American Studies Preface and Conclusion Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and most of the other Founders of the country did not intend for it to be a democracy with equal rights for all citizens, although some like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine did. Like the Quakers, they were ahead of their time in supporting human rights for blacks and Native Americans, which did not exist in reality during the 18th and 19th

Polk's War." At the beginning, Haynes thus takes a fairly straightforward biographical approach, although he strives to use Polk's life not merely as a curiosity in and of itself, but as emblematic of an era, when America had redefined itself as a regional power. This sense of power was based in racial terms and in democratic terms. Men had been newly given the right to vote who did not

"To degrade and stamp out the liberties of a race" signified the "studied purpose" of linking social and civil equality. Douglass concluded that if the Civil Rights Law attempted to promote social equality, so did "the laws and customs of every civilized country in the world," including the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, and the Apostles' Creed. He warned

Rather than continue the process that began in the first two books, in which the Rosicrucian Order first announced themselves, gave their history, and then responded to certain criticisms while making their position within Christian theology clearer, the Chymical Wedding can almost be seen as the first instance of literature written within the Rosicrucian tradition, rather than as part of its manifesto-like founding documents, because it does not seek to

Communication History Fans of science fiction are fond of recalling a remark by novelist Arthur C. Clarke, to the effect that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I am currently typing these sentences onto a laptop, where I am also currently watching a grainy YouTube video of the legendary magician Harry Houdini, performing one of his legendary escapes -- from a straitjacket, in this case. Houdini is probably the

Price Beauty? 'For though beauty is seen and confessed by all, yet, from the many fruitless attempts to account for the cause of its being so, enquiries on this head have almost been given up" William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, (1753) Not very encouraging words, but if the great artist William Hogarth felt himself up to the task, we can attempt at least to follow his lead. That beauty is enigmatic