic shows how the great contest of that age is also the great contest of our age—and serves as a necessary reminder of how young and fragile our democracy truly is.

For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.

Alexander Hamilton has become a global celebrity. Millions know his name and imagine knowing the man. But what did he really want for the country? What risks did he run in pursuing those vaulting ambitions? Who tried to stop him? How did they fight? It's ironic that the Hamilton revival has obscured the man's most dramatic battles and hardest-won achievements—as well as downplaying unsettling aspects of his legacy.

If your reaction to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was to think, 'That's not us,' think again: in Illiberal America, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian uncovers a powerful illiberalism as deep seated in the American past as the founding ideals.

Libertarianism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century with an unwavering commitment to progressive causes, from women’s rights and the fight against slavery to anti-colonialism and Irish emancipation. Today, this movement founded on the principle of individual liberty finds itself divided by both progressive and reactionary elements vying to claim it as their own. The Individualists is the untold story of a political doctrine continually reshaped by fierce internal tensions, bold and eccentric personalities, and shifting political circumstances.

When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, he ended twelve years of Republican rule and seemed poised to enact a progressive transformation of the US economy. Yet by the time he left office, the nation's economic and social policies had instead lurched dramatically rightward, exacerbating the inequalities so troubling in our own time. Nelson Lichtenstein and Judith Stein show how the administration's progressive reformers were stymied by a new world of global capitalism that heightened Wall Street influence, undermined domestic manufacturing, and eviscerated the labor movement.

A Great Disorder is a bold, urgent work that helps us make sense of today's culture wars through a brilliant reconsideration of America's foundational myths and their use in contemporary politics. Richard Slotkin identifies five myths, born of different eras, that have shaped our conception of what it means to be American: the myths of the Frontier, the Founding, the Civil War (which he breaks into two opposing camps, Emancipation and the Lost Cause), and the Good War, embodied by the multiethnic platoon fighting for freedom.

In the run-up to the 2016 election, Masha Gessen stood out from other journalists for the ability to convey the ominous significance of Donald Trump's speech and behavior, unprecedented in a national candidate. Within 48 hours of Trump's victory, the essay "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" had gone viral, and Gessen's coverage of Trump's norm-smashing presidency became essential reading for a citizenry struggling to wrap their heads around the unimaginable.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), 1st Viscount St Albans, Attorney General and then Lord Chancellor of England, was an immensely learned, clever and ambitious man, with considerable political influence. However, he was also a philosopher with a wide interest in science, medicine and the classification of knowledge. Throughout his life he wrote a series of essays - following the manner set particularly by Montaigne, though extending back to Aristotle and others - the first 10 of which appeared in 1597.

Winston Churchill is generally considered one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, revered for his opposition to appeasement, his defiance in the face of German bombing of England, his political prowess, and his memorable speeches. He became the savior of his country, as prime minister during the most perilous period in British history, World War II, and is now perhaps even more beloved in America than in England. This revelatory book takes on Churchill in his entirety, separating the man from the myth that he so carefully cultivated.

Most Americans were shocked by the violence they witnessed at the nation's Capital on January 6th, 2021. And many were bewildered by the images displayed by the insurrectionists: a wooden cross and wooden gallows; "Jesus saves" and "Don't Tread on Me;" Christian flags and Confederate Flags; even a prayer in Jesus's name after storming the Senate chamber. Where some saw a confusing jumble, Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry saw a familiar ideology: white Christian nationalism.

Fights over history are at the heart of most important constitutional disputes in America. The Supreme Court's current embrace of originalism is only the most recent example of how lawyers and judges try to use history to establish authority for their positions. Jack M. Balkin argues that fights over constitutional interpretation are often fights over collective memory. Balkin shows how lawyers and judges channel history through standard forms of legal argument that shape how they use history and even what they see in history.

The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy today: a blatant disregard for the will of the majority. Through voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, dark money, the takeover of the courts, and the whitewashing of history, reactionary white conservatives have strategically entrenched power in the face of a massive demographic and political shift.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.

The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.

Why have history's greatest minds - from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson along with today's top performers, from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities - embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers a daily devotional of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations.

Over the next five years, millions of more Americans are expected to take Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which are rapidly being recognized as the miracle drugs of this century. If you’re not on them, you’ll probably know someone who is. What are the implications of the widespread use of these drugs, both on our bodies and our society? In this show, you’ll meet people across America who are either taking the jab or thinking about it, and the shocking intentional and unintentional results they are seeing.

A stunning revision of our founding document’s evolving history that forces us to confront anew the question that animated the founders so long ago: What is our Constitution? Americans widely believe that the United States Constitution was created when it was drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788. But in a shrewd rereading of the founding era, Jonathan Gienapp upends this long-held assumption, recovering the unknown story of American constitutional creation in the decade after its adoption.

Fights over history are at the heart of most important constitutional disputes in America. The Supreme Court's current embrace of originalism is only the most recent example of how lawyers and judges try to use history to establish authority for their positions. Jack M. Balkin argues that fights over constitutional interpretation are often fights over collective memory. Balkin shows how lawyers and judges channel history through standard forms of legal argument that shape how they use history and even what they see in history.

Originalism, the view that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted, was once the fringe theory of a few extremely conservative legal scholars but is now a well-accepted mode of constitutional interpretation. Noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky gives a comprehensive analysis of the problems that make originalism unworkable as a method of constitutional interpretation. He argues that the framers themselves never intended constitutional interpretation to be inflexible and shows how it is often impossible to know the "original intent" of any provision.

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 Maier's hands, the Declaration of Independence is brought close to us. She lets us hear the voice of the people as revealed in the other "declarations" of 1776: the local resolutions - most of which have gone unnoticed over the past two centuries - that explained, advocated, and justified Independence and undergirded Congress' work. Detective-like, she discloses the origins of key ideas and phrases in the Declaration and unravels the complex story of its drafting and of the group-editing job which angered Thomas Jefferson.

What did the US Constitution originally mean, and how can we recover the intentions of its framers? These questions, which resound throughout today’s most heated legal and political controversies, lie at the heart of Jack N. Rakove’s splendidly readable work of historical analysis. In Original Meanings, he traces the complex weave of ideology and interests from which the Constitution emerged and shows how Americans have attached different meanings to their founding document from the moment it was published.

Lawyers don’t often admit this in mixed company, but Madiba Dennie wants to let you in on a secret: There's no one true way to interpret the Constitution. Americans saw just how subjective it can be when the Supreme Court denied basic bodily autonomy to millions of people in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, suggesting that our rights and liberties are frozen in a cherry-picked version of history. This is a line of constitutional interpretation called originalism—a framework that says we must be constrained by the meaning of the Constitution's text when it was written.

In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny.

In Before the Movement, Dylan C. Penningroth brilliantly revises the conventional story. Drawing on long-forgotten sources found in the basements of county courthouses across the nation, Penningroth reveals that African Americans, far from being ignorant about law until the middle of the twentieth century, have thought about, talked about, and used it going as far back as even the era of slavery.

Today, anxiety is usually thought of as a pathology, the most diagnosed and medicated of all psychological disorders. But anxiety isn't always or only a medical condition. Indeed, many philosophers argue that anxiety is a normal, even essential, part of being human, and that coming to terms with this fact is potentially transformative. In Anxiety, Samir Chopra explores valuable insights about anxiety offered by ancient and modern philosophies. Blending memoir and philosophy, he also tells how serious anxiety has affected his own life—and how philosophy has helped him cope with it.

Americans revere their Constitution. However, most of us are unaware how tumultuous and improbable the drafting and ratification processes were. As Benjamin Franklin keenly observed, any assembly of men bring with them "all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views." One need not deny that the Framers had good intentions in order to believe that they also had interests.

Rot and Revival is one of the first scholarly works to comprehensively theorize and document how politics make American constitutional law and how the courts affect the path of partisan politics. Rejecting the idea that the Constitution's significance and interpretation can be divorced from contemporary political realities, Anthony Michael Kreis explains how American constitutional law reflects the ideological commitments of dominant political coalitions, the consequences of major public policy choices, and the influences of intervening social movements.

"If it is possible to understand the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom, Virginia is surely the place to begin," writes Edmund S. Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom, a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America. Morgan finds the key to this central paradox in the people and politics of the state that was both the birthplace of the revolution and the largest slaveholding state in the country.

If your reaction to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was to think, 'That's not us,' think again: in Illiberal America, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian uncovers a powerful illiberalism as deep seated in the American past as the founding ideals.

In the early 1900s, at the dawn of the “American Century,” few knew the intoxicating power of greed better than white men on the forefront of the black gold rush. When oil was discovered in Oklahoma’s Indian Country, these tycoons impersonated, defrauded, and murdered Native property owners to snatch up hundreds of acres of oil-rich land. Journalist and fourth-generation Oklahoman Russell Cobb sets the stage for one such oilman’s chicanery: Tulsa entrepreneur Charles Page’s campaign for a young Muscogee boy’s land in Creek County.