Showing results for "Rules" in Americas

George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation is a set of 110 precepts or maxims on such matters as how to dress, how to walk, how to eat in public, and how to behave correctly in the company of superiors and equals. While containing the clear guidance in propriety, the rules also address moral issues, albeit somewhat indirectly. The rules are based on a set of precepts found in a treatise “Bienseance de la Conversation” prepared by Jesuit instructors in the 16th century.

When America’s first President, George Washington, was13 years of age, he penned 110 rules of civility. Some believe he was simply transcribing something he had read, but no one seems to know exactly what that may have been.

In The Rule of Empires, Timothy Parsons gives a sweeping account of the evolution of empire from its origins in ancient Rome to its most recent twentieth-century embodiment. He explains what constitutes an empire and offers suggestions about what empires of the past can tell us about our own historical moment. Parsons uses imperial examples that stretch from ancient Rome, to Britain's "new" imperialism in Kenya, to the Third Reich to parse the features common to all empires, their evolutions and self-justifying myths, and the reasons for their inevitable decline.

The chaotic events leading up to Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 election indicated how far the Republican Party had rocketed rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mounted primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appeared to exhibit too much pragmatism or independence. Moderation and compromise were dirty words in the Republican presidential debates. The GOP, it seemed, had suddenly become a party of ideological purity. Except this development is not new at all.

From Lincoln's election to secession from the Union, this compelling history explains how South Carolina was swept into a cultural crisis at the heart of the Civil War. "The tea has been thrown overboard -- the revolution of 1860 has been initiated." -- Charleston Mercury, November 8, 1860 In...

The Electoral College that governs America has been with us since 1804, when Thomas Jefferson's supporters redesigned it for his re-election. The Jeffersonians were motivated by the principle of majority rule. Gone were the days when a president would be elected by acclamation, as George Washington had been. Instead, given the emergence of intense two-party competition, the Jeffersonians wanted to make sure that the Electoral College awarded the presidency to the candidate of the majority, rather than minority, party.

From writer and political analyst Jared Yates Sexton comes an eye-opening journey through American history that unearths and debunks the myths we've always told ourselves. Recent years have brought a reckoning in America. As rampant political corruption, stark inequality, and violent bigotry...

On a New Orleans morning in 1900, a young Black man named Robert Charles dared to fight back after an unprovoked assault by three white officers. The officers had first approached Charles on the grounds that he looked “suspicious” in a predominantly white neighborhood, and began to attack him after he stood up. After shots were fired, Charles fled on foot, and legal sanction was granted to anyone who sought to kill the “desperado” (as the white newspapers of the time quickly labeled him). In the days that followed, riotous mobs overtook New Orleans.

"Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation" presents a compilation of guidelines and principles on etiquette and manners that were handwritten by George Washington. This collection offers a fascinating insight into the social norms and expectations of the 18th century.

Most Americans know Andrew Jackson as a frontier rebel against political and diplomatic norms, a "populist" champion of ordinary people against the elitist legacy of the Founding Fathers. Many date the onset of American democracy to his 1829 inauguration. Despite his reverence for the "sovereign people", however, Jackson spent much of his career limiting that sovereignty, imposing new and often unpopular legal regimes over American lands and markets.

The concluding volume of The New York Times bestselling trilogy One of today?s most outspoken and respected political commentators asks: How can our democracy function when the key institutions of government no longer operate as intended by the Constitution? Stepping back to assess three decades...

In this book, Cedric de Leon analyzes two pivotal crises in the American two-party system: the first resulting in the demise of the Whig party and secession of 11 southern states in 1861, and the present crisis splintering the Democratic and Republican parties and leading to the election of Donald Trump. Recasting these stories through the actions of political parties, de Leon draws unsettling parallels in the political maneuvering that ultimately causes once-dominant political parties to lose the people's consent to rule.

In this first half of a course on American presidential elections, Dr. Sasha Gong, a Peking University and Harvard-educated scholar, gives a historical account of the electoral system, the expansion of the voting population, and party primary campaigns. She pays special attention to the woman's suffrage and the civil rights movements, and evaluates the pros and cons of the electoral college system.