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On Democracys Doorstep
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Book Synopsis On Democracy's Doorstep: The Inside Story of How the Supreme Court Brought "One Person, One Vote" to the United States by : J. Douglas Smith
Download or read book On Democracy's Doorstep: The Inside Story of How the Supreme Court Brought "One Person, One Vote" to the United States written by J. Douglas Smith and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Henry Adams Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction A Slate Best Book of 2014 The inside story of the Supreme Court decisions that brought true democracy to the United States As chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Earl Warren is most often remembered for landmark rulings in favor of desegregation and the rights of the accused. But Warren himself identified a lesser known group of cases—Baker v. Carr, Reynolds v. Sims, and their companions—as his most important work. J. Douglas Smith's On Democracy's Doorstep masterfully recounts the tumultuous and often overlooked events that established the principle of "one person, one vote" in the United States. Before the Warren Court acted, American democracy was in poor order. As citizens migrated to urban areas, legislative boundaries remained the same, giving rural lawmakers from sparsely populated districts disproportionate political power—a power they often used on behalf of influential business interests. Smith shows how activists ranging from city boosters in Tennessee to the League of Women Voters worked to end malapportionment, incurring the wrath of chambers of commerce and southern segregationists as they did so. Despite a conspiracy of legislative inaction and a 1946 Supreme Court decision that instructed the judiciary not to enter the "political thicket," advocates did not lose hope. As Smith shows, they skillfully used the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause to argue for radical judicial intervention. Smith vividly depicts the unfolding drama as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy pressed for change, Solicitor General Archibald Cox cautiously held back, young clerks pushed the justices toward ever-bolder reform, and the powerful Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen obsessively sought to reverse the judicial revolution that had upended state governments from California to Virginia. Today, following the Court's recent controversial decisions on voting rights and campaign finance, the battles described in On Democracy's Doorstep have increasing relevance. With erudition and verve, Smith illuminates this neglected episode of American political history and confronts its profound consequences.
Book Synopsis On Democracy's Doorstep by : J. Douglas Smith
Download or read book On Democracy's Doorstep written by J. Douglas Smith and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Managing White Supremacy shares the inside story of the Supreme Court rulings abolishing malapportionment, citing the crucial roles of Chief Justice Earl Warren and key lawyers, activists and Justice Department officials in establishing equality as a defining component of democracy.
Book Synopsis Doorstep Democracy by : James H. Read
Download or read book Doorstep Democracy written by James H. Read and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The famous Tip O'Neill axiom "all politics is local" comes alive in this chronicle of Democrat James H. Read's hard-fought but unsuccessful--by 98 votes--bid for state legislature in the socially conservative communities of Stearns and Morrison Counties, Minnesota. Read door-knocked 7,500 households during his campaign, visiting with voters and engaging in genuine dialogue on doorsteps from St. Anthony to St. Joseph. At once a memoir of a hard-fought contest and a meditation on the state of American democracy, Read's work contrasts the modern media-driven political campaign, where candidates glean their knowledge of voters from pollsters and communication only flows one way, with the kind of true understanding of constituents and issues that can only grow from individual encounters. Face-to-face doorstep conversations, he claims, give a candidate (or volunteer) and voter an opportunity to truly persuade and learn from one another. In a district where the pro-life movement dominated politics, Read's invitation to honestly discuss abortion and reject single-issue politics resonated with many voters. Refusing the "red state" versus "blue state" view of American voters, Doorstep Democracy shows the power and importance of kitchen-table politics--people sitting down together to tackle the issues that affect us--and proves that voters and candidates can be convinced to change their minds. Read ultimately demonstrates how conversations between citizens concerned about their communities can get us beyond the television ads, mass mailings, and sound bites to rejuvenate American democracy.
Book Synopsis Notes on Democracy by : H. L. Mencken
Download or read book Notes on Democracy written by H. L. Mencken and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2023-12-23 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Notes on Democracy is a critique of democracy. The book places political leaders into two categories: the demagogue, who "preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots" and the demaslave, "who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself." Mencken depicts politicians as "men who have sold their honor for their jobs."
Book Synopsis Let the People Pick the President by : Jesse Wegman
Download or read book Let the People Pick the President written by Jesse Wegman and published by All Points Books. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Wegman combines in-depth historical analysis and insight into contemporary politics to present a cogent argument that the Electoral College violates America’s ‘core democratic principles’ and should be done away with..." —Publishers Weekly The framers of the Constitution battled over it. Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose? Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question—and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president. Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed—now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president? In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. In Let the People Pick the President he shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count—and restore belief in our democratic system.
Book Synopsis Democracy in America? by : Benjamin I. Page
Download or read book Democracy in America? written by Benjamin I. Page and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Important and riveting . . . The solution isn’t to redistribute wealth from the have-mores to the have-lesses. It’s to redistribute political power to everyone.” —Robert B. Reich America faces daunting problems—stagnant wages, high health care costs, neglected schools, deteriorating public services. How did we get here? Through decades of dysfunctional government. In Democracy in America? veteran political observers Benjamin I. Page and Martin Gilens marshal an unprecedented array of evidence to show that while other countries have responded to a rapidly changing economy by helping people who’ve been left behind, the United States has failed to do so. Instead, we have actually exacerbated inequality, enriching corporations and the wealthy while leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves. What’s the solution? More democracy. More opportunities for citizens to shape what their government does. To repair our democracy, Page and Gilens argue, we must change the way we choose candidates and conduct our elections, reform our governing institutions, and curb the power of money in politics. By doing so, we can reduce polarization and gridlock, address pressing challenges, and enact policies that truly reflect the interests of average Americans. Updated with new information, this book lays out a set of proposals that would boost citizen participation, curb the power of money, and democratize the House and Senate. “Brilliant, indispensable, and highly accessible.” —New York Journal of Books
Book Synopsis World War II on the Web by : J. Douglas Smith
Download or read book World War II on the Web written by J. Douglas Smith and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2003 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fueled by recent films and TV series such as Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers and popular books by Stephen Ambrose and Tom Brokaw, interest in World War II has soared. As a result of this surge of attention, the number of websites on World War II has exploded. Many are excellent sources of information, but how can they be found among the massive number of sites? Search engines can't tell the good from the bad, making the process of uncovering quality World War II sites a frustrating and time-consuming process of sifting through hundreds of thousands of hits. But now, web users overwhelmed by this colossal task have a place to turn. World War II on the Web gives history buffs all the tools they need to zero in on the most useful sites. The authors-experts in web research-have examined and evaluated thousands of websites. In this new book, they have included only the most well constructed, informative, attractively designed sites on World War II. This book/CD-ROM is modeled on SR Books' bestselling Civil War on the Web, another indispensable guide to exceptional websites. World War II on the Web includes: Detailed reviews of the top 100+ sites A one- to five-star rating of each site's content, aesthetics, and navigation A list of approximately 150 additional recommended sites including URLs and brief descriptions Free CD-ROM (IBM and MAC compatible) with hotlinks to all sites in the book-the top 100+ sites as well as the 150 additional recommended sites. Users can simply click on the link to be taken to the site they've chosen. The first part of the book highlights the best 100+ sites and is divided into sections on the following topics: general sites on the war; political and military leaders; European/Atlantic/Mediterranean Theater of Operations; Pacific Theatre of Operations; the soldiers' stories; the homefront; women and African Americans; the Holocaust and war crimes; and unit histories. The second part of World War II on the Web offers an extra 150 distinguished sites. This is the only guide of its kind now available! World War II on the Web is the essential alternative to hours of discouraging navigation, the definitive link to the web's finest World War II sites. About the Authors Richard J. Jensen is professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois. In 1992, he founded H-Net, the groundbreaking and highly successful web-based book review and information source for the academic community. Jensen was a visiting professor at both West Point and Moscow State University during the Cold War and has written extensively on World War II. J. Douglas Smith is currently teaching at Occidental College in California. Dr. Smith specializes in World War II and twentieth century history. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, and many other publications.
Book Synopsis American Democracy: 21 Historic Answers to 5 Urgent Questions by : Nicholas Lemann
Download or read book American Democracy: 21 Historic Answers to 5 Urgent Questions written by Nicholas Lemann and published by Library of America. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The Federalist to Citizens United, a bestselling historian presents key writings on five crucial questions confronting American democracy today Amid the frenzied overload of 24-hour cable news and incessant social media, at a time when many of us fear for the future of our democracy, it is becoming harder and harder to think clearly about politics. American Democracy: 21 Historic Answers to 5 Urgent Questions provides an alternative for those who want to step back and look to the past for inspiration and guidance. Edited with perceptive and provocative commentary by bestselling historian and journalist Nicholas Lemann (The Promised Land, Transaction Man), the book presents key writings from the American past that speak to five contemporary flashpoints in our political landscape: race, gender, immigration, and citizenship; opportunity and inequality; the purpose and powers of the federal government; money, special privilege, and corruption; and protest and civil disobedience. Some of the selections are well-known—George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the 4th of July,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from Birmingham Jail—while others will be new to many readers—Horace Mann’s argument for public schools as a means of fighting inequality, Jane Addams’s perceptive analysis of gender and social class in charity work, Randolph Bourne envisioning a “Trans-National America.” American Democracy presents a remarkable range of insightful and eloquent American political writing, while serving as an invaluable resource for concerned citizens who wish to become better-informed participants in the ongoing drama of our democracy.
Book Synopsis On the Doorstep of Europe by : Heath Cabot
Download or read book On the Doorstep of Europe written by Heath Cabot and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2023-08-08 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the global financial crisis of 2008, Greece has shouldered a heavy burden struggling with internal political and financial insecurity as well as hosting enormous numbers of migrants and asylum seekers who arrive by land and sea. In On the Doorstep of Europe, Heath Cabot presents an ethnographic study of the asylum system in Greece, tracing the ways asylum seekers, bureaucrats, and service providers attempt to navigate the dilemmas of governance, ethics, knowledge, and social relations that emerge through this legal process. Centering on the work of an asylum advocacy NGO in Athens, Cabot explores how workers and clients grapple with predicaments endemic to Europeanization and rights-based protection. Drawing inspiration from classical Greek tragedy to highlight both the transformative potential and violence of law, Cabot charts the structural violence effected through European governance, rights frameworks, and humanitarian intervention while also exploring how Greek society is being remade from the inside out. She shows how, in contemporary Greece, relationships between insiders and outsiders are radically reconfigured through legal, political, and economic crises. Now updated with a preface reflecting on the critical stakes of the book's exploration of refuge in light of events that have transpired in and beyond Europe since its initial publication, On the Doorstep of Europe highlights how border crossers and residents in countries of arrival navigate legal and political violence. Cabot's on-the-ground account of asylum and immigration in Europe's borderlands, based on fieldwork conducted between 2004 and 2011, shows how the difficulties encountered by asylum seekers in an earlier time remain relevant and revealing in the face of ongoing crises and challenges today.
Book Synopsis How Civil Wars Start by : Barbara F. Walter
Download or read book How Civil Wars Start written by Barbara F. Walter and published by Crown. This book was released on 2023-04-25 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A leading political scientist examines the dramatic rise in violent extremism around the globe and sounds the alarm on the increasing likelihood of a second civil war in the United States “Required reading for anyone invested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) WINNER OF THE GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE AWARD • THE SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, The Times (UK), Esquire, Prospect (UK) Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the U.S. Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country. Perhaps surprisingly, both autocracies and healthy democracies are largely immune from civil war; it’s the countries in the middle ground that are most vulnerable. And this is where more and more countries, including the United States, are finding themselves today. Over the last two decades, the number of active civil wars around the world has almost doubled. Walter reveals the warning signs—where wars tend to start, who initiates them, what triggers them—and why some countries tip over into conflict while others remain stable. Drawing on the latest international research and lessons from over twenty countries, Walter identifies the crucial risk factors, from democratic backsliding to factionalization and the politics of resentment. A civil war today won’t look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind. In this urgent and insightful book, Walter redefines civil war for a new age, providing the framework we need to confront the danger we now face—and the knowledge to stop it before it’s too late.
Book Synopsis The Fight to Vote by : Michael Waldman
Download or read book The Fight to Vote written by Michael Waldman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beginning, and at every step along the way, as Americans sought to right to vote, others have fought to stop them. Waldman traces the full story from the founders' debates to today's challenges: a wave of restrictive voting laws, partisan gerrymanders, the flood of campaign money unleashed by Citizens United. The result is a compelling story of our struggle to uphold our most fundamental democratic ideals.
Book Synopsis Gerrymandering by : Stephen K. Medvic
Download or read book Gerrymandering written by Stephen K. Medvic and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly as long as there have been electoral districts in America, politicians have gerrymandered those districts. Though the practice has changed over time, the public reaction to it has remained the same: gerrymandering is reviled. There is, of course, good reason for that sentiment. Gerrymandering is intended to maximize the number of legislative seats for one party. As such, it is an attempt to gain what appears to be an unfair advantage in elections. Nevertheless, gerrymandering is not well understood by most people and this lack of understanding leads to a false sense that there are easy solutions to this complex problem. Gerrymandering: The Politics of Redistricting in the United States unpacks the complicated process of gerrymandering, reflecting upon the normative issues to which it gives rise. Tracing the history of partisan gerrymandering from its nineteenth-century roots to the present day, the book explains its legal status and implementation, its consequences, and possible options for reform. The result is a balanced analysis of gerrymandering that acknowledges its troubling aspects while recognizing that, as long as district boundaries have to be drawn, there is no perfect way to do so.
Book Synopsis Islam and Democracy by : John L. Esposito
Download or read book Islam and Democracy written by John L. Esposito and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-05-09 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are Islam and democracy on a collision course? Do Islamic movements seek to "hijack democracy?" How have governments in the Muslim world responded to the many challenges of Islam and democracy today? A global religious resurgence and calls for greater political participation have been major forces in the post-Cold War period. Across the Muslim world, governments and Islamic movements grapple with issues of democratization and civil society. Islam and Democracy explores the Islamic sources (beliefs and institutions) relevant to the current debate over greater political participation and democratization. Esposito and Voll use six case studies--Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Sudan--to look at the diversity of Muslim experiences and experiments. At one end of the spectrum, Iran and Sudan represent two cases of militant, revolutionary Islam establishing political systems. In Pakistan and Malaysia, however, the new movements have been recognized and made part of the political process. Egypt and Algeria reveal the coexistence of both extremist and moderate Islamic activism and demonstrate the complex challenges confronting ruling elites. These case studies prove that despite commonalities, differing national contexts and identities give rise to a multiplicity of agendas and strategies. This broad spectrum of case studies, reflecting the multifaceted relationship of Islam and Democracy, provides important insight into the powerful forces of religious resurgence and democratization which will inevitably impact global politics in the twenty first century.
Download or read book Powerline written by Paul David Wellstone and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Powerline describes the opposition of rural Minnesotans to the building of a high voltage powerline across 430 miles of farmland from central North Dakota to the Twin Cities suburbs. Convinced that the safety of their families and the health of their land was disregarded in favor of the gluttonous energy consumption of cities, the farmer-led revolt began as questioning and escalated to rampant civil disobedience, peaking in 1978 when nearly half of Minnesota's state highway patrol was engaged in stopping sabotage of the project."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Book Synopsis Institutional Transformations, Polity and Economic Outcomes by : Sophia Gollwitzer
Download or read book Institutional Transformations, Polity and Economic Outcomes written by Sophia Gollwitzer and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper tests the theoretical framework developed by North, Wallis and Weingast (2009) on the transition from closed to open access societies. They posit that societies need to go through three doorsteps: (i) the establishment of rule of law among elites; (ii) the adoption of perpetually existing organizations; and (iii) the political control of the military. We identify indicators reflecting these doorsteps and graphically test the correlation between them and a set of political and economic variables. Finally, through Identification through Heteroskedasticity we test these relationships econometrically. The paper broadly confirms the logic behind the doorsteps as necessary steps in the transition to open access societies. The doorsteps influence economic and political processes, as well as each other, with varying intensity. We also identify income inequality as a potentially important force leading to social change.
Book Synopsis Democracy and Higher Education by : Scott J. Peters
Download or read book Democracy and Higher Education written by Scott J. Peters and published by Michigan State University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How are we to understand the nature and value of higher education's public purposes, mission, and work in a democratic society? How do-and how should-academic professionals contribute to and participate in civic life in their practices as scholars, scientists, and educators? Democracy and Higher Education addresses these questions by combining an examination of several normative traditions of civic engagement in American higher education with the presentation and interpretation of a dozen oral history profiles of contemporary practitioners. In his analysis of these profiles, Scott Peters reveals and interprets a democratic-minded civic professionalism that includes and interweaves expert, social critic, responsive service, and proactive leadership roles. Democracy and Higher Education contributes to a new line of research on the critically important task of strengthening and defending higher education's positive roles in and for a democratic society.
Book Synopsis The Long Red Thread by : Kyle Kondik
Download or read book The Long Red Thread written by Kyle Kondik and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive study that shows how Republicans transformed the US House of Representatives into a consistent GOP stronghold—with or without a majority. Long-term Democratic dominance in the US House of Representatives gave way to a Republican electoral advantage and frequently held majority following the GOP takeover in 1994. Republicans haven’t always held the majority in recent decades, but nationalization, partisan realignment, and the gerrymandering of House seats have contributed to a political climate in which they've had an edge more often than not for nearly thirty years. The Long Red Thread examines each House election cycle from 1964 to 2020, surveying academic and journalistic literature to identify key trends and takeaways from more than a half-century of US House election results in order to predict what Americans can expect to see in the future.
