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Before the Civil War, slaveholders made themselves into the most powerful, most deeply rooted, and best organized private interest group within the United States. Not only did slavery represent the national economy's second largest capital investment, exceeded only by investment in real estate, but guarantees of its perpetuation were studded throughout the U.S. Constitution. The vast majority of white Americans, in North and South, accepted the institution, and pro-slavery presidents and congressmen consistently promoted its interests. 

In Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War, James Brewer Stewart explains how a small group of radical activists, the abolitionist movement, played a pivotal role in turning American politics against this formidable system. He examines what influence the movement had in creating the political crises that led to civil war and evaluates the extent to which a small number of zealous reformers made a truly significant political difference when demanding that their nation face up to its most excruciating moral problem. In making these assessments, Stewart addresses a series of more specific questions: What were the abolitionists actually up against when seeking the overthrow of slavery and white supremacy? What motivated and sustained them during their long and difficult struggles? What larger historical contexts (religious, social, economic, cultural, and political) influenced their choices and determined their behavior? What roles did extraordinary leaders play in shaping the movement, and what were the contributions of abolitionism's unheralded “foot soldiers”? What factors ultimately determined, for better or worse, the abolitionists' impact on American politics and the realization of their equalitarian goals?

• Reframing Burnout
• Conditions that Promote Burnout
• Lived Experiences
• Individual Responses to Burnout
• Organizational Responses to Burnout

The book that made the modern world, reissued in its definitive scholarly form and featuring a new foreword from Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen.

First published in 1776, Adam Smith’s masterwork The Wealth of Nations formalized the first unified theory of modern economies—how human nature, public institutions, and private interests can coalesce in a society greater than the sum of its parts. More than 250 years later, it remains one of humanity’s most defining and lasting literary works.

This definitive edition includes Edwin Cannan’s famous annotations of the original text, accounting for both Smith’s early drafts and his lectures at the University of Glasgow, where he originated the book’s concepts. The result is the most complete edition of the work to date, maintaining unprecedented fidelity to Smith’s ideas and packaging them in fluent and elevating terms.

In a new foreword, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen offers context and contemporary incision for twenty-first-century readers, discussing the uses—and occasional misuses—of Smith’s ideas for the advancement of political agendas. The Wealth of Nations, Sen makes clear, is a book about societies, not just economies. “Smith’s economics accommodated his values,” he writes. As readers of The Wealth of Nations will discover and rediscover, those values prioritized the lives of everyday working people above all else.