Softcover. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 358 pages with index. In The Power of the Purse, E. James Ferguson examines the intricate financial history of the American Revolution and the Confederation and connects it to political and constitutional developments in the period. Whether states or Congress should pay the debts of the Revolution and collect the taxes was a pivotal question whose solution would largely determine the country's progress toward national union. Ultimately, says Ferguson, the Revolutionary debt fulfilled an important purpose as a "bond of union." Ferguson's masterful analysis has become a classic among the literature on the American Revolution. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. London, Pickering & Chatto, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth, spine with maroon title block and gilt lettering, 369 pages. Vol. 1 ONLY of a six volume set. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. London, Pickering & Chatto, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth, spine with maroon title block and gilt lettering, 377 pages. Vol. 2 ONLY of a six volume set. Clean, bright copy, no markings.
Hardcover. London, Pickering & Chatto, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth, spine with maroon title block and gilt lettering, 384 pages. Vol. 3 ONLY of a six volume set. Name and date on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. London, Pickering & Chatto, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth, spine with maroon title block and gilt lettering, 448 pages. Vol. 4 ONLY of a six volume set. Clean, bright copy, no markings.
Hardcover. London, Pickering & Chatto, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth, spine with maroon title block and gilt lettering, 385 pages. Vol. 5 ONLY of a six volume set. Clean, bright copy, no markings.
Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 1248 pages, illustations. The political home of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, and the young Abraham Lincoln, the American Whig Party was involved at every level of American politics--local, state, and federal--in the years before the Civil War, and controlled the White House for eight of the twenty-twoyears that it existed. Now, in The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, Michael F. Holt gives us the only comprehensive history of the Whigs ever written--a monumental history covering in rich detail the American political landscape from the Age of Jackson to impending disunion.In Michael Holt's hands, the history of the Whig Party becomes a political history of the United States during the tumultuous Antebellum period. He offers a panoramic account of a time when a welter of parties (Whig, Democratic, Anti-Mason, Know Nothing, Free Soil, Republican) and manyextraordinary political statesmen (including Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, William Seward, Daniel Webster, Martin Van Buren, and Henry Clay) struggled to control the national agenda as the U.S. inched towards secession. It was an era when Americans were passionately involved in politics, whenlocal concerns drove national policy, and when momentous political events rocked the country, including the Nullification Controversy, the Panic of 1837, the Annexation of Texas, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Holt captures all of this as he shows that, amid this contentiouspolitical activity, the Whig Party continuously strove to unite North and South, repeatedly trying to find a compromise position. Indeed, the Whig Party emerges as the nation's last great hope to prevent secession and civil war.
Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket, 413 pages plus index. Bookplate on inside front cover, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A riveting examination of a nation in crisis, from one of the finest political journalists of our generation American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while rending the social contract, driving the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. All about the motivation and planning for the Wars in Laos (1959-62), Vietnam (from 1954) and Cambodia. Peter Dale Scott examines the many ways in which war policy has been driven by "accidents" and other events in the field, in some cases despite moves toward peace that were directed by presidents. Name on front fly leaf, light rubbing to dj, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren was the most revolutionary and controversial Supreme Court in American history. But in what sense? Challenging the reigning consensus that the Warren Court, fundamentally, was protecting minorities, Lucas Powe revives the valuable tradition of looking at the Supreme Court in the wide political environment to find the Warren Court a functioning partner in Kennedy-Johnson liberalism. Thus the Court helped to impose national liberal-elite values on groups that were outliers to that tradition--the white South, rural America, and areas of Roman Catholic dominance. In a learned and lively narrative, Powe discusses over 200 significant rulings: the explosive Brown decision, which fundamentally challenged the Southern way of life; reapportionment (one person, one vote), which changed the political balance of American legislatures; the gradual elimination of anti-Communist domestic security programs; the reform of criminal procedures (Mapp, Gideon, Miranda); the ban on school-sponsored prayer; and a new law on pornography. Most of these decisions date from 1962, when those who shaped the dominant ideology of the Warren Court of storied fame gained a fifth secure liberal vote. The Justices of the majority were prominent individuals, brimming with confidence, willing to help shape a revolution and see if it would last. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 425 pages. Based his work primarily on official documents released during the 1970s Yale historian Gregg Herken makes clear how, and why, after World War II American diplomats tried-but failed- to make the nation's nuclear monopoly an advantage in negotiating with the Soviet Union. And why Truman's advisers wrongly predicted that a Soviet bomb was a generation away. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a dust jacket with mild fading to spine, 294 pages. Essays that examine seven disputes which Roosevelt created, fell into or searched out during his White House years. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 1929, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bright green cloth with gilt and black stamping, 548 pages. Illustrated from photographs, facsimiles, plates. Study of Jefferson's mind based on contributions of "French thinkers" on his political philosophy. Inscription on inside front cover, otherwise a clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. Philadelphia, Childs & Peterson , 1st, 1860, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, embossed brown cloth, 245 pages plus publishers ads. Gilt on spine faded. A fascinating work of history by Francis J. Grund, exploring the link between Europe and the United States of America. Very scarce. An interesting work of world history, explore the current state of Europe in the mid-19th century and the subsequent impact on the United States of America. This work of global history is written by Francis J. Grund, the noted journalist who published numerous works in relation to the socio-politcal climate of America. Bookplate on inside front cover, otherwise tight and clean.
Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 185 pages, color and b&w illustrations. With these character sketches of key figures of the American Revolution and illuminating probes of its circumstances, Bernard Bailyn reveals the ambiguities, complexities, and uncertainties of the founding generation as well as their achievements. Using visual documentation--portraits, architecture, allegorical engravings--as well as written sources, Bailyn, one of our most esteemed historians, paints a complex picture of that distant but still remarkably relevant world. He explores the powerfully creative effects of the Founders' provincialism and lays out in fine detail the mingling of gleaming utopianism and tough political pragmatism in Thomas Jefferson's public career, and the effect that ambiguity had on his politics, political thought, and present reputation. And Benjamin Franklin emerges as a figure as cunning in his management of foreign affairs and of his visual image as he was amiable, relaxed, and amusing in his social life. Bailyn shows, too, why it is that the Federalist papers--polemical documents thrown together frantically, helter-skelter, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in a fierce political battle two hundred years ago--have attained canonical status, not only as a penetrating analysis of the American Constitution but as a timeless commentary on the nature of politics and constitutionalism.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1st, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 336 pages. Discusses the British Acts of Trade and Navigation as enforced in colonial America. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise a clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. Miami, University Press of Florida , 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 186 pages. Under Carter and Reagan, US foreign policy toward Central America failed. In this intriguing study, Dario Moreno explains how policy in those administrations was made, tracing its failure to a foreign policy establishment plagued by division and lack of consensus. Moreno shows that in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, and Cuba, Carter and Reagan played out two dramatically different Third World strategies and that neither Carter's liberal internationalists nor Reagan's rollback theorists understood the reality changes in those countries. Moreno's study draws authenticity from his interviews and discussions with a dozen key Central American policy makers in each of the two administrations and with eminent political figures in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, among them, Patricia Derian, assistant secretary of state for human rights under Carter, Elliot Abrams, Reagan's assistant secretary of state for human rights, and former president of Honduras, Jose Azocona. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Times Books, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 533 pages. Traces the history of the Marcos regime, examines U.S. policy towards the Philippines, and argues that U.S. support of dictators is counterproductive. Bookplate on inside front cover, name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Hamden CT, Archon Books, reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 243 pages, b&w portrait frontis. A biography of the Virginia cavalier and landowner who lavished his wealth in the building of Westover where he lived on an almost feudal estate and gathered the most valuable library in the colonies. Originally published in 1932.
Hardcover. Chapel Hill NC, University of North Carolina Press, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth, 292 pages, b&w plates. ISBN number on copyright page denotes a reprint. Clean, bright copy, lacks dust jacket.
Hardcover. NY, The Macmillan Company, 1st, 1945, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover in a very worn, chipped dust jacket, 429 pages. Maroon cloth with light blue lettering on spine. Bailey contends that Wilson's wartime isolationism, as well as his peace proposals at WWl's end were seriously flawed. Highlighting the fact that American delegates encountered staunch opposition to Wilson's proposed League of Nations, Bailey concluded that the president and his diplomatic staff essentially sold out, compromising American ideals to secure mere fragments of Wilson's progressive vision. Bookplate on inside front cover. Book very good, clean. Dust jacket poor.
Hardcover. London, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. This revisionist study of Allied diplomacy from 1941 to 1946 challenges Americocentric views of the period and highlights Europe's neglected role. Fraser J. Harbutt, drawing on international sources, shows that in planning for the future Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and others self-consciously operated into 1945, not on "East/West" lines but within a "Europe/America" political framework characterized by the plausible prospect of Anglo-Russian collaboration and persisting American detachment. Harbutt then explains the destabilizing transformation around the time of the pivotal Yalta conference of February 1945, when a sudden series of provocative initiatives, manipulations, and miscues interacted with events to produce the breakdown of European solidarity and the Anglo-Soviet nexus, an evolving Anglo-American alignment, and new tensions that led finally to the Cold War. This fresh perspective, stressing structural, geopolitical, and traditional impulses and constraints, raises important new questions about the enduringly controversial transition from World War II to a cold war that no statesman wanted. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Random House , 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 532 pages. The first definitive account of the rise and fall of the Secret Service, from the Kennedy assassination to the alarming mismanagement of the Obama and Trump years, right up to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6--by the Pulitzer Prize winner.