From Common-place, a review of Common Bondage: Slavery as Metaphor in Revolutionary America by Peter Dorsey; a review of Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America by Douglas R. Egerton; and a review of Revolutionary Conceptions: Women, Fertility, and Family Limitation in America, 1760-1820 by Susan Klepp. The Constitution was “proslavery in its politics, in its economics, and its law” — the result was A Slaveholders’ Union. Thaddeus Russell on 11 freedoms that drunks, slackers, prostitutes and pirates pioneered and the Founding Fathers opposed (and more). What anti-TV crusades, the campaign against the “Ground Zero mosque,” and Ayn Rand’s “intellectual heir” have in common with the reform movements of the antebellum era. The Civil War at 150: Politically and culturally, its battles are still being fought. An interview with S. Waite Rawls on his role as the keeper of the Confederacy's complex legacy. At great expense, railroad bypassed first black-founded town in the US. Zero Hour on Nihau: Did the actions of a handful of people on a remote Hawaiian island lead to the internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor? A review of Demanding Democracy: American Radicals in Search of a New Politics by Marc Stears. Making sense of the "Me" decade: The 70s were confounding at the time and, judging from recent books, are even more so in retrospect. Defining a decade: A review of Living in the Eighties. A review of Capture the Flag: The Stars and Stripes in American History by Arnaldo Testi. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is more than a war ballad — the song speaks to how America sees itself and has comforted the country during crises for 150 years. Michael Kinsley on why the U.S. is not greatest country ever. The American "new man" is the product of unreason, believing that greed is good and that the US embodies the Enlightenment ideal of freedom. A review of The Anti-American Manifesto by Ted Rall (and more and more). Nightmare on Main St.: Why American society breeds so many mutants, psychos and zombies.
