The Decline and Fall of the American Republic
- ISBN-10
- 0674058399
- ISBN-13
- 9780674058392
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 280
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2011-02-01
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press
- Author
- Bruce Ackerman
Description
Constitutional thought is currently dominated by heroic tales of the Founding Fathers — who built an Enlightenment machine that can tick-tock its way into the twenty-first century, with a little fine-tuning by the Supreme Court. However, according to Bruce Ackerman, the modern presidency is far more dangerous today than it was when Arthur Schlesinger published the Imperial Presidency in 1973. In this book, he explores how the interaction of changes in the party system, mass communications, the bureaucracy, and the military have made the modern presidency too powerful and a threat to liberal constitutionalism and democracy. Ackerman argues that the principles of constitutional legitimacy have been undermined by both political and legal factors. On the political level, by “government by emergency” and “government by public-opinion poll”; on the legal, by two rising institutions: The Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and the Office of the Presidential Counsel in the White House. Both institutions came out of the New Deal, but have gained prominence only in the last generation. Lastly, Ackerman kicks off a reform debate that aims to adapt the Founding ideal of checks-and-balances to twenty-first century realities. His aim is not to propose definitive solutions but to provoke a national debate on American democracy in its time of trouble.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2013-09-02
- 280 pages
- Paperback
- Harvard University Press
Similar books
-
Decline and Fall of the American Republic: Is God Angry with America?
By Durwood WhiteThe parallels existing between the ancient fall of the Roman Empire and America of the 21st Century are astounding.
-
Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny
By Edward J. WattsIn Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy.
-
Decline and Fall of the American Republic: Confessions of a Repentant Politician; A Story of Fifty Years Hence; Time, A....
By John McElroyAbout the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work.
-
Rome and America: the Great Republics: What the Fall of the Roman Republic Portends for the United States
By Walter Signorelli194 Clay, Papers, 1.4–5. 195 Robert Remini, Henry Clay, Statesman for the Union (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991) 142. 196 Annals of Cong., 15th Cong., 2d Sess., 631–655. 197 Andrew Jackson to Major Lewis, January 25, ...
-
Decline of the American Republic, The
By John T. Flynn... 158-160, 165-166, 176-179; text of, with amendments, 181-204 Utopia, 59-60 Van Devanter, Willis, 100 Vassar College, 150 Wallace, Henry A., 65, 71, 72, 91, 143 Washington, George, 33, 174, 177 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 70 Wilson, ...
-
Perils of Empire: The Roman Republic and the American Republic
By Monte PearsonIn Perils of Empire: The Roman Republic and the American Republic, the author traces how the Roman Republic gained an empire and lost its freedoms, and he ponders the expansionist foreign policy that has characterized the American Republic ...
-
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
By Gore VidalWho Owns the U.S.? is the clearest summary yet of Vidal's political views. The book is shot through with the coruscating wit that has made him one of America's most...
-
The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties
By Christopher CaldwellChristopher Caldwell has spent years studying the liberal uprising of the 1960s and its unforeseen consequences and his conclusion is this: even the reforms that Americans love best have come with costs that are staggeringly high—in ...
-
Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America
By Cullen Murphy. . . I wish every politician would spend an evening with this book.” —James Fallows
-
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
By Robert D. PutnamRobinson and Godbey, Time for Life, 126—129. Time diary data are generally more reliable than survey recall questions, and they show less work time and more leisure time. 5. Schor, The Overworked American; Robinson and Godbey, ...