Think tanks have become increasingly important in American politics foreign policy. In the last thirty years think tanks have emerged as major actors on the political stage, comparable in influence to large interest groups, political parties, and government agencies. In the same time span these think tanks have replaced universities as the main source for new policy ideas and the background research and arguments to justify them.

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Howard J. Wiarda - Think Tanks and Foreign Policy, The Foreign Policy Research Institute and Preside ntial Politics (2010).pdf

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Joshua Kosman - The Buyout of America, How Private Equity Will Cause the Next Great Credit Crisis (2 009).jpg

An authoritative exposé of the mysterious and potentially dangerous world of private equity
Few people realize that the top private equity firms, such as Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, have become the nation's largest employers through the businesses they own. Using leveraged buyouts that load their acquired companies with loans, private equity firms have generated more than $1 trillion in new debt-which will come due just when these businesses are least likely to be able to pay it off.
Journalist Josh Kosman explores private equity's explosive growth and shows how its barons wring profits at the expense of the long-term health of their companies. He argues that excessive debt and mismanagement will likely trigger another economic meltdown within the next five years, wiping out up to two million jobs.
He also explores the links between the private equity elite and Washington power players, who have helped them escape government scrutiny. The result is a timely book with an important warning for us all.

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Joshua Kosman - The Buyout of America, How Private Equity Will Cause the Next Great Credit Crisis (2 009).pdf

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Keally D. Mcbride - Collective Dreams, Political I magination & Community (2005).jpg

How do we go about imagining different and better worlds for ourselves? Collective Dreams looks at ideals of community, frequently embraced as the basis for reform across the political spectrum, as the predominant form of political imagination in America today. Examining how these ideals circulate without having much real impact on social change provides an opportunity to explore the difficulties of practicing critical theory in a capitalist society.
Different chapters investigate how ideals of community intersect with conceptions of self and identity, family, the public sphere and civil society, and the state, situating community at the core of the most contested political and social arenas of our time. Ideals of community also influence how we evaluate, choose, and build the spaces in which we live, as the author's investigations of Celebration, Florida, and of West Philadelphia show. Following in the tradition of Walter Benjamin, Keally McBride reveals how consumer culture affects our collective experience of community as well as our ability to imagine alternative political and social orders.
Taking ideals of community as a case study, Collective Dreams also explores the structure and function of political imagination to answer the following questions: What do these oppositional ideals reveal about our current political and social experiences? How is the way we imagine alternative communities nonetheless influenced by capitalism, liberalism, and individualism? How can these ideals of community be used more effectively to create social change?

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Keally D. Mcbride - Collective Dreams, Political I magination & Community (2005).pdf

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Norval Morris, Michael Tonry - Between Prison and Probation, Intermediate Punishments in a Rational Sentencing System (1991).jpg

USA Books1 - Norval Morris, Michael Tonry - Between Prison and Prob...iate Punishments in a Rational Sentencing System 1991.jpg

Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity and, in extreme cases, barges and mobile homes are used to stem the overflow. Probation officers in some cities have caseloads of 200 and more--hardly a manageable number of offenders to track and supervise. And with about one million people in prison and jail, and two and a half million on probation, it is clear we are experiencing a crisis in our penal system.
In Between Prison and Probation, Norval Morris and Michael Tonry, two of the nation's leading criminologists, offer an important and timely strategy for alleviating these problems. They argue that our overwhelmed corrections system cannot cope with the flow of convicted offenders because the two extremes of punishment--imprisonment and probation--are both used excessively, with a near-vacuum of useful punishments in between. Morris and Tonry propose instead a comprehensive program that relies on a range of punishment including fines and other financial sanctions, community service, house arrest, intensive probation, closely supervised treatment programs for drugs, alcohol and mental illness, and electronic monitoring of movement. Used in rational combinations, these "intermediate" punishments would better serve the community than our present polarised choice. Serious consideration of these punishments has been hindered by the widespread perception that they are therapeutic rather than punitive. The reality, however, Morris and Tonry argue, "is that the American criminal justice system is both too severe and too lenient--almost randomly." Systematically implemented and rigorously enforced, intermediate punishments can "better and more economically serve the community, the victim, and the criminal than the prison terms and probation orders they supplant."
Between Prison and Probation goes beyond mere advocacy of an increasing use of interdediate punishments; the book also addresses the difficult task of fitting these punishments into a comprehensive, fair and community-protective sentencing system.

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Norval Morris, Michael Tonry - Between Prison and Probation, Intermediate Punishments in a Rational Sentencing System (1991).pdf

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The New Americans - Jill S. Reichman - Immigration , Acculturation, And Health, The Mexican Diaspora (2006).jpg

USA Books1 - The New Americans - Jill S. Reichman - Immigration, Ac... Acculturation, And Health, The Mexican Diaspora 2006.jpg

Reichman’s debunks the myth of the cognitive and behavioral intransigence of first generation Mexican immigrants. Focusing on health care, she reveals the flexibility of female immigrants’ beliefs about health and illness. She demonstrates how the rate of acculturation varies with the complaint: those with chronic disease shift health ideology faster than those sick from sub-acute illnesses. Ultimately, all sojourners learn new ways to care for themselves and redefine how they prevent and treat disease. Reichman’s most important discovery is that the majority of changes occur within ten years, regardless of the age at which immigration takes place, the type of sending community, the level of education, or the English language fluency of the migrant.

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The New Americans - Jill S. Reichman - Immigration , Acculturation, And Health, The Mexican Diaspora (2006).pdf

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Ann DuCille - The Coupling Convention, Sex, Text, and Tradition in Black Women's Fiction (1993).jpg

What does the tradition of marriage mean for people who have historically been deprived of its legal status? Generally thought of as a convention of the white middle class, the marriage plot has received little attention from critics of African-American literature. In this study, Ann duCille uses texts such as Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) to demonstrate that the African-American novel, like its European and Anglo-American counterparts, has developed around the marriage plot--what she calls "the coupling convention." Exploring the relationship between racial ideology and literary and social conventions, duCille uses the coupling convention to trace the historical development of the African-American women's novel. She demonstrates the ways in which black women appropriated this novelistic device as a means of expressing and reclaiming their own identity. More than just a study of the marriage tradition in black women's fiction, however, The Coupling Convention takes up and takes on many different meanings of tradition. It challenges the notion of a single black literary tradition, or of a single black feminist literary canon grounded in specifically black female language and experience, as it explores the ways in which white and black, male and female, mainstream and marginalized "traditions" and canons have influenced and cross-fertilized each other. Much more than a period study, The Coupling Convention spans the period from 1853 to 1948, addressing the vital questions of gender, subjectivity, race, and the canon that inform literary study today. In this original work, duCille offers a new paradigm for reading black women's fiction.

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Ann DuCille - The Coupling Convention, Sex, Text, and Tradition in Black Women's Fiction (1993).pdf

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Arthur David Kahn - Experiment in Occupation, Witn ess to the Turnabout, Anti-Nazi War to Cold, War 1 944-1946 (2004).jpg

USA Books1 - Arthur David Kahn - Experiment in Occupation, Witness... Turnabout, Anti-Nazi War to Cold, War 1944-1946 2004.jpg

As a participant in many of the events he writes about in Experiment in Occupation, Arthur Kahn offers a richly detailed account of the process by which the fight against Nazism came to be transformed into the Cold War. His story reveals how those in the Military Government of Germany who were dedicated to carrying out the war aims promulgated by Roosevelt and Eisenhower for a thorough democratization of Germany were ultimately defeated in their confrontation with powerful elements in the Military Government and in Washington who were more intent upon launching a preemptive war against the Soviet Union than upon the eradication of Nazism and German militarism.
A twenty-three-year-old OSS operative, Arthur Kahn was assigned after D-Day to a psychological warfare unit, where at first he supervised prisoner-of-war interrogations and then served as an editor of intelligence. Instructed to respond to requests from Supreme Headquarters, he drafted proposals for psychological warfare approaches to critical situations at the front only to discover that a SHAEF directive banned calls to the Germans to revolt. Subsequently Kahn served in liaison with the Soviets and during the Battle of the Bulge at Montgomery's British headquarters. For several months before and after VE Day he traveled through the American Zone as an intelligence investigator and wrote a report that led to the dismissal of General George S. Patton as Military Governor of Bavaria. Appointed Chief Editor of Intelligence of the Information Control Division, he produced the most influential intelligence weekly in the American Zone.
Kahn's portrayal of events in postwar Germany provides warnings for current and future American experiments in foreign occupation.

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Arthur David Kahn - Experiment in Occupation, Witn ess to the Turnabout, Anti-Nazi War to Cold, War 1 944-1946 (2004).pdf

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Harry Browne - Why Government Doesn't Work (1995).jpg

A platform summation by the libertarian candidate for president states that big government is ineffective and behind most of American society's ills and proposes a redefined government that will improve such areas as education, violence, and taxes.
Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate for President in 1996, outlines his views on government and lays out his platform. According to Browne, just about everything from rising healthcare costs to our collapsing morality is the fault of a government that differs from organized crime only because it "has flags in front of its offices." The answer to all our ills, he says, lies with free enterprise, which should be put in charge of such tasks as national defense and education. Among the things he promises to do if elected: pardon anyone ever convicted of violating federal weapons-control laws, and sell the country's national parks.

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Harry Browne - Why Government Doesn't Work (1995).pdf

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Jason A. Edwards - Navigating the Post-Cold War Wo rld, President Clinton's Foreign Policy Rhetoric ( 2008).jpg

Jason A. Edwards explores the various rhetorical choices and strategies employed by former president Bill Clinton to discuss foreign policy issues in a new, post-Cold War era. Edwards argues that each U.S. president has situated himself within the same foreign policy paradigm, drawing upon the same set of ideas and utilizing the same basic vernacular to discuss foreign policy. He describes how former presidents-and President Clinton, in particular-made modifications to this paradigm, leaving a rhetorical signature that tells us as much about the nature of their presidencies as it does about the international environment they faced. By examining the nuances and unique contributions President Clinton made to American foreign policy rhetoric, Edwards shows how his distinct rhetorical signature will influence future administrations.

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Jason A. Edwards - Navigating the Post-Cold War Wo rld, President Clinton's Foreign Policy Rhetoric ( 2008).pdf

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Peter J. Wallison - Privatizing Fannie Mae, Freddi e Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, Why and How (2004).jpg

USA Books1 - Peter J. Wallison - Privatizing Fannie Mae, Freddie M...Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, Why and How 2004.jpg

Many people want to tighten federal regulations governing the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)—Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. But better regulations will not do much to reduce the real risks that the GSEs create for U.S. taxpayers and the economy, and aren’t likely to have real force. Fannie and Freddie are the most politically powerful companies in America. The S&L debacle of the late 1980s showed that politically powerful organizations can intimidate regulators and stave off tough regulation. Under these circumstances, privatization—the elimination of government backing—is the only viable way to protect the taxpayers and the economy against the consequences of major financial difficulties at one or more of the GSEs.
Opponents of privatization believe that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be even more powerful as privatized entities. Fannie and Freddie would be able to obtain better financing than their competitors, according to this line of thinking. Concerns have also been raised about whether the privatization of Fannie and Freddie would disrupt the residential finance market or raise mortgage rates for home buyers.
The plans in this book together address these concerns. Thomas H. Stanton demonstrates that it is possible to cut the ties between the government and the GSEs—and to create a fully competitive private mortgage market—without disrupting the current system of residential mortgage finance. Financial consultant Bert Ely shows that it would be possible to obtain lower mortgage rates than currently offered by Fannie and Freddie, without any government involvement. The book presents a complete legislative proposal to enact these plans, along with a detailed section-by-section analysis of the bill.

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Peter J. Wallison - Privatizing Fannie Mae, Freddi e Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, Why and How (2004).pdf

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Paul Johnson - A History of the American People (1 999).jpg

Paul Johnson, whose previous works include the distinguished Modern Times and A History of the Jews, has produced an epic that spans the history of the American people over the past 400 years. The prolific narrative covers every aspect of U.S. history, from science, customs, religion, and politics to the individual men and women who have helped shape the nation. His detailed, provocative examinations of political and social icons, from Lyndon Johnson to Norman Rockwell, are especially strong. Johnson's text is intelligent and rich with detail, and yet extremely accessible for anyone interested in a reinterpretive analysis of America's past.

What makes this book unique is Johnson's approach to this self-professed Herculean task. The prevalent tone throughout is optimism. Whether he's discussing race relations, industrialization, the history of women, immigrants, Vietnam, or political correctness, Johnson--a staunch conservative who was born, bred, and educated in England--is openly enamored with America's past, particularly the hardships and tribulations that the nation has had to overcome. He sees this story as a series of important lessons, not just for Americans but for the whole of mankind as well. At a time when other contemporary scholars find it easier to bemoan the past, Johnson offers the reader "a compelling antidote to those who regard the future with pessimism." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Benjamin Colby - 'Twas a famous victory, Deception and Propaganda in the War With Germany (1975).jpg

This book is not for the timid and those whose politically correct phony sensitive balloons would burst by the accounts in this book. Mr. Colby wrote a good introduction as to the realities of FDR & co. manipulating public opinion and diplomacy to curry favor with the the Soviets and to commit genocide against the Geman civilians during World War II.
Benjamin Colby introduces the reader to FDR's secret war against the Germans in 1940 using U.S. Navy to assist British forces against the German Navy while FDR promised peace and that "American boys would not die in foreign wars." Colby is clear that the media folks catered to his treachery and "pie in the sky" slogans.
Colby also compares and contrasts FDR's Churhill's pious comments contained in the Atlantic Charter while secretly arranging to save the Soviets and encourage Stalin's territorial ambitions in Eastern Europe. Colby also cites chapter-and-verse the amount of secret aid given to the Soviets which was not known by the American people.
There are interesting sections Colby mentions re FDR's pleading with Stalin & co. to at least make some proclamation that Soviet authorities proclaim freedom of religion. The final public pronouncement was so vague as to provoke amusement among those who knew the actual Soviet condtions re freedom of religion.
Colby' book gives a good account of FDR's policy makers and U.S. news executives whitewashing Soviet atrocities during the war. Of particular interest is Colby's account over the Soviet murder at the Katyn Forest in the Smolensk region of Poland in 1939. This atrocity was originally blamed on the Germans, but the realities soon became clear. Red Cross officials and German authorities promised a full investigation of the masscre, but Soviet authorities refused to permit such investigations. In fact, the Soviets used the incident to sever diplomatic relations with the Polish Government in Exile which made Soviet dominence easier in Poland. All the Soviets had to do was create a Polish puppet government and purge Polish non-communists.
The Teheran and Yalta Conferences are well reported in this book. The secret concessions given to Stalin and the Soveits were never revealed until after World War II which, when revealed, led to a useless Cold War. Basically these conferences insured that several million innocent civilians would be brutalized and enslaved once the war was over. What is ironic is that those who preached fire an brimstone against the Germans during World War II were the same men who whined about Soviet dominence in Eastern and Central Euroepe. These were the same men who smeared those who gave similiar warnings before and during World War II.

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Benjamin Colby - 'Twas a famous victory, Deception and Propaganda in the War With Germany (1975).pdf

Colby's examination of U.S. press barons is interesting. Freedom of the Press was openly violated by journalistic lying and official and unofficial censorship. Cyrus McCormick was literally forced out of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE Office for no other reason than he opposed FDR's New Deal and foreign policy. Colby has a good commentary of The War Writers' Board whose officials hired cheap fiction writers in an attempt to refute historians and experts on diplomacy. Their efforts to inflame racial and ethnic hatred toward innocent Germans did not abate after the war, and they tried to inflame public well into the early years of the Cold War. Colby is clear that these hate mongers lost their credibility when the realities of the Cold War became clear, and the "Hate Germans" campaigned looked rediculous.
Post War treatment of innocent Germans verged on the most savage treatment since Genghis and Kublai Khan. The Morgenthal Plan was supposed to starve the Germans into extinction. Colby presents views of some "experts" who argued in favor of efforts to breed the Germans out of existence. An interesting anecdote was Anti-Fraternization effort imposed on U.S. soldiers who refused to obey such orders, and efforts to enforce this insanity failed.
Colby also refutes claims that U.S. bombing was based on precision. He gives a brief description of the saturation fire bombing of Dresden in 1945. Some fighter pilots masscred a boys choir during this tragedy. Note should be taken that the Soviets and East German Communists exploited this bombing in their propaganda vs. the West. Dresdeon was just one incident in "allied" bombing of civilians.
Colby refutes the myths of "allied" righteousness re World War II. He gives readers a short but reasonable account of the actualities of World War II. The only criticism this book is that Colby could have expanded this book by examining FDR's policy vs. the Japanese. This would have made the book more comprehensive and given the reader a more thorough view of the actual realities of World War II.
Yet,this is still a solid book. Colby has exhaustive footnotes at the end of the book which gives readers sources and books to confirm his own book. Colby's book is well researched and well written. Companion books are Chamberlain's AMERICA'S SECOND CRUSADE, Veale's ADVANCE TO BARBARISM, and James J. Matin's REVISIONIST VIEWPOINTS. An even more comprehenisve book is Barnes's PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACE. This reviewer strongly recommends this book.

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Donald Peck - The Right Place, The Right Time!, Ta les of Chicago Symphony Days (2007).jpg

From Yakima, Washington, to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Donald Peck's journey as a flutist has been extraordinary. Here, Peck offers an insider's view of the inner workings of one of the most prestigious orchestras in the country. Peck, like many artists, did not select his path voluntarily, but rather let fate lead him to a career in music. In 1957, he secured a seat with the orchestra as a flutist. Beginning in 1958, Peck garnered the title of principal which he kept until his retirement in 1999.

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Donald Peck - The Right Place, The Right Time!, Ta les of Chicago Symphony Days (2007).pdf

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Frank Grzyb - A Story for All Americans, Vietnam, Victims, and Veterans (2000).jpg

The book details wartime accounts of average servicemen and women-some heroic, some frightening, some amusing, some nearly unbelievable. The work is a historical compendium of fascinating and compelling stories woven together in a theme format. What makes this book truly unique, however, is its absence of literary pretentiousness. Relating oral accounts, the veterans speak in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact way. As seen through the eyes of the veterans, the stories include first-person experiences of infantry soldiers, a flight officer, a medic, a nurse, a combat engineer, an intelligence soldier, and various support personnel. Personalities emerge gradually as the veterans discuss their pre war days, their training and preparation for Vietnam, and their actual in-country experiences. The stories speak of fear and survival: the paranoia of not knowing who or where the enemy was; the bullets, rockets, and mortars that could mangle a body or snuff out a life in an instant; and going home with a CMH--not the Congressional Medal of Honor, but a Casket with Metal Handles. The veterans also speak of friendships and simple acts of kindness. But more importantly, they speak of healing-both physical and mental.

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Frank Grzyb - A Story for All Americans, Vietnam, Victims, and Veterans (2000).pdf

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Henry Williams - The United States Navy. A Handboo k (1911).jpg

In the course of the author's tour of duty in the Navy Department, he was called on frequently to prepare answers to letters requesting information about the Navy. These letters came from all parts and all classes. The widespread interest indicated in this manner, coupled with the absence of a book of general information regarding the Navy designed for general reading, induced him to undertake the preparation of this book. It is intended primarily for the information of persons having some interest in naval affairs but it is not technical. Only subjects of possible general interest have been discussed, and those only so far as they seemed to supply interest.
There is at all times a demand on the press for news of the Navy's doings. The author frequently has had the privilege of furnishing information and data to newspapermen for use in their paragraphs and has in this way also felt the need for a simple manual or handbook on the Navy.
Another inducement for the preparation of the book was the fact that the Navy's enlisted men are drawn almost entirely from inland states; many of them previous to their enlistment never saw the ocean. The friends and relatives of these men have had no ready means of satisfying a natural desire to be informed as to the Navy.
Henry Williams, October, 1911.

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Henry Williams - The United States Navy. A Handboo k (1911).pdf

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Simon Schama - The American Future, A History (200 9).jpg

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Michael Kazin Who does Simon Schama think he is? The Columbia University historian seems to have few intellectual limits and to require little sleep. He has written path-breaking books about Dutch history and culture; the Rothschilds and the creation of Israel; sprawling narratives about the Revolution in France and slavery during the Revolution in America; a thick study of Rembrandt; a postmodern historical novel; dozens of provocative essays about art; and multi-part television documentaries about the history of Britain and the work of great artists, both of which attracted millions of viewers and, inevitably, hundreds of scholarly critics. Now Schama has chosen to examine the meaning of America's entire past and to suggest why it has culminated, quite happily in his view, in the election of Barack Obama. I suspect that historians on campuses across the nation are guiltily hoping that this time, Schama's reach has finally exceeded his grasp. They will be disappointed -- but only in part. As a literary endeavor, "The American Future" does live up to the author's lofty standards. Schama is, among other things, a nimble biographer. And in this book he tells four big, interlocking stories -- about war, religion, immigration and economic growth -- largely through the dramatic lives of individuals whose names will be familiar mainly to specialists. In Montgomery Meigs, he finds an exemplar of the soldier as engineer of grand purposes. While a young army officer in the 1850s, Meigs designed the aqueduct that supplied Washington, D.C., with free, clean water. Then, as quartermaster general during the Civil War, he helped ensure the Union victory by keeping the blue-clad troops supplied with mules, food, soap and dry underwear -- humble, necessary goods that their Confederate enemies often lacked. He also made the decision to establish a military cemetery on the grounds of Robert E. Lee's estate in Arlington, so that the soil of the treasonous general would be, as Schama writes, "purified with the bones of the blessed dead," among whom was Meigs's oldest son. To illustrate how American religion has often been a liberating faith, Schama introduces a former slave-turned-evangelist named Jarena Lee, whose sermons converted thousands of people to Methodism during the early years of the 19th century. "On and on went the inexhaustible road warrior," Schama writes, "exhorting in field and forest, in camp revivals and Love Feasts, comforting the dying" in the New York City cholera epidemic of 1831, "an authentic American phenomenon, preaching to overflowing congregations, the first, in her way, of the great black orators." Throughout the book, Schama counterposes such uplifting tales with deplorable ones. Meigs, the abolitionist in uniform, is balanced by Andrew Jackson, the military hero who, as president, ordered the U.S. Army to drive the Cherokees off their lands in Georgia.

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