How could the man who cried “give me liberty or give me death,” this patriot who penned Virginia’s resolves against the Stamp Act in 1765, not support the Constitution? At the conclusion of Virginia’s 1788 ratification convention, a meeting tasked with voting on the new Constitution, Patrick Henry strode to the assembly floor, convinced that [...]
There’s nothing like having school-age children to get you thinking about education. Yes, I went to college for eleven straight years (from B.A. to Ph.D.), and yes, I have taught at the college level for eleven years, too. But I had never thought so much about education—specifically, what kind of education is best for kids [...]
People love biographies, and I am regularly asked to recommend good ones during the lead-up to Christmas. One of the most frustrating things about the bookselling business is that there is no necessary correlation between the prominent placement of books at the bookstore, or the review of them in newspapers and magazines, and the enduring [...]
Richard M. Gamble. In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth. The phrase “city on a hill” has become inextricably tied to Ronald Reagan. Some Americans may even think that Reagan, rather than Jesus, coined it. Reagan routinely spoke of America as that “shining” city (a descriptor Reagan [...]
The religious roots of Thanksgiving speak to the essence of America, and against the danger of over-consumption. The Pilgrims remind us that Thanksgiving is not all about turkey and touchdowns. The religious roots of Thanksgiving speak to the essence of America, and against the danger of over-consumption. The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony weren’t the first Europeans [...]