Slim volume on US political and constitutional history??????

Maybe . . . One of these?
This may not be of any help. But, for "what it's worth" - out of curiosity, I keyed into Google "books American political and constitutional history." About 804,000 sites came up. The blurbs on the first page look good. I'll take one of each!

[/color]GOOGLE SEARCH

Hey, rabbit. Do you want A2K'ers to write a precis, or did you want a source on the net?

"Preface to a 20 volume Suicide Note" by Leroi Jones is interesting reading.

This is "the" book!
This is "the" book:

"DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY"

"Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned"

by Kenneth Davis

Also, look into this one: "A History of the American People" by Paul Johnson[/color]

Paul Johnson's "Birth of the Modern" was a truly great book; well-written, insightful, and well researched. I was extremely impressed, and went to some pains to find a copy of his History of the American People. What a disappointment. Mr. Johnson seemed unable to understand that there was more than one Gen. Johnson serving the Southern cause during the Late Unpleasantness. There were numerous factual errors that should have been caught by competent proofreading. I thought the book shallow and not worth the time to read to the last page. It is sad when such a talented historian goes so badly astray.

A full term in most law schools is devoted to studying Constitutional History, and even then students only skim the surface. A careful student should first read/study the Federalist Papers. These little tracts written by Hamilton, Madison and others is a wonderful window into what the framers of the document intended. We need to understand the Articles of Confederation fully as well. The Articles of Confederation were the skeleton on which revolutionary government was based. There were serious flaws inherent to the Articles of Confederation, and in the economic downturn that followed the Revolutionary War those faults proved very nearly fatal. Rather than try to "fix" the many faults in the Articles of Confederation, the Founders started from scratch in secret sessions. The story of how the Bill of Rights came to be added is another long and interesting story that has had serious consequences ever since.

The history of the Constitution may best be traced in the major Constitutional questions that have come, from time to time, before the Supreme Court. Start with Mayberry v. Madison. Over the course of American social, economic, and political history, there have been numerous questions raised as to what is and what is not permitted under the Constitution. Did Jefferson have the Constitutional authority to make the Louisiana Purchase? Jackson fought over the propriety of a National Bank as the arbiter of our currency supply. Slavery was argued over for over half a century before being settled on the battlefield. Constitutional interpretation made the monopolistic practices of the Robber Barons of the late 19th century possible. Some firmly believe that Federal unwillingness to become involved in regulating the economy was a major factor in the Great Depression. FDR's efforts to get the economy going again were challenged again and again and struck down as unConstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The bottom line is that no "slim" volume on Constitutional history is likely to be more than superficial. I'm sure that a Google search would turn up literal thousands of citations, and probably the best of the lot would be of limited value when taken by itself. Sorry, no short cuts here.

Thanks guys.

No, Letty - I don't expect folk to precis American history!

Peoples history of the United States-Howard Zinn

If you are looking for something that tells it all in a short and sweet format, forget it. Anything you read will open up more questions than answers.

Hey bunny! You might send them the Link to The Founder's Constitution.

It's on-line and covers the text of the basic US Constitution and the 1st 10 Amendments with a line by line breakdown. They list on-line references to discussions of the time, debates held within the states during their ratifiying process and major US Supreme Court rulings on each section.

The "Peoples History of . . ." series are utter twaddle, and bear exactly that relationship to history which Christian Science does to science. There is no really good work that i know of which gets it in one, but the closest to a "slim" work which i could recommend is The Bold and Magnificent Dream By Bruce Catton and William B. Catton. The former is a well- and deservedly respected historian of the American Civil War, unfortunately given to a penchant for high drama, but whose abilities usually descend into melodrama. William Catton is his son, and a respected historian in his own right.

Unfortunately, there is so much at work in the period from 1607 to 1787, apart from merely 180 years of history, that much is going to be sacrificed in a single, slim volume. The Cattons' work comes closest of any i've read.

I would add that most works, including that of the Cattons, place an undue and unmerited emphasis on religion, the religious phenomenon of "the Great Awakening," and on the "ruling classes." The best remedy for this is the work of Arthur Slesinger, Sr., and some of his son's works in cooperation with him (Arthur Slesinger, Jr.--what else?). But this is precisely why one slim volume would never really answer. Try the Cattons' work.

Thankee folks - will pass on....