American Government is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the single-semester American government course. This title includes innovative features designed to enhance student learning, including Insider Perspective features and a Get Connected Module that shows students how they can get engaged in the political process. The book provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of American government and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and the world around them. American Government includes updated information on the 2016 presidential election.Senior Contributing AuthorsGlen Krutz (Content Lead), University of OklahomaSylvie Waskiewicz, PhD (Lead Editor)

This is a powerpoint for chapter FOUR of the text.
Faculty using this text can use it as a jumping off place to create their own slideshows for the class.

Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages has developed lessons, supplemental resources, and educational documentary videos to accompany the memoir Child Prisoner in American Concentration Camps by Mako Nakagawa.

UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler welcomes John Shattuck, Chief Executive Officer, Kennedy Library Foundation, for a discussion of his career and work in the area of civil liberties and human rights. (54 min)

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes attorney Frederick S. Wyle, a Pentagon official in the Kennedy administration, for a discussion of nuclear weapons policy in Europe during the Cold War. Reflecting on his role as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the McNamara Pentagon, Wyle also compares threat perception then with the current response to terrorism. He analyzes the delicate balance that must be found under our constitutional system to adjust to exigent circumstances while preserving the rule of law and civil liberties. (55 minutes)

In late September 2011, the death penalty dominated news headlines. The stories mostly revolved around the case of Troy Davis, a 42-year old African American man who was convicted of killing a white off-duty police officer in Savannah, Georgia, over 20 years ago. Protests against the death penalty were held across the US and the debate over his guilt captured the attention of thousands internationally as well. Over the years Troy Davis's case has helped fuel the global movement to end the death penalty. After three earlier stays of execution, Troy Davis lost a clemency vote taken by the Georgia Parole Board on September 20, 2011. The following day, he was put to death by lethal injection.

American History TV presented live coverage from the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Washington, D.C.'s National Mall. They showed exhibits chronicling the African American story from slavery through the inauguration of the first African American president. This clip features legislation and the Domestic Slave Trade.

During the mid-19th century, cotton was king. Historian Wayne Dowdy explained how vital this crop was the Memphis economy and its continuing effects on race and culture in the city.

In this interactive lesson, students consider the issue of internet privacy, both in their own lives and in society, including government spying, parental monitoring, and corporate tracking of consumers. What is the connection and potential conflict between safety and privacy, both on a personal and institutional level?

Political thought, otherwise known as political theory or philosophy, is the study of questions concerning power, justice, rights, law, and other issues pertaining to governance. This course examines major texts in the history of political thought and asks how different views on human nature inform the design of government. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: summarize the passage of political thought through the classical, Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods and based on the works of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and Marx; compare and contrast the differences between Plato and Aristotle with regard to their understandings of the nature of the person, ethics, society, citizenship, and governance; explain the historical and intellectual context in which the political thought that helped to develop the modern state came to be; compare and contrast the concepts of justice, freedom, equality, citizenship, and sovereignty in the works of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau; explain the different versions of, and importance of, 'the state of nature' to political thought; identify the influences of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau on the development of the United States Constitution; summarize the thoughts of Alexis de Tocqueville on the American political landscape, particularly with regard to religion and equality, and why this has importance beyond the American context; explain Karl Marx's world view, with particular regard to his critique of democracy and the modern, politically liberal, state; how it came to be; and its fundamental link to capitalism. (Political Science 201)

Japanese Americans suffered terrible injustices as a result of governmental policies during World War II that discriminated against them by treating them like enemies. In this lesson, students examine what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII, what constitutional rights were violated in the process, and why such a massive injustice happened.

2021 Social Science Standards Integrated with Ethnic Studies:
Civics and Government: 2.4, 3.2, 5.1, 6.4
Economics: 1.4, 4.4
Geography: 5.13
Historical Knowledge: K.14, 1.12, 2.16, 5.22, 6.21
Historical Thinking: 2.21, 2.22, 6.23
Social Science Analysis: 1.19, 2.23, 2.25, 3.18, 3.19, 4.21, 4.24, 5.27, 5.28, 6.24, 6.27, 6.28

This course explores the history of the ideal of personal freedom with an eye towards contemporary debates over the pros and cons of the regulatory state. The first part of the course surveys the sociological and theological sources of the concepts of freedom and civil society, and introduces liberty's leading relatives or competitors: property, equality, community, and republicanism. The second part consists of a series of case studies in the rise of modern liberty and libertarianism: the abolition of slavery, the struggle for religious freedom, and the twentieth-century American civil liberties movement. In the last part of the course, we take up debates over the role of libertarianism vs. the regulatory state in a variety of contexts: counter-terrorism, health care, the financial markets, and the Internet.

The 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement's 1963 March on Washington is a great teaching opportunity. We offer some helpful resources.

Edward Snowden's leak of classified information about the NSA's surveillance of American citizens has touched off a debate about the need for government secrecy versus the public's right to know. Two student readings and discussion questions probe the controversy.

Professor Douglas Thompson talked this event and the impact it had on slavery throughout the Antebellum period.

Students explore how the growing power of Latino voters improves chances for comprehensive immigration reform and consider some of the economic benefits of immigration.

This seminar looks at key issues in the historical development and current state of modern American criminal justice, with an emphasis on its relationship to citizenship, nationhood, and race/ethnicity. We begin with a range of perspectives on the rise of what is often called "mass incarceration": how did our current system of criminal punishment take shape, and what role did race play in that process? Part Two takes up a series of case studies, including racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty, enforcement of the drug laws, and the regulation of police investigations. The third and final part of the seminar looks at national security policing: the development of a constitutional law governing the intersection of ethnicity, religion, and counter-terrorism, and the impact of counter-terrorism policy on domestic police practices.