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Introduction: The Landscape of Our Collective Dreams; A more perfect union; The landscape of our collective dreams; Barack Obama: American historian; Prologue: A More Perfect Union: Barack Obama's American History; God damn America; America can change; The substance of our common creed; The audacity of hope; WE HOLD THESE truths; What makes us exceptional-what makes us American; The arc of the moral universe; Where the perfection begins; Chapter 1 Our Starting Point as Americans: The American Colonies
Our starting point as AmericansIn a hall that still stands across the street; The spring of 1787; Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots; Who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution; ; ; A city upon a hill; You would have thought I was Cotton Mather; We are no longer just a Christian nation; Community, democracy, and homespun virtues; He lived usefully; The first settlers; America's original sin; A question that divided the colonies; Our starting point as Americans
Chapter 2 The Substance of our Common Creed: The Declaration of Independence and the American RevolutionThe substance of our common creed; Creed; A subject of King George; In the year of America's birth; Let it be told to the future world; From this time forward forever; Enlightenment thinkers like Hobbes and Locke; Its roots in eighteenth-century liberal and republican thought; What makes us exceptional; What makes us American; Farmers and scholars; Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots; All men are created equal; An American family; Liberty; Where the perfection begins
The pursuit of happinessChapter 3 The Foundation of our Government: The Constitution and the New Nation; The foundation of our government; Stained by this nation's original sin; Finally made real; WE THE PEOPLE; A "deliberative democracy"; One of the Founders' central insights; Before the ink on the constitutional parchment was dry; A sufficient defense against tyranny; The Supreme Court's role in determining the law; Fundamentalist faith; The freedom of the apostate; Fidelity to our founding principles; The context of an ever-changing world; A "wall of separation" between church and state
Defending organized religionIn God We Trust E Pluribus Unum; Through the early days of the Union; Conservative or liberal, we are all constitutionalists; Chapter 4 A New Birth of Freedom: Slavery and the Civil War; This nation's original sin; A house that was built by slaves; The answer to the slavery question; The hope of slaves; We're the slaves who built the White House; Any final resolution; Government of the people, by the people, for the people; The self-imposed gag rule; A lawmaker was beaten unconscious on the Senate floor
Our starting point as AmericansIn a hall that still stands across the street; The spring of 1787; Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots; Who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution; ; ; A city upon a hill; You would have thought I was Cotton Mather; We are no longer just a Christian nation; Community, democracy, and homespun virtues; He lived usefully; The first settlers; America's original sin; A question that divided the colonies; Our starting point as Americans
Chapter 2 The Substance of our Common Creed: The Declaration of Independence and the American RevolutionThe substance of our common creed; Creed; A subject of King George; In the year of America's birth; Let it be told to the future world; From this time forward forever; Enlightenment thinkers like Hobbes and Locke; Its roots in eighteenth-century liberal and republican thought; What makes us exceptional; What makes us American; Farmers and scholars; Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots; All men are created equal; An American family; Liberty; Where the perfection begins
The pursuit of happinessChapter 3 The Foundation of our Government: The Constitution and the New Nation; The foundation of our government; Stained by this nation's original sin; Finally made real; WE THE PEOPLE; A "deliberative democracy"; One of the Founders' central insights; Before the ink on the constitutional parchment was dry; A sufficient defense against tyranny; The Supreme Court's role in determining the law; Fundamentalist faith; The freedom of the apostate; Fidelity to our founding principles; The context of an ever-changing world; A "wall of separation" between church and state
Defending organized religionIn God We Trust E Pluribus Unum; Through the early days of the Union; Conservative or liberal, we are all constitutionalists; Chapter 4 A New Birth of Freedom: Slavery and the Civil War; This nation's original sin; A house that was built by slaves; The answer to the slavery question; The hope of slaves; We're the slaves who built the White House; Any final resolution; Government of the people, by the people, for the people; The self-imposed gag rule; A lawmaker was beaten unconscious on the Senate floor