A01=Michael Bellesiles
african american history
african american studies
american history
Author_Michael Bellesiles
black studies
Category=JPHC
Category=LND
constitutional amendments
constitutional law
discrimination
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gender inequality
legal studies
political science
race
racial injustice
racism
reconstruction
segregation
social justice
sociology
supreme court history
us history
Product details
- ISBN 9781250091918
- Weight: 300g
- Dimensions: 154 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 01 Nov 2020
- Publisher: St Martin's Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood in front of a crowd in Rochester, New York, and asked, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” The audience had invited him to speak on the day celebrating freedom, and had expected him to offer a hopeful message about America; instead, he’d offered back to them their own hypocrisy. How could the Constitution defend both freedom and slavery? How could it celebrate liberty with one hand while withdrawing it with another? Theirs was a country which promoted and even celebrated inequality.
From the very beginning, American history can be seen as a battle to reconcile the large gap between America’s stated ideals and the reality of its republic. Its struggle is not one of steady progress toward greater freedom and equality, but rather for every step forward there is a step taken in a different direction. In Inventing Equality, Michael Bellesiles traces the evolution of the battle for true equality - the stories of those fighting forward, to expand the working definition of what it means to be an American citizen -from the Revolution through the late nineteenth century. He identifies the systemic flaws in the Constitution, and explores through the role of the Supreme Court and three Constitutional amendments - the 13th, 14th, and 15th - the ways in which equality and inequality waxed and waned over the decades.
MICHAEL BELLESILES, once a visiting professor at Trinity College in Connecticut and a professor of history at Emory University, is the author of numerous books on American history-including 1877 and A People's History of the U.S. Military. Bellesiles received his BA from the University of California-Santa Cruz and his PhD from the University of California at Irvine. He lives in Connecticut.
