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In The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America's Story , Kermit Roosevelt III argues that Americans fundamentally misunderstand the nation's founding principles, especially as articulated in the Declaration of Independence of 1776. We think that the Declaration stood for human equality and freedom – "a set of aspirations toward which the best in American history strive." Roosevelt insists that this "view of the Declaration is exactly what we must let go." Properly understood, the Declaration "is consistent with slavery" and even condones it: "A government that protects the rights of its citizens, including their right to enslave outsiders, is a Declaration-style government." Roosevelt's view, however, is bereft of support in the historical record. No author of the Declaration argued that it condoned slavery. Within three decades of the nation's founding, half the states abolished slavery largely by appealing to the principles of the Declaration. Similarly, the abolitionists of the 1830s and Abraham Lincoln in the 1850s explicitly appealed to the anti-slavery principles of the Declaration. Roosevelt's own heroes of Reconstruction – leaders like John Bingham, Thaddeus Stevens, and Charles Sumner – all embraced an understanding of the Declaration fundamentally at odds with his own. Finally, Martin Luther King, whom Roosevelt claims gave lip service to the "standard story" of the American Founding only for tactical reasons and who "set aside the Founding entirely" by "the end of his life," actually praised the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution" the very day before his assassination in April of 1968. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wars are the exception, not the rule, as Christopher Blattman, a political scientist and development economist from the University of Chicago, reveals in his new book, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace. Blattman makes the case that both strategic and psychological factors explain most outbreaks of violence, whether they are gangland beefs over urban turf, asymmetric counterinsurgencies, or conventional wars like the current conflict in Ukraine. The book is a helpful compendium for scholars of international relations and comparative politics on the causes of conflict, drawing on lessons from game theory and the rational choice school to explain why nations and nonstate actors fight. Much of the analysis is drawn from Blattman's own distinguished career as a development economist in Africa, and he helpfully intersperses the prose with first-person vignettes from some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones, including Liberia, Uganda, Colombia, and inner-city Chicago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the books "Electing Judges: The Surprising Effects of Campaigning on Judicial Legitimacy," by James L. Gibson, and "Without Fear or Favor: Judicial Independence and Judicial Accountability in the States," by G. Alan Tarr.