The original definition of the American Dream was rooted in the democratic principles of both the Founding Fathers and nineteenth-century transcendentalists.
Herbert Hoover’s US Food Administration did more than simply change Americans’ eating habits.
Race is an absurdity. Yet as a means of defining and separating people, it retains its power.
A neglected hard-boiled novelist wrote on the greatest conspiracy of all.
Both Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey endorse the same belief: that there are only winners and losers.
As a child, I thought that to be American was to believe in individuality, to support pluralism and equality, and to celebrate common holidays and eat common foods.
Writing a book about Thomas Jefferson means entering a very crowded field.
King’s arguments for freedom and justice were not only constitutional but also profoundly ethical.
It is fair to say that a new economic populism has been rendered impotent by cultural identity markers that shape voting patterns.
In the words of retired Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy, “a people confident in its laws and institutions should not be ashamed of mercy.”
When you turn to the news, what you will encounter, overwhelmingly, is crime.
What do we mean by culture? Don’t ask me, I’m a political scientist.
Despite obvious differences and contradictions, “we” extended across class and race and stressed our common vulnerability.
Concern with authenticity seems to be unique to societies marked by conspicuous racial or ethnic hierarchies.
Learning to read for the possibility or the certainty of laughter in the writings of Phillis Wheatley.
Black Americans still embrace the exodus story as the defining trope of their collective experience.
Carrying forward an evolving “we” of the democratic imagination.
Were it not for this creative, constructive impulse, the fire next time would have burned this country down many times over.
The gap between our concepts of love and justice has served us poorly.
It would be hard to blame him if he had lost faith in the republic.
Corporations are not defanging a threatening ideology but welcoming it back home from a field trip.
Media executives have honed the craft of attracting national interest to flair-ups and clashes over school board proceedings, controversial small business practices, or more recently, police misconduct.