Between 1500 and 1800, the world was transformed. The peoples of Europe, Africa, and America, brought together in an often violent colonial process, created a New World and transformed the old. These lectures examine the relations of the colonies with the native people, the relations between the British colonies and the colonial outposts of Spain, France, and the Netherlands, and how British attempts at colonial governance led, ultimately, to resistance,...

Beginning with the debates over judicial power in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to controversial rulings on slavery, racial segregation, free speech, school prayer, abortion, and gay rights, constitutional scholar Peter Irons offers a penetrating look at the highest court in the land. Here are revealing sketches of every justice from John Jay to Samuel Alito, as well as portraits of such legal giants as John Marshall, Oliver Wendell Holmes,...