United States Civics

U.S. exceptionalism, the idea that the United States of America is superior to other nations, is no more fact-based and no less harmful than racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry. The purpose of this audiobook is to persuade you of that statement. This audiobook examines how the United States actually compares with other countries, how people think about the comparison, what damage that thinking does, and what changes we might want to consider making.

Citizenship in the nineteenth-century United States was an ever-moving target. The Constitution did not specify its exact meaning, leaving lawmakers and other Americans to struggle over the fundamental questions of who could be a citizen, how a person attained the status, and the particular privileges citizenship afforded. Black people suffered under this ambiguity, but also seized on it in efforts to transform their nominal freedom.

Over the last two centuries, the US government has revoked citizenship to cast out its unwanted, suppress dissent, and deny civil rights to all considered "un-American" - whether due to their race, ethnicity, marriage partner, or beliefs. Drawing on the narratives of those who have struggled to be treated as full members of "We the People", law professor Amanda Frost exposes a hidden history of discrimination and xenophobia that continues to this day.

America is full of inspiring heroes. Greatness is not a chance—it is a choice. George Washington didn’t simply wake up as one of the greatest men in human history. His greatness was the sum of a lifetime of difficult and consequential choices. In Lessons in Liberty, Jeremy S. Adams distills inspiring advice from the lives of extraordinary Americans from our past.

In 1964, as the polarizing Civil Rights Act made its way through the House and Senate, and Congress navigated one of the most tumultuous eras in American history, a Harris Poll put the institution's approval rating at 60%. Why then, 50 years later, has the public's approval of Congress eroded to an all-time low of 10%?

This book explores the idea that table activities - the mealtime rituals of food preparation, serving, and dining - lay the foundation for a proper education on the value of civility, the importance of the common good, and what it means to be a good citizen. The arts of conversation and diplomatic speech are learned and practiced at tables, and a political history of food practices recasts thoughtfulness and generosity as virtues that enhance civil society and democracy.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham offers a collection of inspiring words about how to be a good citizen, from Thomas Jefferson and others, and reminds us why our country’s founding principles are still so important today.

In The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide, award-winning author and constitutional scholar Linda R. Monk explores the remarkable history of the Bill of Rights amendment by amendment, the Supreme Court's interpretation of each right, and the power of citizens to enforce those rights. Stories of the ordinary people who made the Bill of Rights come alive are featured throughout.

In The Second Amendment, Michael Waldman traces the ongoing argument on gun rights from the Bill of Rights to the current day. Now, in The Fight to Vote, Waldman takes a succinct and comprehensive look at an even more crucial struggle: the past and present effort to define and defend government based on "the consent of the governed". From the writing of the Constitution, and at every step along the way, as Americans sought the right, others have fought to stop them.

The United States is an exceptional place to call home thanks to the character of the American people. With conviction and urgency, Ed Feulner and Brian Tracy affirm our core tenets - from patriotism and optimism to faith and generosity - and challenge all of us to live out the timeless principles of citizenship. Packed with engaging stories, insightful profiles, and eye-opening statistics, The American Spirit serves as an indispensable primer on the bedrock belief that an indomitable spirit does exist.

Who controls American immigration policy? The biggest immigration controversies of the last decade have all involved policies produced by the President - policies such as President Obama protecting Dreamers from deportation and President Trump banning immigrants from several majority-Muslim nations. While critics of these policies have been separated by a vast ideological chasm, their broadsides have embodied the same widely shared belief: that Congress, not the President, ought to dictate who may come to the United States and who will be forced to leave. This belief is a myth.

How does the First Amendment really work? Is it a principle or a value? What is hate speech and should it always be banned? Are we free to declare our religious beliefs in the public square? What role, if any, should companies like Facebook play in policing the exchange of thoughts, ideas, and opinions? With clarity and power, Stanley Fish explores these complex questions in The First.

How did people in our country, North and South, East and West, come to share a remarkably durable and consistent common vision of what it meant to be an American in the first 50 years after the Revolution? How did the nation respond to the problem of slavery in a republic?

For many Americans, the birth certificate is a mundane piece of paper, unearthed from deep storage when applying for a driver's license, verifying information for employers, or claiming state and federal benefits. Yet as Donald Trump and his fellow "birthers" reminded us when they claimed that Barack Obama wasn't an American citizen, it plays a central role in determining identity and citizenship. The Birth Certificate: An American History traces the document's two-hundred-year history to explain when, how, and why birth certificates came to matter so much in the United States.