United States Government

From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power. To an extent that is often underappreciated, it still does. No one understands this better than Admiral Jim Stavridis. In Sea Power, Admiral Stavridis takes us with him on a tour of the world's oceans from the admiral's chair, showing us how the geography of the oceans has shaped the destinies of nations and how naval power has in a real sense made the world we live in today and will shape the world we live in tomorrow.

The complete rankings of our best - and worst - presidents, based on C-SPAN's much-cited Historians Surveys of Presidential Leadership. Over a period of decades, C-SPAN has surveyed leading historians on the best and worst of America's presidents across a variety of categories - their ability to persuade the public, their leadership skills, their moral authority, and more. The crucible of the presidency has forged some of the very best and very worst leaders in our national history, along with everyone in between.

When the stories that lead our daily news involve momentous constitutional questions, present-minded journalists and busy citizens cannot always see the stakes clearly. In The Constitution Today, Akhil Reed Amar, America's preeminent constitutional scholar, considers the biggest and most bitterly contested debates of the last two decades. He shows how the Constitution's text, history, and structure are a crucial repository of collective wisdom, providing specific rules and grand themes relevant to every organ of the American body politic.

From a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall.

Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901) was a newspaper correspondent, novelist, and traveler. This work, published in 1875, is an extensive report on socialism and communism in their infancy. Nordhoff visited virtually all of the major utopian communities in America to record their history, beliefs, and daily life, and to study their doctrine and literature.

The definitive refutation of the New York Times’ 1619 Project, this volume includes original essays, lectures, and interviews with historians. Topics addressed include the complex development of slavery in the New World, the American Revolution, the sectional crisis over slavery and the Civil War, the struggle for social equality in the 20th century, and the class politics of racial identity in the present.

The United States is experiencing a profound crisis when it comes to mental health care. In a recent Senate Committee on Finance hearing on youth mental health, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy shared that Americans wait 11 years, on average, between onset of symptoms and first receiving treatment. The consequences are plain to see: higher suicide and drug overdose rates, more Americans without a safe place to sleep, more children experiencing depression and anxiety. The house is on fire, and the nation is short on firefighters equipped to put out the blaze.

Distinguished historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. Joseph draws revealing connections and insights across centuries as he traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the failed assault on the Capitol.

In Democracy in Exile, Daniel Bessner shows how the experience of the Weimar Republic’s collapse and the rise of Nazism informed Hans Speier’s work as an American policymaker and institution builder. Bessner delves into Speier’s intellectual development, illuminating the ideological origins of the expert-centered approach to foreign policymaking and revealing the European roots of Cold War liberalism.

Why GAO did this study. The internet is a global system of interconnected networks used by billions of people across the world to perform personal, educational, commercial, and governmental tasks. The US Government over time has relinquished its oversight role of the internet. A global, multistakeholder community made up of many organizations shapes internet policy, operations, and security. But the ongoing and increasing reliance on the internet underscores the need to understand the risks to its underlying architecture.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to today’s discussion on federal perspectives to secure the nation’s infrastructure. As you know, our nation’s critical infrastructure sectors are dependent on information technology (IT) systems and digital data to carry out operations and to process, maintain, and report essential information. The security of these systems and data is vital to public confidence and national security, prosperity, and well-being.

In the United States of America today we live in a time of problems, confusion, and with lots of fighting between the main political parties. Yet, people from all over the world still want to come here. Why do so many persons still want to become Americans? I think it is because the United States has become the guiding star for the growth of humanity, now and in the future. People see their best futures to be here. The purpose of this book is to show how the spirit of God in man during the history of United States of America has made a huge positive difference in our world.

Over the last generation, the United States has undergone seismic changes. Stable institutions have given way to frictionless transactions, which are celebrated no matter what collateral damage they generate. The concentration of great wealth has coincided with the fraying of social ties and the rise of inequality. How did all this come about? In Transaction Man, Nicholas Lemann explains the United States’ - and the world’s - great transformation by examining three remarkable individuals who epitomized and helped create their eras

For decades after its founding, America was really two nations—one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this composite nation ultimately broke apart, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the "united" states was actually a lie. Fugitive slaves exposed the contradiction between the myth that slavery was a benign institution and the reality that a nation based on the principle of human equality was in fact a prison-house in which millions of Americans had no rights.

In 1765, 11 years before composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur'an. This marked only the beginning of his lifelong interest in Islam, and he would go on to acquire numerous books on Middle Eastern languages, history, and travel, taking extensive notes on Islam as it relates to English common law. Jefferson sought to understand Islam notwithstanding his personal disdain for the faith, a sentiment prevalent among his Protestant contemporaries in England and America.

Though they may seem to be dividing the country irreparably, today's heated cultural and political battles between right and left, progressives and the Tea Party, religious and secular are far from unprecedented. In this engaging and important work, Stephen Prothero reframes the current debate, viewing it as the latest in a number of flashpoints that have shaped our national identity.

Sir Walter Ralegh was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. She showered him with estates and political appointments. He envisioned her becoming empress of a universal empire. She gave him the opportunity to lead the way. In Walter Ralegh, Alan Gallay shows that, while Ralegh may be best known for founding the failed Roanoke colony, his historical importance vastly exceeds that enterprise. Inspired by the mystical religious philosophy of hermeticism, Ralegh led English attempts to colonize in North America, South America, and Ireland.

Thank you for your interest in becoming a citizen of the United States of America. Your decision to apply for US citizenship is a very meaningful demonstration of your commitment to this country. As you prepare for US citizenship, Learn About the United States: Quick Civics Lessons for the Naturalization Test will help you study for the civics and English portions of the naturalization interview. There are 100 civics (history and government) questions on the naturalization test. During your interview, you will be asked up to 10 questions from the list of 100 questions.

The half-century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over equality as well as freedom. Beginning in 1803, many free states, claiming the authority to maintain the domestic peace, enacted laws that discouraged free African Americans from settling their boundaries and restricted the rights to testify in court, move freely from place to place, work, vote, and attend public school. But over time, African American activists and their white allies, often facing mob violence, courageously built a movement to fight these racist laws.

On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day - chosen completely at random - was Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, and much more....