Early European explorers regularly portrayed California as an island on their maps, mistaking the Gulf of California as extending northward without limit. This volume is written to show that California history can also be presented in a different way: its thesis, plainly stated, is that California (despite all of its unique qualities) has never been an island.

Many leading historians have argued that the Constitution of the United States was a proslavery document. But in The Slaveholding Republic, one of America's most eminent historians refutes this claim in a landmark history that stretches from the Continental Congress to the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

Fehrenbacher shows that the Constitution itself was more or less neutral on the issue of slavery and that, in the antebellum period, the idea that the Constitution protected slavery was hotly debated (many Northerners would concede only that slavery was protected by state law, not by federal law). Nevertheless, he also reveals that U.S. policy abroad and in the territories was consistently proslavery. Fehrenbacher makes clear why Lincoln's election was such a shock to the South and shows how Lincoln's approach to emancipation, which seems exceedingly cautious by modern standards, quickly evolved into a "Republican revolution" that ended the anomaly of the United States as a "slaveholding republic."

"Advances our knowledge of the critical relationships of slavery to the American government, placing it in perspective and explaining its meaning.... One could hardly ask for more."--Ira Berlin, The Washington Post

Early European explorers regularly portrayed California as an island on their maps, mistaking the Gulf of California as extending northward without limit. This volume is written to show that California history can also be presented in a different way: its thesis, plainly stated, is that California (despite all of its unique qualities) has never been an island.

In modern times, some critics have belittled Abraham Lincoln's antislavery resolve as shallow. Some have portrayed him as a passive president, waiting upon the bold initiatives of others. 'Citizen Lincoln' regards him differently. First, it portrays Lincoln's animus against slavery as rooted in the highest ideals of the American Revolution, which he saw as being corrupted in his own time. Second, it analyses Lincoln's supposed 'passivity' as more aptly defined as wise caution. Lincoln learned as a legislator, first in Illinois and later in the United States Congress, that bold initiatives often backfire and fail to fulfil original intentions. In the state legislature, Lincoln supported a dramatic internal-improvements project that collapsed in the midst of a national depression. Lincoln also boldly opposed the Mexican War in Congress, only to see his cause evaporate as soon as a peace treaty was drafted with Mexico. In both instances, his timing was faulty. He had rushed into taking rigid policy positions when greater caution would have reaped better results. But in both instances, he learned lessons that would hold him in good stead later. Lincoln as president was wisely cautious, knowing that bold action could only disrupt the delicate coalition that kept the Union cause moving forward to victory. Harriet Beecher Stowe described Lincoln's unique strength as "swaying to every influence, yielding on this side and on that to popular needs, yet tenaciously and inflexibly bound to carry its great end". She wisely added that no other kind of strength could have seen the nation through the worst trial in its history. In filling this role, Abraham Lincoln fulfilled that which he had long regarded as his personal mission within the larger context of his nation's providential destiny.

Increasingly world religious traditions present a source of religious practices, and even live religious options. How are Christians to relate to these traditions and the neighbors and friends who live by them? This lively and engaging book is a great resource for faithful wrestling with the new realities. Led by theologian John B. Cobb Jr. and historian Ward M. McAfee, the Progressive Christians Uniting has distilled the historical and existential import of both Abrahamic and other traditions and stressed the differences among traditions and the richness they can afford Christian self-understanding. Includes study materials.