Michael A Bellesiles

In 1877-a decade after the Civil War-not only was the United States gripped by a deep depression, but the country was also in the throes of nearly unimaginable violence and upheaval, marking the end of the brief period known as Reconstruction and reestablishing white rule across the South. In the wake of the contested presidential election of 1876, white supremacist mobs swept across the South, killing and driving out the last of the Reconstruction...

"The evolution of the battle for true equality in America seen through the men, ideas, and politics behind the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments passed at the end of the Civil War. On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood in front of a crowd in Rochester, New York, and asked, 'What to the slave is the Fourth of July?' The audience had invited him to speak on the day celebrating freedom, and had expected him to offer a hopeful message about America;...

In The Second Amendment in Law and History, the nation's leading historical and constitutional scholars -- including Jack Rakove (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Original Meanings), Michael Bellesiles (author of Arming America), Michael Dorf, Daniel Farber, and Paul Finkelman -- marshal a broad range of historical and legal arguments that will fascinate general readers and policy specialists alike. In ten wide-ranging essays. The Second Amendment...