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In a brilliantly conceived and elegantly written book, Rogan Kersh investigates the idea of national union in the United States. For much of the period between the colonial era and the late nineteenth century, he shows, \"union\" was the principal rhetorical means by which Americans expressed shared ideals and a common identity without invoking strong nationalism or centralized governance. Through his exploration of how Americans once succeeded in uniting a diverse and fragmented citizenry, Kersh revives a long-forgotten source of U.S. national identity. Why and how did Americans perceive themselves as one people from the early history of the republic? How did African Americans and others at the margins of U.S. civic culture apply this concept of union? Why did the term disappear from vernacular after the 1880s? In his search for answers, Kersh employs a wide range of methods, including political-theory analysis of writings by James Madison, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln and empirical analysis drawing on his own extensive database of American newspapers. The author's findings are persuasive-and often surprising. One intriguing development, for instance, was a strong resurgence of union feelings among Southerners-including prominent former secessionists-after the Civil War. With its fascinating and novel approach,Dreams of a More Perfect Unionoffers valuable insights about American political history, especially the rise of nationalism and federalism. Equally important, the author's close retracing of the religious, institutional, and other themes coloring the development of unionist thought unveils new knowledge about the origination and transmittal of ideas in a polity. In a brilliantly conceived and elegantly written book, Rogan Kersh investigates the idea of national union in the United States. For much of the period between the colonial era and the late nineteenth century, he shows, \"union\" was the principal rhetorical means by which Americans expressed shared ideals and a common identity without invoking strong nationalism or centralized governance. Through his exploration of how Americans once succeeded in uniting a diverse and fragmented citizenry, Kersh revives a long-forgotten source of U.S. national identity. Why and how did Americans perceive themselves as one people from the early history of the republic? How did African Americans and others at the margins of U.S. civic culture apply this concept of union? Why did the term disappear from vernacular after the 1880s? In his search for answers, Kersh employs a wide range of methods, including political-theory analysis of writings by James Madison, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln and empirical analysis drawing on his own extensive database of American newspapers. The author's findings are persuasive-and often surprising. One intriguing development, for instance, was a strong resurgence of union feelings among Southerners-including prominent former secessionists-after the Civil War. With its fascinating and novel approach,Dreams of a More Perfect Unionoffers valuable insights about American political history, especially the rise of nationalism and federalism. Equally important, the author's close retracing of the religious, institutional, and other themes coloring the development of unionist thought unveils new knowledge about the origination and transmittal of ideas in a polity.

Context: The continuing rise in obesity rates across the United States has proved impervious to clinical treatment or public health exhortation, necessitating policy responses. Nearly a decade's worth of political debates may be hardening into an obesity issue regime, comprising established sets of cognitive frames, stakeholders, and policy options. Methods: This article is a survey of reports on recently published studies. Findings: Much of the political discussion regarding obesity is centered on two \"frames,\" personal-responsibility and environmental, yielding very different sets of policy responses. While policy efforts at the federal level have resulted in little action to date, state and/or local solutions such as calorie menu labeling and the expansion of regulations to reduce unhealthy foods at school may have more impact. Conclusions: Obesity politics is evolving toward a relatively stable state of equilibrium, which could make comprehensive reforms to limit rising obesity rates less feasible. Therefore, to achieve meaningful change, rapid-response research identifying a set of promising reforms, combined with concerted lobbying action, will be necessary.

We examined the influence of menu calorie labels on fast food choices in the wake of New York City's labeling mandate. Receipts and survey responses were collected from 1,156 adults at fast-food restaurants in low-income, minority New York communities. These were compared to a sample in Newark, New Jersey, a city that had not introduced menu labeling. We found that 27.7 percent who saw calorie labeling in New York said the information influenced their choices. However, we did not detect a change in calories purchased after the introduction of calorie labeling. We encourage more research on menu labeling and greater attention to evaluating and implementing other obesity-related policies. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Federalist No. 67 generally is read as a vigorous defense of the chief executive and contains intense language to alleviate fears of a dictatorial president. However, it also can be read as a much deeper explication of the blend of republican and energetic government. The author examines this defense within the larger stream of Federalist Papers and compares the Anti-Federalist attacks against a strong executive and Alexander Hamilton's aggressive justifications.

The concept of personal responsibility has been central to social, legal, and political approaches to obesity. It evokes language of blame, weakness, and vice and is a leading basis for inadequate government efforts, given the importance of environmental conditions in explaining high rates of obesity. These environmental conditions can override individual physical and psychological regulatory systems that might otherwise stand in the way of weight gain and obesity, hence undermining personal responsibility, narrowing choices, and eroding personal freedoms. Personal responsibility can be embraced as a value by placing priority on legislative and regulatory actions such as improving school nutrition, menu labeling, altering industry marketing practices, and even such controversial measures as the use of food taxes that create healthier defaults, thus supporting responsible behavior and bridging the divide between views based on individualistic versus collective responsibility.

In a brilliantly conceived and elegantly written book, Rogan Kersh investigates the idea of national union in the United States. For much of the period between the colonial era and the late nineteenth century, he shows, \"union\" was the principal.

Among the trappings of nationhood in early-nineteenth-century America was a growing tourist industry, as Europeans arrived in expanding numbers. Several visitors, most famously Tocqueville, published accounts of their travels; one was Thomas Hamilton, a young Londoner whose 1833 tour left him wondering how America remained a single country at all. “It is abundandy clear,” he wrote inMen and Manners(1843), that the seeds of discord are plentifully scattered throughout the Union. Men of different habits, different interests, different modes of thought; the inhabitants of different climates, agreeing only in mutual antipathy, are united…. A union on [those] principles resembles

The 1850s appear in retrospect as a time of unremitting crisis in the United States, with clashes over the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, rising references among northerners to the potent “Slave Power,” and the turmoil of 1857—Dred Scottand the “Lecompton constitution” struggles over admitting Kansas as a state—all pointing inexorably to civil war. Yet islands of calm periodically soothed the national mood. In early 1851, a long San Francisco newspaper article analyzed the “actual possibilities of disunion,” concluding that “upon the whole we cannot see that any very imminent peril threatens the

Following his wartime efforts as organizer and leader of a San Francisco black regiment, Philip A. Bell opened a weekly newspaper in 1865. Bell had moved west from Cincinnati a decade earlier, inspired by the same “golden dream” that brought so many others to California. His paper,The Elevator, featured along with the usual mix oflocal gossip and U.S. and international news an unusual number of editorials: Bell wrote powerfully and often, on a wide range of topics. He quickly became an influential figure in San Francisco’s black community and, indeed, among political commentators of all races.¹ The Elevator’searly