A captivating account that narrates, month by month, the events of 1917: Red Banners, White Mantle is popular Catholic history at its finest. The drama of the Great War and the Russian Revolution are juxtaposed with the spiritual dimension of the age: the diabolism of Rasputin, the Apparition of the Virgin at Fatima, the malignancy of Lenin, the saintly courage of (the now blessed) Charles of Austria. Few standard histories have ever given such a high degree of consideration to the supernatural and the Christian interpretation of history as does 1917.

Publication Date:  July 2010

Too many colleges and universities have become places for focusing on means and not upon ends—and, as such, places where the confused and bewildered of the next generation acquire techniques and tools, but graduate having gained neither direction nor order to their souls.

The Hillsdale College History Faculty has painstakingly assembled American Heritage: A Reader in order to provide its own students with a true liberal arts education grounded in the American tradition. Perfect for classroom use at the high school level and up, this extraordinary textbook will provide readers both inside and outside the classroom with a traditional educational experience that enlarges and ennobles the mind.

From the Preface:

“The primary role of this Reader is to supply a rich sample of documents from the periods we examine. These primary sources provide portals into the American past. Reading them, we escape the provincialism of our own time and culture. As artifacts of the past, they do not convey information merely, but they are the sources that historians interpret to make sense of our past.  Consequently, we invite students to engage in the same enterprise as they examine these fragments of the American past as the primary means of understanding both the roots of American order and sources for contemporary disorders.  This daunting task of viewing sympathetically ideas that, although part of our heritage, seem distant and alien is an important and exhilarating part of a proper education in which one seeks to make sense of oneself as an American.”

When Barack Obama with great fanfare signed the 2009 stimulus bill, he quietly gutted America’s most successful domestic policy achievement—the 1996 welfare reform. This revolutionary policy had freed millions of Americans from the shackles of dependency. There was no legitimate reason to undo what had succeeded, and the moral and economic costs will be huge. The facts are clear: welfare reform worked for America. And we urgently need to relearn why.

Government Is the Problem is the story of a broken welfare system that needed to be fixed, of a great leader named Ronald Reagan who said that it could be fixed, of doubters who said that it could not be fixed, and of the man—Robert B. Carleson—who fixed it. Carleson pioneered the true reform that reversed a growing dependence on the welfare state and moved America away from the ruinous path of income redistribution.

Much has been written about welfare reform over the years – a lot of it by people who had no involvement with the process. But in this book the real story of how welfare was fixed is told. Bob Carleson has left a fascinating memoir of the insights and ideas that motivated welfare reform; of the controversies and obstacles that threatened to derail it; and of the principles that must be followed to direct scarce public resources to the truly needy.

With the country in economic crisis, Americans are asking questions about government intervention in the economy, about individual responsibility, and about the future of our children’s freedom. What could be more poignant than a testimonial from the man who proved that government is, indeed, the problem?

Robert B. Carleson (1931–2006) was the principal architect of true welfare reform. In 1968, Carleson joined the administration of Governor Ronald Reagan as Chief Deputy Director of the California State Department of Public Works. He was the main author of Governor Reagan’s successful welfare-reform initiative. Then, as director of the California State Department of Social Welfare in the early 1970s, Carleson implemented the new reform.

For the first time since World War II, California’s welfare rolls began to decline. In 1973, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Casper Weinberger tasked Carleson with bringing welfare reform to the other states. For the first time since World War II, welfare rolls declined nationally.

In 1981, Carleson joined Reagan’s White House staff as Special Assistant to the President for Policy Development. In that role he served as a special advisor for federalism policy and was the Executive Secretary of the Cabinet Council on Human Resources. He was the author of the Reagan welfare reforms contained in the 1981 Budget Reconciliation Act and was instrumental in the design of the welfare reform signed into law by President Clinton in 1996.

In 1998, Carleson founded the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) to promote the civil rights of all Americans. Through its legal and public advocacy, the ACRU defends a constitutional understanding of civil rights.

What They Are Saying:

“Bob Carleson was the guiding light and hand behind the historic 1996 Welfare Reform Act. We were all standing on the shoulders of the ‘quiet giant.’ And, oh, by the way, he had provided the same leadership to Governor Reagan on his historic California Welfare Reform Act in 1971. This book is an invaluable history of an invaluable contribution to American law and human dignity.”—Tony Blankley, author of American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century

“Without Bob Carleson, Ronald Reagan’s dream of welfare reform never would have become a reality. Bob was a man of unmatched tenacity and devotion to conservative ideals—and should be remembered as one of the most remarkable figures of our age.”—Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, former editor-in-chief, Reader’s Digest

“Welfare, both its destructive tendencies and the ways it can be made to help rather than hold people back, are two of the most challenging issues in politics. Bob Carleson was present—and instrumental—at the creation of welfare reform with Ronald Reagan, when the Gipper was governor. And he pioneered many of the reforms that culminated in the pathbreaking federal welfare reform of 1996—one of the most successful public policy changes in history.”—John Fund, Wall Street Journal

“Bob Carleson was one of this country’s finest public servants—ever. A welfare reform pioneer, he enabled then-governor Ronald Reagan to salvage California from bankruptcy—and help the desperately needy to boot. His ideas, incorporated into the hugely successful 1996 federal welfare law, were also critical in elevating Reagan into the Oval Office. Teddy Kennedy may have been the Lion of the Senate; Bob was a Lion for America.”—Allan H. Ryskind, former editor and owner of Human Events

“Bob is considered by many to be the man who had the most to do with Ronald Reagan’s journey from the governorship of California to the Oval Office. As we worked together in the ‘Reagan Revolution,’ it became clear to me that Bob Carleson was no mere number-cruncher or policy wonk. . . . Carleson cared so much about the poor that he devoted the majority of his adult life to trying to reform the failed programs that were creating generational poverty and cycles of dependency. . . . And in the process he remembered that every dollar that went to help the truly needy came out of the pockets of America’s taxpayers.”—Gary Bauer in The Weekly Standard

One of the most powerful and compelling figures of all history, Isabel of Spain was a force with which to be reckoned and should rightfully eclipse the better-known Elizabeth of England, both as a woman and as a national leader. The first full scholarly biography of Queen Isabel in English for nearly seventy five years, Isabel of Spain is extensively annotated and eminently readable.

Larry P. Arnn, the President of Hillsdale College, traces the history of education from the founding of the U.S. Office of Education (based on the Prussian system) in 1869 to the Higher Education Act of 1965 and its subsequent reauthorizations, to contemporary legislation. He connects these changes to fundamental shifts in our understanding of what education is, of the purpose and ends of government, and of what it means to be human. He offers insight into the idea of liberal education as it developed in Western civilization, marked by the confluence of biblical religion and Socratic philosophy.

World War II is one of those rare events in history whose retelling will forever guide us toward a deeper understanding of freedom and tyranny; honor and infamy; the roles of prudence, folly, and chance in human affairs; and man’s capacity for courage, endurance, and sacrifice. These nine essays by leading World War II historians, adapted from presentations given at a Hillsdale College seminar, are written with an eye to these timeless and valuable lessons. Authors include Stephen E. Ambrose, John Lukacs, Martin Gilbert, Victor Davis Hanson, and Gerhard L. Weinberg, among others.

Standard histories on the Age of Colonization tell a sad story of the ills inflicted on indigenous peoples by exploitative Western powers. This book offers a realistic corrective. The Spanish conquest of the New World is shown vividly—in its fervor and exuberance, but most importantly with attention to its central evangelical and civilizing impulse, which made the Americas a central part of Christendom.

Return to Charity?: Philanthropy and the Welfare State, by Martin Morse Wooster, clearly explains how the Victorian idea of charity for the poor was replaced by twentieth century social concepts of poverty and social welfare, which culminated in the “Great Society” welfare entitlement programs of the 196os. Wooster also identifies modern American conservatives who rediscovered the older idea of charity and who favor “faith-based” social service programs. Court cases permitting government assistance to faith-based groups are discussed.

Martin Morse Wooster, a Senior Fellow at Capital Research Center, received his undergraduate degree in history and philosophy from Beloit College.  He is a contributing editor of Philanthropy and a columnist for the Washington Times. He has been an associate editor of The American Enterprise, Washington editor of Reason, an associate editor of The Wilson Quarterly, and Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine. He is also the author of The Great Philanthropists and the Problem of “Donor Intent,” Return to Charity?, The Foundation Builders, and By Their Bootstraps. He has also contributed articles on the history of philanthropy to The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights, The Encyclopedia of Philanthropy, The Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era, and Notable American Philanthropists.

English historian and Christian humanist Christopher Dawson stood at the very center of the Catholic literary and intellectual revival in the four decades preceding Vatican II. One can find his influence throughout the twentieth-century Catholic Right. Poet and social critic T. S. Eliot considered him the foremost thinker of his generation, and the founder of American conservatism, Russell Kirk, wrote that he had been “saturated in Dawsonian historical studies [and] my own books reflect Dawson’s concepts.”

Dawson’s reputation declined dramatically during the cultural shifts accompanying Vatican II, and few remembered the English Catholic in the final decades of the twentieth century. A revival of interest of Dawson and his body of work increased dramatically in the last years of John Paul II’s and the beginning of Benedict’s pontificates. This book offers the first study of Dawson’s life and thought as a whole. It is especially poignant as a post–9/11 reexamination of the meaning of Western civilization.

Sanctifying the World was named by biographer Joseph Pearce as the best book of 2008 and the National Catholic Register named it one of the top eleven books of the year.

Bradley J. Birzer holds the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College and is the author of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth.