Filling in the missing spaces left by traditional textbooks on American Political Thought, Saladin Ambar uses race, gender and ethnicity as a lens through which to engage on-going debates on American values and intellectual traditions.

Introduction 1. Colonial Legacies: 1619-1763 2. Revolution and Order: 1763-1800 3. Democracy and the Empire of Liberty: 1800-1850 4. Fracture and Reunion: 1850-1877 5. The New American State: 1877-1932 6. Redefining Rights: 1932-1980 7. Neo-Conservatism and Superpower: 1980-2010 Conclusion

Saladin Ambar is Associate Professor of Political Science and Senior Scholar at the Center on the American Governor at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He is the author of How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) and Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era (Oxford University Press, 2014), which was nominated for a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for best non-fiction book by an African American author. Ambar's most recent book, American Cicero: Mario Cuomo and the Defense of American Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 2017), is the first to examine the entire political career of former New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo. Ambar's research interests include the American presidency, American political development, American political thought, and race and ethnic politics.