The U.S. Constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787. It was to become law only if it was ratified by nine of the thirteen states. New York was a key state, but it contained strong forces opposing the Constitution. A series of eighty-five letters appeared in New York City newspapers between October 1787 and August 1788 urging support for the Constitution. These letters remain the first and most authoritative commentary...

What are the most common dreams and why do we have them? What does a dream about death mean? What do dreams of swimming, failing, or flying symbolize? First published by Sigmund Freud in 1899, The Interpretation of Dreams considers why we dream and what it means in the larger picture of our psychological lives. Delving into theories of manifest and latent dream content, the special language of dreams, dreams as wish fulfillments, the significance...

The Prince has long been both praised and reviled for its message of moral relativism and political expediency. Although a large part is devoted to the mechanics of gaining and staying in power, Machiavelli's end purpose is to maintain a just and stable government. He is not ambiguous in stating his belief that committing a small cruelty to avert a larger is not only justifiable but required of a just ruler.Machiavelli gives a vivid portrayal of his...

What does it mean to be young today? In the summer of 2010, Robin Marantz Henig wrote a provocative article for the New York Times Magazine called "What Is It about 20-Somethings?" It generated enormous reader response and started a conversation that included both millennials and baby boomers. Now, working with her millennial daughter Samantha, she expands the project to give us a full portrait of what it means to be in your twenties today. Looking...

Titanic is a unique record of one of the most traumatic events in maritime history. Not only does Colonel Gracie describe his own experience on that fateful night but the stories of as many other survivors as he could track down. He also attended a court hearing to obtain the official record. Colonel Gracie provides the answer to what it was like on board the Titanic in its final hours.

These wide-ranging essays—on many individual political, economic, cultural, and legal issues—have as a recurring, underlying theme the decline of the values and institutions that have sustained and advanced American society for more than two centuries. This decline has been more than erosion. It has, in many cases, been a deliberate dismantling of American values and institutions by people convinced that their superior wisdom and virtue must override...

Has American higher education become a dinosaur? Why do professors all tend to think alike? What makes it so hard for colleges to decide which subjects should be required? Why do teachers and scholars find it so difficult to transcend the limits of their disciplines? Why, in short, are problems that should be easy for universities to solve so intractable? The answer, Louis Menand argues, is that the institutional structure and the educational philosophy...

In his Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx argued that history flows inevitably toward a social revolution, which will result in a society without economic classes. Rousseau's Social Contract fanned the flames of the French Revolution with his controversial explanation of social authority as an implied contract between people and government.

Mortimer Adler devoted a lifetime to studying the great ideas of Western culture and explaining even the most difficult concepts to the average citizen, earning Time magazine's praise as a "philosopher for everyman." In We Hold These Truths, Dr. Adler caps his life's work by illuminating the ideas and ideals that have made the United States of America a truly unique nation in the annals of history. The ideas Adler examines include those at the core...

A team of journalists with unparalleled inside access provides the first full, in-depth account of WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange, and the ethical, legal, and political controversies it has both uncovered and provoked. The extraordinary twists and turns of WikiLeaks have been closely followed by the Guardian newspaper ever since the website launched in 2006, and Guardian journalists have had unprecedented access to all the major players, from...