The American Nation: Primary Sources

Democracy in America (1831) by Alexis de Tocqueville made fundamental observations and predictions about American society that continue to be applied extensively to interpreting the course of modern American life.

A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (2000) set the terms of current debate about Lincoln’s administration, arguing that he should be considered the architect of a second U.S. founding consistent with the principles of the Declaration.

The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History from 1900-1916 (1963) upended progressive myths about the benevolence of government regulation from a new left perspective on the anti-competitive nature of corporate interests.

Prophets of Regulation (1984) put the personalities and ideas that made the modern American nation state into historical context.

Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings (2005) goes deeply into the political thought of one of the most influential presidencies of the 20th century in both domestic and foreign policy.

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (2007) called into question much of the history surrounding the Great Depression and the policies use to address it.

Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government (1987) is the classic treatment of the growth of government and government regulation in American life from the latter half of the 19th Century onwards.