American Philosophy

The American Scholar was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1837 to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College. Emerson argues that American culture, still heavily influenced by Europe, could build a new, distinctly American cultural identity. Emerson uses Transcendentalist and Romantic points of view to explain a true American scholar's relationship to nature.

The question of teaching evolution in the public schools is a continuing and frequently heated political issue in America. From Tennessee's Scopes Trial in 1925 to recent battles that have erupted in Louisiana, Kansas, Ohio, and countless other localities, the critics and supporters of evolution have fought nonstop over the role of science and religion in American public life. In American Genesis, Jeffrey P. Moran explores the ways in which the evolution debate has reverberated beyond the confines of state legislatures and courthouses.

Convinced that the American political system was endangered by complacency, demagoguery, party propaganda, and the tyranny of public opinion, James Fenimore Cooper felt compelled to write this minor classic of American political theory. Fascinated with deception, he wrote in order to express "the voice of simple, honest and...fearless truth" on the peculiarities of the American system of government.

When Dr. David Hosack tilled the country's first botanical garden in the Manhattan soil more than 200 years ago, he didn't just dramatically alter the New York landscape; he left a monumental legacy of advocacy for public health and wide-ranging support for the sciences. In melodic prose, historian Victoria Johnson eloquently chronicles Hosack's tireless career to reveal the breadth of his impact. The result is a lush portrait of the man who gave voice to a new, deeply American understanding of the powers and perils of nature.

For almost a century after the U.S. Constitution went into effect, few Americans seem to have questioned the legitimacy of the Revolution. Since the Progressive generation of historians began the work of serious criticism and revision, however, students of American life have largely learned to live with a more complicated understanding of the revolutionary legacy. Smith's treatment of the era charts space for libertarians to both criticize and revere the American heritage.

Featuring current information and challenging perspectives on the latest issues and forces shaping the American educational system, with scholarship that is often cited as a primary source, the author introduces listeners to the historical, political, social, and legal foundations of education and to the profession of teaching in the United States.

In 2017, sociologist Ranita Ray stepped inside a fourth-grade classroom in one of the nation’s largest majority-minority districts in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was there to conduct research on the lack of resources and budget cuts that regularly face public schools. However, a few months into her immersion, a disturbed Ray recognized that that greatest impediment to students was the “slow violence” that preys on their minds, bodies, and spirits at the hands of teachers and administrators who are charged with their care.

If you really want to know what is happening in America’s schools, do not ask the teachers. Do not ask the principals. And do not ask the bureaucrats in the Education Office. Ask the substitutes. They are where the ‘rubber meets the road.’ 2:45 FEVER is an in-the-weeds, nuts-and-bolts look at America’s schools from the point of view of the substitutes. Listen to the book and learn how bad our schools are – and how to fix them.

In the years after A Nation at Risk, conservatives' ideas to reform America's lagging education system gained much traction. Key items like school choice and rigorous academic standards drew bipartisan support and were put into practice across the country. Today, these gains are in retreat, ceding ground to progressive nostrums that do little to boost the skills and knowledge of young people. Far from being discouraged, however, conservatives should seize the moment to refresh their vision of quality K-12 education for today's America.

Politics Reformed makes a provocative contribution to understanding foundational questions in an era of rising fundamentalism and emboldened secularism, inspiring listeners to rethink the importance of religion in political theory and practice, and the role of the covenant tradition in particular.

The child of an Irish man and an Irish American woman who split up before he was born, Michael Brendan Dougherty grew up with an acute sense of absence. He was raised in New Jersey by his hardworking single mother, who gave him a passion for Ireland, the land of her roots and the home of Michael's father. She put him to bed using little phrases in the Irish language, sang traditional songs, and filled their home with a romantic vision of a homeland over the horizon.

This book argues that the structure of public education is a key factor in the failure of America's public education system to fulfill the intellectual, civic, and moral aims for which it was created. The book challenges the philosophical basis for the traditional common school model and defends the educational pluralism that most liberal democracies enjoy. Berner provides a unique theoretical pathway that is neither libertarian nor state-focused and a pragmatic pathway that avoids the winner-takes-all approach of many contemporary debates about education.

The Tragedy of American Science explores how the US economy’s addiction to military spending distorts and deforms science by making it overwhelmingly subservient to military interests. The primary motive driving American science and technology has become the search for new and more efficient ways to kill people. This transforms science from the classic ideal of a creative force for the advancement of humankind into its destructive and antihuman opposite.

John Roebling was one of the 19th century's most brilliant engineers, ingenious inventors, successful manufacturers, and fascinating personalities. Raised in a German backwater amid the war-torn chaos of the Napoleonic Wars, he immigrated to the US in 1831, where he became wealthy and acclaimed, eventually receiving a carte-blanche contract to build one of the 19th century's most stupendous and daring works of engineering: a gigantic suspension bridge to span the East River between New York and Brooklyn.

Listen to the voices of a selected group of Latin American leaders share how they emerged and grew. Learn from their stories. Living in Latin America as a foreigner means you have experienced awkward moments and bewildering misunderstandings. All leaders are influenced by their culture.

In 1951, Carlotta Walls Lanier was one of the nine African-American students to integrate Little Rock High School, and the first to earn a diploma. Here she provides a firsthand account of her experiences - including the bombing that rocked her home, the constant threats she and her classmates faced, and the pressure and bullying her parents endured.

After fighting a protracted legal battle, James Meredith broke the color barrier in 1962 as the first African American student at the University of Mississippi. The riot that followed his arrival on campus seriously wounded scores of U.S. marshals and killed two civilians; more casualties than any other clash of the civil rights era. To restore order, the Kennedy administration dispatched thousands of soldiers to Oxford. In The Price of Defiance, Charles Eagles shows that the stunning eruption of violence resulted from the "closed society's" long defiance of the civil rights movement and federal law.

This book examines the idea whether the progressive movement in America led by Bernie Sanders will change American society.

The Spanish-American War really only lasted about ten weeks (the buildup and decision to go to war took longer than the war itself), but a peace treaty was not signed until December of 1898. This was an event that was the tipping point for the end of the Spanish Empire and the rise of the US as a formidable player on the world stage. Not all Americans were happy with the change, with famous Americans like Mark Twain speaking out about the US occupation of the lands that it was meant to save.

If you're looking for a captivating collection of Central American myths, then pay attention.... Mexico and the Central American states are home to many indigenous peoples, each of whom speaks their own language and lives according to their own customs. These diverse peoples have rich storytelling cultures, passing down myths about gods and the work of creation, and about the humans who for good or ill interact with these otherworldly beings.