Showing titles in Civics & Citizenship

Alexis de Tocqueville's renowned analysis of American democracy still has relevance today. In 1831 de Tocqueville was sent to America by the French government to study the U.S. penal system, but his real aim was to observe a democratic republic firsthand to see if such an entity could function with dignity and humanity. His travels, which took him to the cities of the Northeast, to the frontier and the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi and through the South, showed him a great deal about the United States. In 1834, he wrote Democracy in America, in which he examines the advantages and pitfalls of democracy, the conditions and conflicts among the races, and the movements that grip the country.

You've been asked your opinion of the electoral college. All you know is you didn't go there. You need the facts. Fast. With this audio program, you can become an Instant Genius on the subject of The Constitution in about an hour.

In their own words and their own voices, these contributors prove that ordinary citizens can make a difference. They offer practical resources to turn inspiration into action. From effective online petitions to getting out informed voters, this empowering audio is an essential guide for being involved based on one criterion: a heartfelt desire to better our communities and country.

First published in September 2005 and based on a series of lectures delivered at Harvard, Active Liberty is a tight, extremely readable, almost memoir-like guide to interpreting the Constitution. Written by a justice of the Supreme Court, it focuses on a pragmatic approach to this great document that may become crucial as the Supreme Court faces deeply divisive decisions.

Against the backdrop of post-9/11 America, listeners are taken behind the scenes of some of the most important civil liberties cases in America. From the story of the "American Taliban" to the battle against the National Security Agency's warrantless spying program, In Defense of Our America tracks a roster of skirmishes in the larger fight for civil liberties in this country.

In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. In this landmark book, scientist and psychologist Drew Westen shows how electorates vote not with their heads but with their hearts, and how the marketplace that matters most is the marketplace of emotion - filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory.

Wolf outlines in this citizen call to action - which is reminiscent of Thomas Paine's revered Common Sense - the real threats to our civil liberties that exist and explains how by working together we can stop the growing threat.

L'école est le dernier rempart de la République ; l'école a abdiqué de tout rôle civique. Entre ces deux figures, le débat public oscille depuis de longues années, modernes contre classiques, "pédagogues" contre "républicains".

Le fondateur du Nouvel Observateur analyse depuis toujours les subtils méandres de l'identité nationale, à l'aune de l'expérience algérienne et d'une connaissance intime du monde.

You've heard of the "Great Books"? These are their evil opposites. From Machiavelli's The Prince to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, these "influential" books have led to war, genocide, totalitarian oppression, family breakdown, and disastrous social experiments. And yet these authors' bad ideas are still popular and pervasive. Here with the antidote is Professor Benjamin Wiker.

The Best of the Thom Hartmann Program features excerpts from some of Thom's classic Air America shows. Volume 1: We the People focuses on the state of American democracy - its historic roots and its present imperiled health. Thom discusses the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Kennedy-Nixon debates, executive power, and more.

The Best of the Thom Hartmann Program features excerpts from some of Thom's classic Air America shows. Volume 2: Our Living History, Thom brings his deep grounding in American history to bear on current events. He explores ripped-from-the-headlines topics like the right-wing war on the middle class, the dangers of privatizing the military and healthcare, the threat of theocracy, the legacy of the American labor Movement, and what those Republican tax cuts really mean.

Americans of all political stripes are heading into the 2008 election with the sense that something has gone terribly wrong with American politics. But what exactly? The only thing everyone seems to agree on, in fact, is that the American people are entirely blameless. InJust How Stupid Are We?, best-selling historian and renowned myth-buster Rick Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people.

According to Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy.

Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging; they learned these techniques.

In Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, best-selling author Naomi Wolf illustrates the breathtaking changes that can take place when ordinary citizens engage in the democratic system the way the founders intended and tells you how to use that system, right now, to change your life, your community, and ultimately the nation.

Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column has been must reading for thoughtful liberals and conservatives alike. Now she issues an urgent, heartfelt call for all Americans to support the next President. Because it is not the threats and challenges we face, but how we face them that defines us as a nation.

The United States - the world's great bastion of freedom - is sliding toward socialism. High-profile bailouts and a stimulus bill have toppled the walls between government and private sectors. Federal control now extends in various ways to education, health care, financial markets, real estate, businesses, and religion. And as out-of-control government spending and debt increase, America is drained of the economic and political strength its people fought for and worked so hard to achieve.

What are our obligations to others as people in a free society? Should government tax the rich to help the poor? Is the free market fair? Is it sometimes wrong to tell the truth? Do individual rights and the common good conflict? These questions are at the core of our public life today - and at the heart of Justice, in which Michael J. Sandel shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us to make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well.

America is under attack as never before—not only from terrorists but from people who provide a rationale for terrorism. Best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza takes on all of America's critics and proves them wrong—as perhaps only a writer with an immigrant's understanding of this country can. D'Souza presents his case for intelligent patriotism based on an understanding of what really makes America unique in the world.

Offering a “CliffsNotes guide” to some of the most important literary works of our time, Benjamin Wiker, author of 10 Books That Screwed Up the World, turns his discerning eye from the great texts that have done damage to Western civilization to the great texts that could help rebuild it.