A possible review by the European ministry of education in 2050—by a reluctant manager of Europe’s path towards educational dependency

Murat Adam is head of policy and curriculum for the European ministry of education. Political pressure is rising. Media channels across the European federation are labeling the continent as the most recent member of the education periphery. In Mr Adam’s world, curricular authority transpires from the big 3, the North American Union (NAU), China, and Russia. Credibility and endorsement are educational currencies—institutional capital as Bourdieu once defined it, reigns. Mr Adam’s battle is already lost, member states of the European federation have lost their educational means of production, but he cannot afford to admit that. European teachers’ credentials increasingly force graduates into care taking jobs at digital day cares. These are a response to US teachers’ and practitioners’ revolts of the late 20s, linked to perceived multisensory impoverishment of digitally schooled children. Just like in South Asia, Africa, and South America, digital day cares merely provide the digital and social framework and setup K-12 students to listen to internationally accredited professionals teach from China, Russia, and the NAU. Day and night shifts are common. He knows that the European federation lost the contest, by the time it decided not to invest into its own internet infrastructure. The educational first world’s curricular authority would not have been possible without the three nations’ proprietary server architecture, which commodified bandwidth and connectivity. The internet of the past is nothing more than a front for the three de-facto mutually exclusive digital ecosystems, provided by China, the NAU, and Russia.

The Legacy of 1812: How a Little War Shaped the Transatlantic World

The War of 1812 may have been a small and inconclusive war, but it had a profound and lasting impact of all the belligerents. The war may be largely forgotten, but it left a huge legacy that is still evident today. Wars can best be measured by their consequences, and the legacy of this war was both multifaceted and lasting. The conflict shaped both the United States and Canada as well as their relationship with Great Britain for nearly a century thereafter. It helps to explain how the Anglo-American alliance originated and why the British welcomed the Pax Americana in the twentieth century, as well as why Canada never joined the American Union and why American expansion after 1815 aimed south and west rather than north. It was during the War of 1812 that the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh earned his reputation, Laura Secord became famous, and Andrew Jackson began his rise to the presidency. Its impact on American culture was also far reaching and produced ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, Uncle Sam and ‘Old Ironsides’, amongst other symbols of United States nationhood.

Union

The preamble’s promise of “a more perfect union” suggests that the US Constitution of 1787 aimed to reform the less than perfect union established by the Articles of Confederation of 1781. The framers’ understanding of union was grounded in early modern political ideas about confederations, and their call for reform in their analysis of the flaws of the articles. Their reform of the American union was characterized by both change and continuity. Although the Constitution laid the basis for a federal government founded on popular sovereignty and capable of acting independently of the states, the fundamental purpose of the American union and the remit of the federal government remained the management of intraunion and international affairs. In the reformed American federal union the states still retained the power to regulate the social, economic, and civic life of their citizens and inhabitants with only limited supervision and control from the federal government.

Legislation

The first federal Congresses implemented the US Constitution by turning the constitutional text into the policies and institutions of the federal government. Under the Washington administration (1789–1797) federal legislation was overwhelmingly concerned with foreign affairs, international commerce, the federal territories in the trans-Appalachian West, Native American diplomacy and trade, and relations between the member-states in the American union. Other than the post office, hardly any laws were adopted to regulate social and economic relations within the member-states of the American federal union. Congress’s record in the period stands in marked contrast with that of both American state legislatures, such as Pennsylvania, and legislatures of unitary states, such as Great Britain, which were much more concerned with domestic issue legislation. In the bisected American state, there was a distribution of authority between a federal government in charge of international and intraunion affairs and state governments in charge of domestic affairs.

Peace Pact and Nation

In recent years a new Unionist interpretation of the American founding has presented the US Constitution as a compact of union between sovereign states, which allowed them to maintain interstate peace and to act in unison as a single nation vis-à-vis other nations in the international state-system. The American compact of union entailed the voluntary circumscription of the member-states’ sovereignty and the creation of a federal government through the delegation of enumerated powers from the states to the union. The Constitution was a limited, if very important, reform of the already existing American union under the Articles of Confederation. It did not aim at a wholesale transformation of American social and economic life, but sought to equip the union with the means to address challenges that arose from intraunion tensions, on the one hand, and from international competition in the Atlantic marketplace and the Western borderlands, on the other.

Internal Police

The US Constitution reserved to the member-states of the American federal union the power to regulate their internal police. Now largely forgotten, but much in use in the decades surrounding the American founding, the term internal police described an extensive range of activities that eighteenth-century states did to regulate their societies and their economies. By recovering the illusive meaning of internal police and by studying how the Constitution distributed internal police powers between Congress and the state governments, it is possible to shed light on how the Constitution divided political authority between the states and the federal government in the American union. The analysis in this chapter shows that under the Constitution, domestic affairs in the early United States was overwhelmingly meant to be regulated by the state governments and not the federal government.

The 1870s

Bristow’s stature in New York as a composer, conductor, and organist was unrivaled during the 1870s. He continued to perform with the two orchestras and to conduct several society choirs. The number of new compositions slowed during the 1870s, but his significant works included Great Republic: Ode to the American Union (1870-1876), Pioneer: A Grand Cantata (1872), and his programmatic Arcadian Symphony (1872). An increasingly number of his compositions were performed during the decade, including a revival (unsuccessful) of Rip Van Winkle. He enjoyed a third Grand Testimonial Concert and the performance of his Arcadian Symphony in a Baltimore concert of American music (both 1875).

The Basques of New Orleans

Basques have found their way to many corners of the world, and one of those is the distinctive city of New Orleans in the United States. The relationship of Basques with Louisiana antedates the independence of the United States, and, of course, incorporation of that territory into the American Union. The Basque presence was most evident throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, when a significant community of Basque mariners resided in New Orleans. This article provides a historical overview of the Basque connection to Louisiana, from the expulsion of the Acadians that sent Basques south, the arrival of Basque mariners, and those relocated Basques from Mexico. General immigrants found their way there as merchants, storekeepers, accountants and blacksmiths and in time a Basque District emerged. There was also a Basque religious presence. The article brings to light the Basque presence.

The Latin-American Union and the LAT

Objective. To support the creation of a Latin-American Union with the creation of the Latin-American peso (LAT) as the common currency. Methodology. Analysis and synthesis using induction and deduction proposing theory and reviewing its validity. Results. The LAT can be used as a robust enough currency. Limitations. The study was carried out only for the three main Latin-American Union candidates: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Originality. The ideas proposed here are original in the way the LAT is meant to function. Conclusions. The LAT promises to be a good option for stabilizing Latin-America and promote its regional development.