The American Idea or Constitutional Law in a Nutshell

The American Idea: The Best of the Atlantic Monthly - 150 Years of Writers and Thinkers Who Shaped Our History

Author: Robert Var

Published in celebration of the 150th birthday of The Atlantic Monthly, this extraordinary anthology brings together one hundred of the magazine’s most acclaimed and influential articles, essays, stories, and poems by the writers and thinkers who have shaped our history. With a wide range of selections representing many of America’s most prominent political commentators, journalists, historians, and humorists, the collection encapsulates what the magazine’s founders–an august group that included Emerson, Longfellow, and Holmes–called “The American Idea.”

Organized thematically and enriched by comprehensive introductory head notes for each selection, THE AMERICAN IDEA explores the fundamental subjects of the American experience: war, politics, race, class, culture, women’s rights, money, and the idea of America itself.

The anthology contains such renowned essays as Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Henry David Thoreau’s “Walking,” and Bernard Lewis’s “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” as well as the gripping magazine narratives that introduced the classic books The Soul of a New Machine, Lake Wobegon Days, and Fast Food Nation. Its fiction and poetry, from the likes of Twain, Whitman, Hemingway, and Frost, evoke the central role these literary masters played in interpreting and often rebuking American society and culture.

Rarely has an anthology so vividly captured America. Serious and comic, touching and tough, THE AMERICAN IDEA paints a revealing portrait of who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going.

Paul D'Alessandro - Library Journal

The Atlantic Monthlyobserves its 150th birthday in November, which makes it one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the United States. In his introduction to this anniversary collection, editor-at-large Vare suggests that the magazine's enduring success and position in American letters can be traced to its founding writers (e.g., Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) and, particularly, to its first editor, James Russell Lowell. These 75 articles, essays, stories, and poems amount to a Who's Whoof the last 150 years of writers, thinkers, and artists: e.g., Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton, Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath. They well reflect the Atlantic's emphasis on covering large-scale, long-lasting, and sometimes controversial issues of American culture. "Firsts" collects breakthrough pieces that have changed popular perceptions; "States of War" addresses armed conflicts in American history; and "Controversies" features articles that have taken a stand on issues of the day. Other sections deal with the issues of race and the environment, collect memorable humor writing and narrative nonfiction, and speak to our national identity and role in the world. Vare has culled pieces of such profound literary merit or strong, long-term impact as to make this an outstanding purchase for any academic or public library. [See Prepub Alert, LJ6/1/07.]

New interesting textbook: The Aging Spine or Miniature Editions Pilates for Dummies

Constitutional Law in a Nutshell

Author: Jerome A Barron

This is a concise study aid on Constitutional Law.

Table of Contents:

	Foreword
	Table of Cases
	The Constitution of the United States
	Introduction: Constitutional Principles	1
Ch. I	Judicial Review and Its Limits	5
Ch. II	National Legislative Powers	57
Ch. III	State Power in American Federalism	86
Ch. IV	Congress and the Executive Power	116
Ch. V	Due Process of Law	151
Ch. VI	Equal Protection	218
Ch. VII	Freedom of Expression	293
Ch. VIII	Freedom of Religion	432
Ch. IX	State Action	471
Ch. X	Congressional Legislation in Aid of Civil Rights and Liberties	491
	Index	507