A work of extraordinary range and striking originality, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen traces the global history of written constitutions from the 1750s to the twentieth century, modifying accepted narratives and uncovering the close connections between the making of constitutions and the making of war. In the process, Linda Colley both reappraises famous constitutions and recovers those that have been marginalized but were central to the rise of a modern world. She brings to the fore neglected sites, such as Corsica, with its pioneering constitution of 1755, and tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, the first place on the globe permanently to enfranchise women. She highlights the role of unexpected players, such as Catherine the Great of Russia, who was experimenting with constitutional techniques with her enlightened Nakaz decades before the Founding Fathers framed the American constitution. Written constitutions are usually examined in relation to individual states, but Colley focuses on how they crossed boundaries, spreading into six continents by 1918 and aiding the rise of empires as well as nations. She also illumines their place not simply in law and politics but also in wider cultural histories, and their intimate connections with print, literary creativity, and the rise of the novel. Colley shows how-while advancing epic revolutions and enfranchising white males-constitutions frequently served over the long nineteenth century to marginalize indigenous people, exclude women and people of color, and expropriate land. Simultaneously, though, she investigates how these devices were adapted by peoples and activists outside the West seeking to resist European and American power. She describes how Tunisia generated the first modern Islamic constitution in 1861, quickly suppressed, but an influence still on the Arab Spring; how Africanus Horton of Sierra Leone-inspired by the American Civil War-devised plans for self-governing nations in West Africa; and how Japan's Meiji constitution of 1889 came to compete with Western constitutionalism as a model for Indian, Chinese, and Ottoman nationalists and reformers. Vividly written and handsomely illustrated, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen is an absorbing work that-with its pageant of formative wars, powerful leaders, visionary lawmakers and committed rebels-retells the story of constitutional government and the evolution of ideas of what it means to be modern.

The state remains as important to Russia's prospects as ever. This is so not only because, as in any society, an effectively functioning state administration is necessary to the proper functioning of a complex economy and legal system, but also because, in Russian circumstances, factors of economic geography tend to increase costs of production compared to the rest of the world. These mutually reinforcing factors include: the extreme severity of the climate, the immense distances to be covered, the dislocation between (European) population centers and (Siberian) natural resource centers, and the inevitable predominance of relatively costly land transportation over sea-borne transportation. As a result, it is questionable whether Russia can exist as a world civilization under predominantly liberal economic circumstances: in a unified liberal global capital market, large-scale private direct capital investment will not be directed to massive, outdoor infrastructure projects typical of state investment in the Soviet period.

In 1787. . .
We were given the right to practice the religion of our choice.
We were given the right to say what we wanted without persecution.
It was written that our house and property were secure from unreasonable search and seizure. We were given the right to a public trial.
Fifty-five men we will never know sat in a sweltering room and fought for us.
We were given our rights as citizens of the United States.
Every second fall, as we return again to the ballot box to decide the course of our country's leadership, every voter must find their way back to that room in Philadelphia. Welcome Books is proud to provide a map.
The Constitution of the United States of America, inscribed and illustrated by the master calligrapher, Sam Fink, brings to life the issues underlying the triumphs of this abiding document. Originally published in pen and ink for Random House in 1987, Mr. Fink has gone back to his original black-and-white art and painted it anew, created a full-color masterpiece. The result is glorious. Each amendment, each article, each word so thoughtfully placed in The Constitution has been given Mr. Fink's profound touch. With a powerful intelligence and a wonderful sense of humor, he has provided us with an entry point into this complex document, allowing us to read it with greater ease and understanding.
As well as a trade edition, Welcome Books is honored to present a full-color limited edition of 64 loose folios, each 15" x 22," exquisitely designed and produced--matching in its manufacture the stunning quality of Mr. Fink's ambition and the gravitas of the original document.
In 1787, we were entrusted with our most important living document, The Constitution of the United States of America. Have we kept it safe? To answer this, we must begin by reading it, each and every one of us--so that we may claim our own intimate knowledge of its content; so that we may never forget its tenets; so that we may remember the kind of world we want to live in. This, Sam Fink, in his direct and unadorned way, respectful and loving, helps us do.