{"title":"Carol Berkin","description":"CAROL BERKIN is the Presidential Professor of History at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.","products":[{"product_id":"a-brilliant-solution-inventing-the-american-constitution-paperback","title":"A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eHistorian Carol Berkin's A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution is a rich narrative portrait of post-revolutionary America and the men who shaped its political future. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Just as the Constitution was a brilliant solution to the problems of the 1780s, Carol Berkin's book is a brilliant account of the making of that constitution. Written with great verve and clarity, it nicely captures all the contingency and unpredictability in the framing of the Constitution.\"--Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gordon S. Wood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough the American Revolution is widely recognized as our nation's founding story, the years immediately following the war -- when our government was a disaster and the country was in a terrible crisis -- were in fact the most crucial in establishing the country's independence. The group of men who traveled to Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 had no idea what kind of history their meeting would make. But all their ideas, arguments, and compromises -- from the creation of the Constitution itself, article by article, to the insistence that it remain a living, evolving document -- laid the foundation for a government that has surpassed the founders' greatest hopes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRevisiting all the original historical documents of the period and drawing from her deep knowledge of eighteenth-century politics, Carol Berkin opens up the hearts and minds of America's founders, revealing the issues they faced, the times they lived in, and their humble expectations of success.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eCarol Berkin has now written the liveliest and most concise account yet of the adoption of the Constitution. With unflagging verve, she sweeps readers along as she introduces the players, canvasses the issues, and explains the critical decisions. And she manages the neat and difficult trick of presenting the framers of the Constitution as living, breathing, calculating politicians while simultaneously capturing the deep seriousness of their debates and achievements. The result is a sparkling, fast-paced, and always engaging introduction to the modern world's first great exercise in constitutional invention.-- Jack N. Rakove, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eJames Madison and the Creation of the American Republic\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"A story all modern Americans need to know--the exciting and true tale of our nation's origins, as narrated by one of our best historians.\"--Professor Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e If you've ever wondered how a group of 18th-century soldiers, farmers, lawyers and businessmen managed to come up with our miracle of a Constitution . . . Berkin explains it in her exciting re-creation.\"-The Star-Ledger (Newark) \u003cbr\u003eWe know the story of the American Revolution, from the Declaration of Independence to Cornwallis's defeat. But our first government ended in disaster, leaving the budding country in a terrible crisis. When a group of men traveled to Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to save a nation in danger of collapse, they had no great expectations for the meeting that would make history and lead to a constitution and a government that have outlasted their highest hopes. Revisiting original documents and using her deep knowledge of eighteenth-century history and politics, Carol Berkin reveals the human strength behind our country's great constitution. \u003cbr\u003e\"Take s a f re s h l ook at the much-trampled ground of Philadelphia in 1787. Drops the, 'It all came down to us written on a stone tablet' pose and goes into all the confusion, paranoia and luck involved.\"-MOLLY IVINS, The Seattle Times \u003cbr\u003eC A R O L B E R K I N is a professor of American History at Baruch College and the Ph.D. program in History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The author of five books, Berkin was a commentator for the PBS documentary Benjamin Franklin. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51365578932447,"sku":"9780156028721","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/uc580Szp3t9780156028721.webp?v=1789066489"},{"product_id":"first-generations-women-in-colonial-america-paperback","title":"First Generations: Women in Colonial America - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCarol Berkin's multicultural history reconstructs the lives of American women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-women from European, African, and Native backgrounds-and examines their varied roles as wives, mothers, household managers, laborers, rebels, and, ultimately, critical forces in shaping the new nation's culture and history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51366203916511,"sku":"9780809016068","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/gjfx209BM9780809016068.webp?v=1789087960"},{"product_id":"the-bill-of-rights-the-fight-to-secure-americas-liberties-paperback","title":"The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America's Liberties - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Narrative, celebratory history at its purest\" (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e)--the \u003ci\u003ereal\u003c\/i\u003e story of how the Bill of Rights came to be: a vivid account of political strategy, big egos, and the partisan interests that set the terms of the ongoing contest between the federal government and the states.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThose who argue that the Bill of Rights reflects the founding fathers' \"original intent\" are wrong. The Bill of Rights was actually a brilliant political act executed by James Madison to preserve the Constitution, the federal government, and the latter's authority over the states. In the skilled hands of award-winning historian Carol Berkin, the story of the founders' fight over the Bill of Rights comes alive in a drama full of partisanship, clashing egos, and cunning manipulation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 1789, the nation faced a great divide around a question still unanswered today: should broad power and authority reside in the federal government or should it reside in state governments? The Bill of Rights, from protecting religious freedom to the people's right to bear arms, was a political ploy first and a matter of principle second. The truth of how and why Madison came to devise this plan, the debates it caused in the Congress, and its ultimate success is more engrossing than any of the myths that shroud our national beginnings. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe debate over the Bill of Rights still continues through many Supreme Court decisions. By pulling back the curtain on the short-sighted and self-interested intentions of the founding fathers, Berkin reveals the anxiety many felt that the new federal government might not survive--and shows that the true \"original intent\" of the Bill of Rights was simply to oppose the Antifederalists who hoped to diminish the government's powers. This book is \"a highly readable American history lesson that provides a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, the fears that generated it, and the miracle of the amendments\" (\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e).","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51367072137439,"sku":"9781476743806","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/ZZm2o8Gzty9781476743806.webp?v=1789102308"},{"product_id":"revolutionary-mothers-women-in-the-struggle-for-americas-independence-paperback","title":"Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA groundbreaking history of the American Revolution that \"vividly recounts Colonial women's struggles for independence--for their nation and, sometimes, for themselves.... [Her] lively book reclaims a vital part of our political legacy\" (\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review).\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into the life of every American. In this book, Carol Berkin shows us how women played a vital role throughout the conflict. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe women of the Revolution were most active at home, organizing boycotts of British goods, raising funds for the fledgling nation, and managing the family business while struggling to maintain a modicum of normalcy as husbands, brothers and fathers died. Yet Berkin also reveals that it was not just the men who fought on the front lines, as in the story of Margaret Corbin, who was crippled for life when she took her husband's place beside a cannon at Fort Monmouth. This incisive and comprehensive history illuminates a fascinating and unknown side of the struggle for American independence.\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into the life of every American, and Carol Berkin shows us that women played a vital role throughout the struggle. \u003cbr\u003eBerkin takes us into the ordinary moments of extraordinary lives. We see women boycotting British goods in the years before independence, writing propaganda that radicalized their neighbors, raising funds for the army, and helping finance the fledgling government. We see how they managed farms, plantations, and businesses while their men went into battle, and how they served as nurses and cooks in the army camps, risked their lives seeking personal freedom from slavery, and served as spies, saboteurs, and warriors. \u003cbr\u003eShe introduces us to sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington, who sped through the night to rouse the militiamen needed to defend Danbury, Connecticut; to Phillis Wheatley, literary prodigy and Boston slave, who voiced the hopes of African Americans in poems; to Margaret Corbin, crippled for life when she took her husband's place beside a cannon at Fort Monmouth; to the women who gathered firewood, cooked, cleaned for the troops, nursed the wounded, and risked their lives carrying intelligence and participating in reconnaissance missions. Here, too, are Abigail Adams, Deborah Franklin, Lucy Knox, and Martha Washington, who lived with the daily knowledge that their husbands would be hanged as traitors if the revolution did not succeed. A recapturing of the experiences of ordinary women who lived in extraordinary times, and a fascinating addition to our understanding of the birth of our nation. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"From the Hardcover edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51367080329439,"sku":"9781400075324","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/ZlzF2Hp8ED9781400075324.webp?v=1789102325"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/carol-berkin.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}