The Constitution is one of the most studied topics in education, but this book, with sidebars, maps, illustrations, fast facts, and a compelling narrative make this topic seem brand new. Readers will learn interesting facts and have a new appreciation of the work that went into creating a new nation.

Many misconceptions about the U.S. Constitution are spread through the contemporary media, leading to confusion about the way our government functions. Learning about this important document gives readers the tools they need to verify the truthfulness of news items and decide what stance they hold on proposed changes to our nation’s laws. In-depth sidebars and quotes from primary sources provide further insight into the creation of the Constitution and its modern-day consequences.

William J. Bennett reacquaints America with its heritage in two volumes of America: The Last Best Hope. While national test scores reveal that American students know startlingly little about their history, former U.S. Education Secretary William J. Bennett offers one of the most gripping and memorable versions of the American story in print. The two volumes of Bennett's New York Times bestselling epic, America: The Last Best Hope, cover Columbus's discovery of the New World in the fifteenth century to the fall of world communism in the twentieth. Now both volumes are available in a convenient and attractive slip case-complete with a bonus audio CD, "Remembering Ronald Reagan," featuring recollections and commentary by Jeane Kirkpatrick, Edwin Meese, and others. Bill Bennett brings American history to life with stories such as: the coup d'etat quelled by a pair of reading glasses the U.S. senator nearly caned to death on the Senate floor the presidential pardon for hundreds of Sioux warriors one ex-president's race to finish his memoirs and the famous humorist who helped him when Time magazine named Hitler man of the year Eisenhower's bold actions documenting the horrors of the Holocaust Nixon's comic opera uniforms for White House guards Reagan's most famous example of just saying "No" From heroism of the Revolution to the dire hours of the Civil War, from the progressive reforms of the early 1900s to the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, from the high drama of the Space Race to the gut-wrenching tension of the Cold War, Bennett slices through the cobwebs of time, memory, and prevailing cynicism to reinvigorate America with an informed patriotism. Praise for America: The Last Best Hope "This is the American history that Abraham Lincoln has long awaited." -Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided "Bennett has a gift for choosing the pithy, revealing anecdote and for providing fresh character sketches and critical analyses of the leading figures. This is an American history that adults will find refreshing and enlightening and that younger readers will find a darn good read." -Michael Barone, US News & World Report "A worthy and necessary book for our time." -Michael J. Lewis, Commentary "Bennett ... has a strong sense of narrative, a flair for anecdote and a lively style. And the American story really is a remarkable one, filled with its share of brilliant leaders and tragic mistakes. Bennett brings that story to life." -Alan Wolfe, The Washington Post "The role of history is to inform, inspire, and sometimes provoke us, which is why Bill Bennett's wonderfully readable book is so important. He puts our nation's triumphs, along with its lapses, into the context of a narrative about the progress of freedom. Every now and then it's useful to be reminded that we are a fortunate people, blessed with generations of leaders who repeatedly renewed the meaning of America." -Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life "The importance of America: The Last Best Hope probably exceeds anything Dr. Bennett has ever written, and it is more elegantly crafted and eminently readable than any comprehensive work of history I've read in a very long time. It's silly to compare great works of history to great novels, but this book truly is a page-turner." -Brad Miner, American Compass "This lively book acknowledges mistakes and shortcomings, yet patriotically asserts that the American experiment in democracy is still a success story." -School Library Journal

This book is part of a three-part series on America as a Covenant Nation. This volume covers from the rise of America’s industrial revolution in the late 1800s to America’s taking the position in the Cold-War 1950s as the leader of the “Free World.” It is a typical social (political, economic, and military) history of America—untypical however in how it connects the intellectual, moral and spiritual character of America with those same social events. It takes the reader through the days of Western imperialism, World War One, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War Two, the beginning of the Cold War, and finally the age of Middle-America’s grand success (the 1950s). It focuses heavily on the leaders (most frequently the country’s presidents) and how their own personal spirituality shaped their times—and the way the Christian community in particular responded to both the social challenges facing it and the spiritual leadership attempting to inspire and guide it. It seeks to give the Christian reader (or Secular reader if he or she is willing to be challenged) a highly-detailed knowledge of the historical path—social and spiritual—that has brought us to today’s world ... and its enormous challenges.

Stone begins with the founding of the nation and continues to the American Revolution and the Civil War to modern time to show that America's prophetic destiny is found in parallel end-times stories, Hebrew patterns, and prophetic dates.

This book is part of a three-part series on America as a Covenant Nation. This volume begins with the period in the early 1600s when two very different English societies were established in the New World, one in Virginia and one in New England. The Virginia society simply re-created the rigidly class-based feudal society of the times. The New England society was a most unusual democracy of social equals, covenanted to live under God’s—not man’s—personal rule. These two American social types would find themselves in rather constant struggle—as Americans found keeping covenant with God to be very difficult because of man’s natural tendency to want to control life, including the lives of others. This volume will take the American narrative through the Christian “Great Awakening,” the War of Independence, the founding of a new American Republic, the early years of social spread across the continent, a “Second Great Awakening,” mounting tensions over the slavery issue, the American Civil War, and finally the period of Reconstruction afterward. This study goes deeply into social, political, and economic dynamics (a study in social power)—but also blends this analysis with an equally deep inquiry into the cultural-spiritual character of American society during these time periods and events.

An Irish officer in the British Army, Major General Robert Ross (1766–1814) was a charismatic leader widely admired for his bravery in battle. Despite a military career that included distinguished service in Europe and North Africa, Ross is better known for his actions than his name: his 1814 campaign in the Chesapeake Bay resulted in the burning of the White House and Capitol and the unsuccessful assault on Baltimore, immortalized in “The Star Spangled Banner.” The Man Who Captured Washington is the first in-depth biography of this important but largely forgotten historical figure. Drawing from a broad range of sources, both British and American, military historians John McCavitt and Christopher T. George provide new insight into Ross’s career prior to his famous exploits at Washington, D.C. Educated in Dublin, Ross joined the British Army in 1789, earning steady promotion as he gained combat experience. The authors portray him as an ambitious but humane commanding officer who fought bravely against Napoleon’s forces on battlefields in Holland, southern Italy, Egypt, and the Iberian Peninsula. Following the end of the war in Europe, while still recovering from a near-fatal wound, Ross was designated to lead an “enterprise” to America, and in August 1814 he led a small army to victory in the Battle of Bladensburg. From there his forces moved to the city of Washington, where they burned public buildings. In detailing this campaign, McCavitt and George clear up a number of misconceptions, including the claim that the British burned the entire city of Washington. Finally, the authors shed new light on the long-debated circumstances surrounding Ross’s death on the eve of the Battle of North Point at Baltimore. Ross’s campaign on the shores of the Chesapeake lasted less than a month, but its military and political impact was enormous. Considered an officer and a gentleman by many on both sides of the Atlantic, the general who captured Washington would in time fade in public memory. Yet, as McCavitt and George show, Ross’s strategies and achievements during the final days of his career would shape American defense policy for decades to come.

On March 18, 2008, as Barack Obama rose to the stage in Philadelphia, political commentators were on pins and needles over how he was going to address the fiery sermons of his long-time friend and mentor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. With an eye toward a more perfect union, the soon-to-be president offered his initial thoughts on the current state of race relations in America. "The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning." Soon after the Civil Rights Movement came to an end, James Cone had been the first to write of this "old truism" when he introduced the world to something he called Black Liberation Theology. Centuries of slavery, discrimination, and violence had stained the canvas of America's racial divide, but laws now required the immediate and full integration of public life. For those still angered by past and present oppression, there was only one place of refuge where the government would not intrude: the black church. Cone became their primary theologian. Rarely seen in small towns and rural fellowships, black liberation has been relegated to the inner city neighborhoods where the poor reach out for anyone who will give them hope for a better tomorrow. Whether the preachers of liberation have been truly held accountable for the accuracy of their message is the subject of great controversy, but there can be no productive dialogue over such matters until those who would cast judgment first acknowledge the honest and often tragic history that has created this most segregated hour of American life.