A People's Charter: The Pursuit of Rights in America - Hardcover

James MacGregor Burns; Stewart Burns

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394577639 ISBN 13: 9780394577630

Publisher: Knopf, 1991

Synopsis

Interprets the history and significance of the Bill of Rights, and examines its impact on the design of the American government and the battle over civil and human rights

About this title

From the Publisher

" A monumental achievement...a moving document of how far we have come and how much remains to be done in guaranteeing rights." --San Francisco Chronicle

From Publishers Weekly

Published on the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, this grand, sweeping chronicle of the struggle for political and economic justice concludes that rights measures in the U.S. have been "too little, too late, too short-lived." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James MacGregor Burns ( The Crossroads of Freedom ) and Stewart Burns ( Social Movements of the 1960s ) examine our tenuous hold on freedom in a powerful narrative stretching from the 13 colonies' exclusionist voting practices to Reagan's campaign against the First Amendment reinforced by private "new right" groups and fundamentalists. They also analyze antislavery and workers' struggles, the detention of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans in U.S. "concentration camps" (as FDR called them) during WW II, McCarthy-era abuses, civil rights, women's activism and encroachments by the FBI on personal freedoms. The authors point out that rights long accepted in other countries--to free, adequate health care; to a job; to child care--are largely lacking in the U.S. They envisage a "Great Majority" dependent on women's leadership coming to power and establishing a massive rights program.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0394577639
• ISBN 13: 9780394577630
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 577