iBookstore Top United States History Ebooks

Chart of the most popular and best selling United States history ebooks at the Apple iBookstore.

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History Ebook Best Sellers

Top United States History Ebooks

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A Great Improvisation - Stacy Schiff Cover Art

A Great Improvisation

A Great Improvisation Franklin, France, and the Birth of America by Stacy Schiff

In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career ● Michael Douglas stars in Franklin , premiering April 12 only on Apple TV+ In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man. In A Great Improvisation , Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.

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The Demon of Unrest - Erik Larson Cover Art

The Demon of Unrest

The Demon of Unrest A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a simmering crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, People, Time, Los Angeles Times, Men’s Health, New York Post, Lit Hub, Book Riot, Screenrant On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.” At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.

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The First Family Detail - Ronald Kessler Cover Art

The First Family Detail

The First Family Detail
Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents by Ronald Kessler

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  •  “ Ron Kessler appears to get everything first.”— Slate As in a play, presidents, vice presidents, and presidential candidates perform onstage for the public and the media. What the nation’s leaders are really like and what goes on behind the scenes remain hidden. Secret Service agents have a front-row seat on their private lives and those of their wives and children. Crammed with new headline-making revelations, The First Family Detail by New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler tells that eye-opening, uncensored story. The First Family Detail  reveals: • Vice President Joe Biden regularly orders the Secret Service to keep his military aide with the nuclear football a mile behind his motorcade, potentially leaving the country unable to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack. • Secret Service agents discovered that former president Bill Clinton has a blond mistress—code-named Energizer by agents—who lives near the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua, New York. • The Secret Service covered up the fact that President Ronald Reagan’s White House staff overruled the agency to let unscreened spectators get close to Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton, allowing John W. Hinckley Jr. to shoot the president. • Because Hillary Clinton is so nasty to agents, being assigned to her protective detail is considered a form of punishment and the worst assignment in the Secret Service. “Kessler’s such a skilled storyteller, you almost forget this is dead-serious nonfiction.”— Newsweek 

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A Fever in the Heartland - Timothy Egan Cover Art

A Fever in the Heartland

A Fever in the Heartland The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction • An NPR Best Book of the Year • A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year •  A Chicago Review of Books Best Book of the Year • A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year • A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist "With narrative elan, Egan gives us a riveting saga of how a predatory con man became one of the most powerful people in 1920s America, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, with a plan to rule the country—and how a grisly murder of a woman brought him down. Compelling and chillingly resonant with our own time." —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile “Riveting…Egan is a brilliant researcher and lucid writer.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them. The Roaring Twenties--the Jazz Age--has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows – their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman – Madge Oberholtzer – who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees. A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND marries a propulsive drama to a powerful and page-turning reckoning with one of the darkest threads in American history.

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How the South Won the Civil War - Heather Cox Richardson Cover Art

How the South Won the Civil War

How the South Won the Civil War Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America by Heather Cox Richardson

Named one of The Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies. The South and West equally depended on extractive industries-cotton in the former and mining, cattle, and oil in the latter-giving rise a new birth of white male oligarchy, despite the guarantees provided by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the economic opportunities afforded by expansion. To reveal why this happened, How the South Won the Civil War traces the story of the American paradox, the competing claims of equality and subordination woven into the nation's fabric and identity. At the nation's founding, it was the Eastern "yeoman farmer" who galvanized and symbolized the American Revolution. After the Civil War, that mantle was assumed by the Western cowboy, singlehandedly defending his land against barbarians and savages as well as from a rapacious government. New states entered the Union in the late nineteenth century and western and southern leaders found yet more common ground. As resources and people streamed into the West during the New Deal and World War II, the region's influence grew. "Movement Conservatives," led by westerners Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, claimed to embody cowboy individualism and worked with Dixiecrats to embrace the ideology of the Confederacy. Richardson's searing book seizes upon the soul of the country and its ongoing struggle to provide equal opportunity to all. Debunking the myth that the Civil War released the nation from the grip of oligarchy, expunging the sins of the Founding, it reveals how and why the Old South not only survived in the West, but thrived.

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Blood and Thunder - Hampton Sides Cover Art

Blood and Thunder

Blood and Thunder
by Hampton Sides

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Ghost Soldiers comes an eye-opening history of the American conquest of the West—"a story full of authority and color, truth and prophecy" ( The New York Times Book Review ) . In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness. At the center of this sweeping tale is Kit Carson, the trapper, scout, and soldier whose adventures made him a legend. Sides shows us how this illiterate mountain man understood and respected the Western tribes better than any other American, yet willingly followed orders that would ultimately devastate the Navajo nation. Rich in detail and spanning more than three decades, this is an essential addition to our understanding of how the West was really won.

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How I Helped O.J. Get Away With Murder - Mike Gilbert Cover Art

How I Helped O.J. Get Away With Murder

How I Helped O.J. Get Away With Murder The Shocking Inside Story of Violence, Loyalty, Regret, and Remorse by Mike Gilbert

You Don't Know the Full Truth About O.J. Simpson and the Murders that Gripped a Nation. But Mike Gilbert does, and after nearly two decades of being O.J. Simpson's sports agent, business advisor, and trusted confidant, Gilbert is breaking his silence and telling the full story of the man he idolized, but now despises. Gilbert's shocking tale is unlike anything you've read before; it isn't his "version" of what happened--it's the unvarnished truth. The truth about O.J., the murders, and the infamous trial. Not as Gilbert imagined or would like it to be, but how it actually was. Gilbert doesn't spare anyone, not even himself--he helped deceive the jury and feels deeply responsible for the "Not Guilty" verdict.

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Watergate - Garrett M. Graff Cover Art

Watergate

Watergate A New History by Garrett M. Graff

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Do we need still another Watergate book? The answer turns out to be yes—this one.” — The Washington Post * “Dazzling.” — The New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Plane in the Sky , comes the first definitive narrative history of Watergate—“the best and fullest account of the crisis, one unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon” ( Kirkus Reviews , starred review)—exploring the full scope of the scandal through the politicians, investigators, journalists, and informants who made it the most influential political event of the modern era. In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills enters six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that will change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police . The subsequent arrests of five men seeking to bug and burgle the Democratic National Committee offices—three of them Cuban exiles, two of them former intelligence operatives—quickly unravels a web of scandal that ultimately ends a presidency and forever alters views of moral authority and leadership. Watergate, as the event is called, becomes a shorthand for corruption, deceit, and unanswered questions. Now, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Garrett M. Graff explores the full scope of this unprecedented moment from start to finish, in the first comprehensive, single-volume account in decades. The story begins in 1971, with the publication of thousands of military and government documents known as the Pentagon Papers, which reveal dishonesty about the decades-long American presence in Vietnam and spark public outrage. Furious that the leak might expose his administration’s own duplicity during a crucial reelection season, President Richard M. Nixon gathers his closest advisors and gives them implicit instructions: Win by any means necessary. Within a few months, an unsteady line of political dominoes are positioned, from the creation of a series of covert operations code-named GEMSTONE to campaign-trail dirty tricks, possible hostage situations, and questionable fundraising efforts—much of it caught on the White House’s own taping system. One by one they fall, until the thwarted June burglary attracts the attention of intrepid journalists, congressional investigators, and embattled intelligence officers, one of whom will spend decades concealing his identity behind the alias “Deep Throat.” As each faction slowly begins to uncover the truth, a conspiracy deeper and more corrupt than anyone thought possible emerges, and the nation is thrown into a state of crisis as its government—and its leader—unravels. Using newly public documents, transcripts, and revelations, Graff recounts every twist with remarkable detail and page-turning drama, bringing readers into the backrooms of Washington, chaotic daily newsrooms, crowded Senate hearings, and even the Oval Office itself during one of the darkest chapters in American history. Grippingly told and meticulously researched, Watergate is the defining account of the moment that has haunted our nation’s past—and still holds the power to shape its present and future.

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The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson Cover Art

The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.  “As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find.” — San Francisco Chronicle Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction. Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.  Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake. The Devil in the White City draws the reader into the enchantment of the Guilded Age, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

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Bunker Hill - Nathaniel Philbrick Cover Art

Bunker Hill

Bunker Hill
A City, A Siege, A Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick

The bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, Mayflower , and  In the Hurricane's Eye  tells the story of the Boston battle that ignited the American Revolution, in this "masterpiece of narrative and perspective ." (Boston Globe) In the opening volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns his keen eye to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the spark that ignited the American Revolution. In the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and the violence at Lexington and Concord, the conflict escalated and skirmishes gave way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was the bloodiest conflict of the revolutionary war, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists. Philbrick gives us a fresh view of the story and its dynamic personalities, including John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and George Washington. With passion and insight, he reconstructs the revolutionary landscape—geographic and ideological—in a mesmerizing narrative of the robust, messy, blisteringly real origins of America.

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A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn Cover Art

A People's History of the United States

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this updated edition of the classic national bestseller reviews the book’s thirty-five year history and demonstrates once again why it is a significant contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history. Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. 

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Masters of the Air - Donald L. Miller Cover Art

Masters of the Air

Masters of the Air America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany by Donald L. Miller

The inspiration for the major Apple TV+ series, streaming now! The riveting history of the American Eighth Air Force in World War II and the young men who flew the bombers that helped beat the Nazis and liberate Europe, brilliantly told by historian and World War II expert Donald L. Miller. The Masters of the Air streaming series stars Austin Butler and Callum Turner, and is produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the legendary duo behind Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller’s Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America—white America, anyway. The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the “King of Hollywood,” Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men. The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland. Masters of the Air is “a stunning achievement” (David McCullough), “a fresh new account” (Walter Boyne, former director of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum) of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed. Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account that “accurately and comprehensively” (Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (Ret.) and coauthor of Cobra II ) tells of the world’s first and only bomber war.

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The Pioneers - David McCullough Cover Art

The Pioneers

The Pioneers The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough

The #1 New York Times bestseller by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story that’s “ as resonant today as ever” ( The Wall Street Journal )—the settling of the Northwest Territory by courageous pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would define our country. As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. “With clarity and incisiveness, [McCullough] details the experience of a brave and broad-minded band of people who crossed raging rivers, chopped down forests, plowed miles of land, suffered incalculable hardships, and braved a lonely frontier to forge a new American ideal” ( The Providence Journal ). Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. “A tale of uplift” ( The New York Times Book Review ), this is a quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough’s signature narrative energy.

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Killing the Witches - Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard Cover Art

Killing the Witches

Killing the Witches The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard

The Instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller! Killing the Witches revisits one of the most frightening and inexplicable episodes in American history: the events of 1692 and 1693 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. What began as a mysterious affliction of two young girls who suffered violent fits and exhibited strange behavior soon spread to other young women. Rumors of demonic possession and witchcraft consumed Salem. Soon three women were arrested under suspicion of being witches--but as the hysteria spread, more than 200 people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, twenty were executed, and others died in jail or their lives were ruined. Killing the Witches tells the dramatic history of how the Puritan tradition and the power of early American ministers shaped the origins of the United States, influencing the founding fathers, the American Revolution, and even the Constitutional Convention. The repercussions of Salem continue to the present day, notably in the real-life story behind The Exorcist and in contemporary “witch hunts” driven by social media. The result is a compulsively readable book about good, evil, community panic, and how fear can overwhelm fact and reason.

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Master Slave Husband Wife - Ilyon Woo Cover Art

Master Slave Husband Wife

Master Slave Husband Wife An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

One of The New York Times ’s 10 Best Books of 2023 New York Times Bestseller Named a best book of 2023 by The New Yorker , Time , NPR, Smithsonian Magazine , Boston , Chicago Public Library, Oprah Daily , and People The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as “his” slave. In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North. Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities, and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000 miles criss-crossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the day—among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown. But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United States, their lives and thousands more on the line and the stakes never higher. With three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom, Master Slave Husband Wife is an American love story—one that would challenge the nation’s core precepts of life, liberty, and justice for all—one that challenges us even now.

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Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Patriots - David Fisher Cover Art

Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Patriots

Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Patriots by David Fisher

The must-have companion to Bill O'Reilly's historical docudrama Legends and Lies: The Patriots , an exciting and eye-opening look at the Revolutionary War through the lives of its leaders The American Revolution was neither inevitable nor a unanimous cause. It pitted neighbors against each other, as loyalists and colonial rebels faced off for their lives and futures. These were the times that tried men's souls: no one was on stable ground and few could be trusted. Through the fascinating tales of the first Americans, Legends and Lies: The Patriots reveals the contentious arguments that turned friends into foes and the country into a warzone. From the riots over a child's murder that led to the Boston Massacre to the suspicious return of Ben Franklin, the "First American;" from the Continental Army's first victory under George Washington's leadership to the little known southern Guerilla campaign of "Swamp Fox" Francis Marion, and the celebration of America's first Christmas, The Patriots recreates the amazing combination of resourcefulness, perseverance, strategy, and luck that led to this country's creation. Heavily illustrated with spectacular artwork that brings this important history to vivid life, and told in the same fast-paced, immersive narrative as the first Legends and Lies, The Patriots is an irresistible, adventure-packed journey back into one of the most storied moments of our nation's rich history.

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Medical Apartheid - Harriet A. Washington Cover Art

Medical Apartheid

Medical Apartheid The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • The first full history of Black America’s shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to read this masterful book. "[Washington] has unearthed a shocking amount of information and shaped it into a riveting, carefully documented book." — New York Times From the era of slavery to the present day, starting with the earliest encounters between Black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, Medical Apartheid details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how Blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of Blacks. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions. The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused Black Americans to view researchers—and indeed the whole medical establishment—with such deep distrust.

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Apostles of Disunion - Charles B. Dew Cover Art

Apostles of Disunion

Apostles of Disunion Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War by Charles B. Dew

Charles Dew’s Apostles of Disunion has established itself as a modern classic and an indispensable account of the Southern states’ secession from the Union. Addressing topics still hotly debated among historians and the public at large more than a century and a half after the Civil War, the book offers a compelling and clearly substantiated argument that slavery and race were at the heart of our great national crisis. The fifteen years since the original publication of Apostles of Disunion have seen an intensification of debates surrounding the Confederate flag and Civil War monuments. In a powerful new afterword to this anniversary edition, Dew situates the book in relation to these recent controversies and factors in the role of vast financial interests tied to the internal slave trade in pushing Virginia and other upper South states toward secession and war.

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Torpedo Run - Don Keith Cover Art

Torpedo Run

Torpedo Run The Story of WWII Submarine Hero Eugene B. Fluckey by Don Keith

The remarkable true story of Eugene Fluckey, the US Navy’s most innovative—and aggressive—submarine commander of World War II   Over the course of five combat patrols during the Pacific War, Commander Fluckey reinvented submarine warfare, pioneering audacious strategies to hunt and sink Japanese warships and merchant vessels. At the helm of the USS  Barb , he directed his boat to attack warship convoys—never mind the lop-sided odds—and to slip into heavily defended enemy harbors to launch torpedoes at unsuspecting targets. “Lucky” Fluckey’s submariners often attacked from the surface, brazenly sinking the enemy with the  Barb ’s deck guns. Once, he even sent sailors ashore on one Japanese island on a perilous mission to blow up a Japanese train. Fluckey and his crew sent an astounding seventeen enemy ships, including an aircraft carrier, to the bottom of the sea.   In  Torpedo Run , acclaimed naval historian Don Keith dives into the most thrilling and dangerous tales of Fluckey’s war, as he guides his gallant crew against the Japanese fleet. For his heroism and intrepidity, Fluckey earned four Navy Crosses and the Medal of Honor, and showed what a submarine—and he—was capable of.

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By the Bomb's Early Light - Paul Boyer Cover Art

By the Bomb's Early Light

By the Bomb's Early Light American Thought and Culture At the Dawn of the Atomic Age by Paul Boyer

Originally published in 1985, By the Bomb's Early Light is the first book to explore the cultural 'fallout' in America during the early years of the atomic age. Paul Boyer argues that the major aspects of the long-running debates about nuclear armament and disarmament developed and took shape soon after the bombing of Hiroshima. The book is based on a wide range of sources, including cartoons, opinion polls, radio programs, movies, literature, song lyrics, slang, and interviews with leading opinion-makers of the time. Through these materials, Boyer shows the surprising and profoundly disturbing ways in which the bomb quickly and totally penetrated the fabric of American life, from the chillingly prophetic forecasts of observers like Lewis Mumford to the Hollywood starlet who launched her career as the 'anatomic bomb.' In a new preface, Boyer discusses recent changes in nuclear politics and attitudes toward the nuclear age.

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Iron Empires - Michael Hiltzik Cover Art

Iron Empires

Iron Empires Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America by Michael Hiltzik

From Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Hiltzik, the epic tale of the clash for supremacy between America’s railroad titans In 1869, when the final spike was driven into the transcontinental railroad, few were prepared for its seismic aftershocks. Once a hodgepodge of short, squabbling lines, America’s railways soon exploded into a titanic industry helmed by a pageant of speculators, crooks, and visionaries. The vicious competition between empire builders such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, and E. H. Harriman sparked stock market frenzies, panics, and crashes; provoked strikes that upended the relationship between management and labor; transformed the nation’s geography; and culminated in a ferocious two-man battle that shook the nation’s financial markets to their foundations and produced dramatic, lasting changes in the interplay of business and government.   Spanning four decades and featuring some of the most iconic figures of the Gilded Age, Iron Empires reveals how the robber barons drove the country into the twentieth century—and almost sent it off the rails.

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1776 - David McCullough Cover Art

1776

1776 by David McCullough

America’s beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation’s birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a war against her rebellious colonial subjects and that placed America’s survival in the hands of George Washington. In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence—when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King’s men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known. Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough’s 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.

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The Sisterhood - Liza Mundy Cover Art

The Sisterhood

The Sisterhood The Secret History of Women at the CIA by Liza Mundy

A “rip-roaring” (Steve Coll), “staggeringly well-researched” ( The New York Times ) history of three generations at the CIA, “electric with revelations” ( Booklist ) about the women who fought to become operatives, transformed spycraft, and tracked down Osama bin Laden, from the bestselling author of Code Girls A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • A FOREIGN POLICY AND SMITHSONIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR In development as a series from Lionsgate Television, executive produced by Scott Delman ( Station Eleven ) Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency’s secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA’s shrewdest operatives. They were unlikely spies—and that’s exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA’s critical archives—first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn’t see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda—though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside. After the 9/11 attacks, more women joined the agency as a new job, targeter, came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape—an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA’s successful effort to track down bin Laden in his Pakistani compound. Propelled by the same meticulous reporting and vivid storytelling that infused Code Girls , The Sisterhood offers a riveting new perspective on history, revealing how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, and how their silencing made the world more dangerous

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To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner - Carole Emberton Cover Art

To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner

To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner by Carole Emberton

The extraordinary life of Priscilla Joyner and her quest—along with other formerly enslaved people—to define freedom after the Civil War. Priscilla Joyner was born into the world of slavery in 1858 North Carolina and came of age at the dawn of emancipation. Raised by a white slaveholding woman, Joyner never knew the truth about her parentage. She grew up isolated and unsure of who she was and where she belonged—feelings that no emancipation proclamation could assuage. Her life story—candidly recounted in an oral history for the Federal Writers’ Project—captures the intimate nature of freedom. Using Joyner’s interview and the interviews of other formerly enslaved people, historian Carole Emberton uncovers the deeply personal, emotional journeys of freedom’s charter generation—the people born into slavery who walked into a new world of freedom during the Civil War. From the seemingly mundane to the most vital, emancipation opened up a myriad of new possibilities: what to wear and where to live, what jobs to take and who to love. Although Joyner was educated at a Freedmen’s Bureau school and married a man she loved, slavery cast a long shadow. Uncertainty about her parentage haunted her life, and as Jim Crow took hold throughout the South, segregation, disfranchisement, and racial violence threatened the loving home she made for her family. But through it all, she found beauty in the world and added to it where she could. Weaving together illuminating voices from the charter generation, To Walk About in Freedom gives us a kaleidoscopic look at the lived experiences of emancipation and challenges us to think anew about the consequences of failing to reckon with the afterlife of slavery.

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The Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel Wilkerson Cover Art

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Warmth of Other Suns The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. “Profound, necessary and an absolute delight to read.” —Toni Morrison From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.   With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

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Covert City - Vince Houghton & Eric Driggs Cover Art

Covert City

Covert City The Cold War and the Making of Miami by Vince Houghton & Eric Driggs

Secret operations, corruption, crime, and a city teeming with spies: why Miami was as crucial to winning the Cold War as Washington DC or Moscow. The Cuban Missile Crisis was perhaps the most dramatic and dangerous period of the Cold War. What's less well known is that the city of Miami, mere miles away, was a pivotal, though less well known, part of Cold War history. With its population of Communist exiles from Cuba, its strategic value for military operations, and its lax business laws, Miami was an ideal environment for espionage. Covert City  tells the history of how the entire city of Miami was constructed in the image of the US-Cuba rivalry. From the Bay of Pigs invasion to the death of Fidel Castro, the book shows how Miami is a hub for money and cocaine but also secrets and ideologies. Cuban exiles built criminal and political organizations in the city, leading Washington to set up a CIA station there, codenamed JMWAVE. It monitored gang activities, plotted secret operations against Castro, and became a base for surveilling Latin American neighbors. The money and infrastructure built for the CIA was integral to the development of Miami. Covert City  is a sweeping and entertaining history, full of stunning experimental operations and colorful characters--a story of a place like no other.

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Manhunt - James L. Swanson Cover Art

Manhunt

Manhunt The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner by James L. Swanson

Now an Apple TV+ Series “A terrific narrative of the hunt for Lincoln’s killers that will mesmerize the reader from start to finish.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history--the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry troops on a wild, 12-day chase from the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness. Based on rare archival materials, obscure trial transcripts, and Lincoln’s own blood relics Manhunt is a fully documented, fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal. A gripping hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, it is history as it’s never been read before.

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Chasing Beauty - Natalie Dykstra Cover Art

Chasing Beauty

Chasing Beauty The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner by Natalie Dykstra

The vivid and masterful story of Isabella Stewart Gardner—creator of one of America’s most stunning museums—an American original whose own life was remade by art. Includes archival photos of Isabella’s world, museum, and the art she collected. Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture. An extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, Chasing Beauty illuminates the fascinating ways the museum and its holdings can be seen as a kind of memoir, dazzling and haunting, created with objects instead of words and displayed per Isabella’s wishes in the exact placements she initially curated. Born in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston’s insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old. But in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace—all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent—whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal—came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer. From award-winning author Natalie Dykstra, Chasing Beauty is the story of the complex and singular woman behind one of the most fascinating museums in the nation and the world—a tale of beauty and loss, grit and American self-invention.

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Black Elk Speaks - John G. Neihardt Cover Art

Black Elk Speaks

Black Elk Speaks The Complete Edition by John G. Neihardt

Black Elk Speaks , the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. Black Elk’s searing visions of the unity of humanity and Earth, conveyed by John G. Neihardt, have made this book a classic that crosses multiple genres. Whether appreciated as the poignant tale of a Lakota life, as a history of a Native nation, or as an enduring spiritual testament, Black Elk Speaks is unforgettable. Black Elk met the distinguished poet, writer, and critic John G. Neihardt in 1930 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and asked Neihardt to share his story with the world. Neihardt understood and conveyed Black Elk’s experiences in this powerful and inspirational message for all humankind. This complete edition features a new introduction by historian Philip J. Deloria and annotations of Black Elk’s story by renowned Lakota scholar Raymond J. DeMallie. Three essays by John G. Neihardt provide background on this landmark work along with pieces by Vine Deloria Jr., Raymond J. DeMallie, Alexis Petri, and Lori Utecht. Maps, original illustrations by Standing Bear, and a set of appendixes rounds out the edition.

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The Civil War: A Narrative - Shelby Foote Cover Art

The Civil War: A Narrative

The Civil War: A Narrative Volume 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville by Shelby Foote

This first volume of Shelby Foote's classic narrative of the Civil War opens with Jefferson Davis’s farewell to the United Senate and ends on the bloody battlefields of Antietam and Perryville, as the full, horrible scope of America’s great war becomes clear. Exhaustively researched and masterfully written, Foote’s epic account of the Civil War unfolds like a classic novel.    Includes maps throughout.   "Here, for a certainty, is one of the great historical narratives…a unique and brilliant achievement, one that must be firmly placed in the ranks of the masters."—Van Allen Bradley, Chicago Daily News "A stunning book full of color, life, character and a new atmosphere of the Civil War, and at the same time a narrative of unflagging power. Eloquent proof that an historian should be a writer above all else." —Burke Davis "To read this great narrative is to love the nation—to love it through the living knowledge of its mortal division. Whitman, who ultimately knew and loved the bravery and frailty of the soldiers, observed that the real Civil War would never be written and perhaps should not be. For me, Shelby Foote has written it.... This work was done to last forever." —James M. Cox, Southern Review

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The Wright Brothers - David McCullough Cover Art

The Wright Brothers

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright. On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot. Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did? David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the surprising, profoundly American story of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading. When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their “mission” to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed. In this thrilling book, master historian David McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers’ story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.

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Blonde Rattlesnake - Julia Bricklin Cover Art

Blonde Rattlesnake

Blonde Rattlesnake Burmah Adams, Tom White, and the 1933 Crime Spree that Terrorized Los Angeles by Julia Bricklin

Nineteen-year-old Burmah Adams, a hairdresser and former Santa Ana High School student, spent her honeymoon on a crime spree. She and her husband of less than one week, White, an ex-con, robbed at least twenty people in and around downtown L.A. at gunpoint over an eight-week period. Blonde Rattlesnake reveals the events that brought Adams and White together and details the crime spree they committed in the sweltering hot days and nights of Los Angeles in the height of the Great Depression.

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Dreams of El Dorado - H. W. Brands Cover Art

Dreams of El Dorado

Dreams of El Dorado A History of the American West by H. W. Brands

"Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope" (Hampton Sides), this masterfully told account of the American West from a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist sets a new standard as it sweeps from the California Gold Rush and beyond. In Dreams of El Dorado , H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants' dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame-and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. The West was where riches would reward the miner's persistence, the cattleman's courage, the railroad man's enterprise; but El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East. Balanced, authoritative, and masterfully told, Dreams of El Dorado sets a new standard for histories of the American West.

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The Vietnam War - Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns Cover Art

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Based on the celebrated PBS television series, the complete text of an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict, “a significant milestone [that] will no doubt do much to determine how the war is understood for years to come.” — The Washington Post More than forty years have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, but its memory continues to loom large in the national psyche. In this intimate history, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns have crafted a fresh and insightful account of the long and brutal conflict that reunited Vietnam while dividing the United States as nothing else had since the Civil War. From the Gulf of Tonkin and the Tet Offensive to Hamburger Hill and the fall of Saigon, Ward and Burns trace the conflict that dogged three American presidents and their advisers. But most of the voices that echo from these pages belong to less exalted men and women—those who fought in the war as well as those who fought against it, both victims and victors—willing for the first time to share their memories of Vietnam as it really was. A magisterial tour de force, The Vietnam War is an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict.

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The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe Cover Art

The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe at his very best" ( The New York Times Book Review ), The Right Stuff is t he basis for the 1983 Oscar Award-winning film of the same name and the 8-part Disney+ TV mini-series. From "America's nerviest journalist" ( Newsweek )--a breath-taking epic, a magnificent adventure story, and an investigation into the true heroism and courage of the first Americans to conquer space. " Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure; namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers, that made The Right Stuff a classic.

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Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence - John Ferling Cover Art

Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence

Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence by John Ferling

In this gripping chronicle of America's struggle for independence, award-winning historian John Ferling transports readers to the grim realities of that war, capturing an eight-year conflict filled with heroism, suffering, cowardice, betrayal, and fierce dedication. As Ferling demonstrates, it was a war that America came much closer to losing than is now usually remembered. General George Washington put it best when he said that the American victory was "little short of a standing miracle." Almost a Miracle offers an illuminating portrait of America's triumph, offering vivid descriptions of all the major engagements, from the first shots fired on Lexington Green to the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, revealing how these battles often hinged on intangibles such as leadership under fire, heroism, good fortune, blunders, tenacity, and surprise. The author paints sharp-eyed portraits of the key figures in the war, including General Washington and other American officers and civilian leaders. Some do not always measure up to their iconic reputations, including Washington himself. Others, such as the quirky, acerbic Charles Lee, are seen in a much better light than usual. The book also examines the many faceless men who soldiered, often for years on end, braving untold dangers and enduring abounding miseries. The author explains why they served and sacrificed, and sees them as the forgotten heroes who won American independence. Ferling's narrative is also filled with compassion for the men who comprised the British army and who, like their American counterparts, struggled and died at an astonishing rate in this harsh war. Nor does Ferling ignore the naval war, describing dangerous patrols and grand and dazzling naval actions. Finally, Almost a Miracle takes readers inside the legislative chambers and plush offices of diplomats to reveal countless decisions that altered the course of this war. The story that unfolds is at times a tale of folly, at times one of appalling misinformation and confusion, and now and then one of insightful and dauntless statesmanship.

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Marine Sniper - Charles Henderson Cover Art

Marine Sniper

Marine Sniper 93 Confirmed Kills by Charles Henderson

The explosive true story of Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, a legendary Marine sniper in the Vietnam War. There have been many Marines. There have been many marksmen. But there has only been one Sergeant Carlos Hathcock. He stalked the Viet Cong behind enemy lines—on their own ground. And each time, he emerged from the jungle having done his duty. His record is one of the finest in military history, with ninety-three confirmed kills. This is the story of a simple man who endured incredible dangers and hardships for his country and his Corps. These are the missions that have made Carlos Hathcock a legend in the brotherhood of Marines. They are exciting, powerful, chilling—and all true. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

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Accidental Presidents - Jared Cohen Cover Art

Accidental Presidents

Accidental Presidents Eight Men Who Changed America by Jared Cohen

This New York Times bestselling “deep dive into the terms of eight former presidents is chock-full of political hijinks—and déjà vu” ( Vanity Fair ) and provides a fascinating look at the men who came to the office without being elected to it, showing how each affected the nation and world. The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Eight men have succeeded to the presidency when the incumbent died in office. In one way or another they vastly changed our history. Only Theodore Roosevelt would have been elected in his own right. Only TR, Truman, Coolidge, and LBJ were re-elected. John Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison who died 30 days into his term. He was kicked out of his party and became the first president threatened with impeachment. Millard Fillmore succeeded esteemed General Zachary Taylor. He immediately sacked the entire cabinet and delayed an inevitable Civil War by standing with Henry Clay’s compromise of 1850. Andrew Johnson , who succeeded our greatest president, sided with remnants of the Confederacy in Reconstruction. Chester Arthur , the embodiment of the spoils system, was so reviled as James Garfield’s successor that he had to defend himself against plotting Garfield’s assassination; but he reformed the civil service. Theodore Roosevelt broke up the trusts. Calvin Coolidge silently cooled down the Harding scandals and preserved the White House for the Republican Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. Harry Truman surprised everybody when he succeeded the great FDR and proved an able and accomplished president. Lyndon B. Johnson was named to deliver Texas electorally. He led the nation forward on Civil Rights but failed on Vietnam. Accidental Presidents shows that “history unfolds in death as well as in life” ( The Wall Street Journal ) and adds immeasurably to our understanding of the power and limits of the American presidency in critical times.

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A Different Mirror - Ronald Takaki Cover Art

A Different Mirror

A Different Mirror A History of Multicultural America (Revised Edition) by Ronald Takaki

Takaki traces the economic and political history of Indians, African Americans, Mexicans, Japanese, Chinese, Irish, and Jewish people in America, with considerable attention given to instances and consequences of racism. The narrative is laced with short quotations, cameos of personal experiences, and excerpts from folk music and literature. Well-known occurrences, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the Trail of Tears, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Japanese internment are included. Students may be surprised by some of the revelations, but will recognize a constant thread of rampant racism. The author concludes with a summary of today's changing economic climate and offers Rodney King's challenge to all of us to try to get along. Readers will find this overview to be an accessible, cogent jumping-off place for American history and political science plus a guide to the myriad other sources identified in the notes.

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The American War in Afghanistan - Carter Malkasian Cover Art

The American War in Afghanistan

The American War in Afghanistan A History by Carter Malkasian

A New York Times Notable Book Winner of 2022 Lionel Gelber Prize The first authoritative history of America's longest war by one of the world's leading scholar-practitioners. The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, is now the longest armed conflict in the nation's history. It is currently winding down, and American troops are likely to leave soon ? but only after a stay of nearly two decades. In The American War in Afghanistan, Carter Malkasian provides the first comprehensive history of the entire conflict. Malkasian is both a leading academic authority on the subject and an experienced practitioner, having spent nearly two years working in the Afghan countryside and going on to serve as the senior advisor to General Joseph Dunford, the US military commander in Afghanistan and later the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Drawing from a deep well of local knowledge, understanding of Pashto, and review of primary source documents, Malkasian moves through the war's multiple phases: the 2001 invasion and after; the light American footprint during the 2003 Iraq invasion; the resurgence of the Taliban in 2006, the Obama-era surge, and the various resets in strategy and force allocations that occurred from 2011 onward, culminating in the 2018-2020 peace talks. Malkasian lived through much of it, and draws from his own experiences to provide a unique vantage point on the war. Today, the Taliban is the most powerful faction, and sees victory as probable. The ultimate outcome after America leaves is inherently unpredictable given the multitude of actors there, but one thing is sure: the war did not go as America had hoped. Although the al-Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden was killed and no major attack on the American homeland was carried out after 2001, the United States was unable to end the violence or hand off the war to the Afghan authorities, which could not survive without US military backing. The American War in Afghanistan explains why the war had such a disappointing outcome. Wise and all-encompassing, The American War in Afghanistan provides a truly vivid portrait of the conflict in all of its phases that will remain the authoritative account for years to come.

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California - Kevin Starr Cover Art

California

California A History by Kevin Starr

“A California classic . . . California, it should be remembered, was very much the wild west, having to wait until 1850 before it could force its way into statehood. so what tamed it? Mr. Starr’s answer is a combination of great men, great ideas and great projects.”— The Economist From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, the Golden State’s premier historian distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. Kevin Starr covers it all: Spain’s conquest of the native peoples of California in the early sixteenth century and the chain of missions that helped that country exert control over the upper part of the territory; the discovery of gold in January 1848; the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons; the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace. In a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph, Starr gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state. Praise for California “[A] fast-paced and wide-ranging history . . . [Starr] accomplishes the feat with skill, grace and verve.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review “Kevin Starr is one of california’s greatest historians, and California is an invaluable contribution to our state’s record and lore.” —MarIa ShrIver, journalist and former First Lady of California “A breeze to read.” — San Francisco

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Stilwell and the American Experience in China - Barbara W. Tuchman Cover Art

Stilwell and the American Experience in China

Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-1945 by Barbara W. Tuchman

Barbara W. Tuchman won her second Pulitzer Prize for this nonfiction masterpiece—an authoritative work of history that recounts the birth of modern China through the eyes of one extraordinary American.   General Joseph W. Stilwell was a man who loved China deeply and knew its people as few Americans ever have. Barbara W. Tuchman’s groundbreaking narrative follows Stilwell from the time he arrived in China during the Revolution of 1911, through his tours of duty in Peking and Tientsin in the 1920s and ’30s, to his return as theater commander in World War II, when the Nationalist government faced attack from both Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents. Peopled by warlords, ambassadors, and missionaries, this classic biography of the cantankerous but level-headed “Vinegar Joe” sparkles with Tuchman’s genius for animating the people who shaped history.   Praise for Stilwell and the American Experience in China   “Tuchman’s best book . . . so large in scope, so crammed with information, so clear in exposition, so assured in tone that one is tempted to say it is not a book but an education.” — The New Yorker   “The most interesting and informative book on U.S.–China relations . . . a brilliant, lucid and authentic account.” — The Nation   “A fantastic and complex story finely told.” — The New York Times Book Review

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Horses Don't Fly - Frederick Libby Cover Art

Horses Don't Fly

Horses Don't Fly The Memoir of the Cowboy Who Became a World War I Ace by Frederick Libby

From breaking wild horses in Colorado to fighting the Red Baron's squadrons in the skies over France, here in his own words is the true story of a forgotten American hero: the cowboy who became our first ace and the first pilot to fly the American colors over enemy lines.     Growing up on a ranch in Sterling, Colorado, Frederick Libby mastered the cowboy arts of roping, punching cattle, and taming horses. As a young man he exercised his skills in the mountains and on the ranges of Arizona and New Mexico as well as the Colorado prairie. When World War I broke out, he found himself in Calgary, Alberta, and joined the Canadian army. In France, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as an "observer," the gunner in a two-person biplane. Libby shot down an enemy plane on his first day in battle over the Somme, which was also the first day he flew in a plane or fired a machine gun. He went on to become a pilot. He fought against the legendary German aces Oswald Boelcke and Manfred von Richthofen, and became the first American to down five enemy planes. He won the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry in action.   Libby's memoir of his cowboy days in the last years of the Old West evokes a real-life Cormac McCarthy novel. His description of World War I combines a rattling good account of the air war over France with captivating and sometimes poignant depictions of wartime London, the sorrow for friends lost in combat, and the courage and camaraderie of the Royal Flying Corps. Told in charming, straightforward vernacular, Horses Don't Fly is an unforgettable piece of Americana.

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One-Night Stands with American History - Richard Shenkman & Kurt Reiger Cover Art

One-Night Stands with American History

One-Night Stands with American History Odd, Amusing, and Little-Known Incidents by Richard Shenkman & Kurt Reiger

Respect yourself in the morning -- read One-Night Stands with American History! This collection of little-known facts and anecdotes is American history with the boring parts left out. Richard Shenkman and Kurt Reiger have uncovered numerous stories about hoaxes, inventions, secrets, and rare incidents -- many involving the most famous and powerful people in America. President U. S. Grant was arrested for speeding in his horse carriage.J. Edgar Hoover refused to allow people to walk on his shadow.France shipped Louisiana twenty-five prostitutes because women were in short supply in 1721.H. L. Hunt won his first oil well in a game of five-card stud. Even historians find that One-Night Stands with American History features fascinating stories they never knew. Now updated with facts and anecdotes from the last twenty years, this volume is a treasure trove of remarkable stories that will startle, entertain, and inform you. And the best part is that they're all true!

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The American People in the Great Depression - David M. Kennedy Cover Art

The American People in the Great Depression

The American People in the Great Depression Freedom from Fear, Part One by David M. Kennedy

On October 24, 1929, America met the greatest economic devastation it had ever known. In this first installment of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Freedom from Fear, Kennedy tells how America endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of that unprecedented calamity. Kennedy vividly demonstrates that the economic crisis of the 1930s was more than a reaction to the excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before the Crash, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, consuming capital and inflicting misery on city and countryside alike. Nor was the alleged prosperity of the 1920s as uniformly shared as legend portrays. Countless Americans eked out threadbare lives on the margins of national life. Roosevelt's New Deal wrenched opportunity from the trauma of the 1930s and created a lasting legacy of economic and social reform, but it was afflicted with shortcomings and contradictions as well. With an even hand Kennedy details the New Deal's problems and defeats, as well as its achievements. He also sheds fresh light on its incandescent but enigmatic author, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Marshalling unforgettable narratives that feature prominent leaders as well as lesser-known citizens, The American People in the Great Depression tells the story of a resilient nation finding courage in an unrelenting storm.

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Revolution on the Hudson: New York City and the Hudson River Valley in the American War of Independence - George C. Daughan Cover Art

Revolution on the Hudson: New York City and the Hudson River Valley in the American War of Independence

Revolution on the Hudson: New York City and the Hudson River Valley in the American War of Independence by George C. Daughan

The riveting untold story of the fight for the Hudson River Valley, the decisive campaign of the Revolutionary War. No part of the country was more contested during the American Revolution than New York City and its surroundings. Military leaders of the time—and generations of scholars since—believed that the Hudson River Valley was America’s geographic jugular, which, if cut, would quickly bleed the rebellion to death. In Revolution on the Hudson, prize-winning historian George C. Daughan makes the daring new argument that this strategy would never have worked, and that dogged pursuit of dominance over the Hudson ultimately cost Britain the war. This groundbreaking naval history offers a thrilling response to one of our most vexing historical questions: How could a fledgling nation have defeated the most powerful war machine of the era?

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"Lee is Trapped, and Must be Taken" - Thomas J. Ryan & Richard R. Schaus Cover Art

"Lee is Trapped, and Must be Taken"

"Lee is Trapped, and Must be Taken" Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg, July 4–14, 1863 by Thomas J. Ryan & Richard R. Schaus

This award-winning Civil War history examines Robert E. Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg and the vital importance of Civil War military intelligence.   While countless books have examined the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate Army’s retreat to the Potomac River remains largely untold. This comprehensive study tells the full story, including how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac to pursue Gen. Robert E. Lee’s retreating Army of Northern Virginia.    The long and bloody battle exhausted both armies, and both faced difficult tasks ahead. Lee had to conduct an orderly withdrawal from the field. Meade had to assess whether his army had sufficient strength to pursue a still-dangerous enemy. Central to the respective commanders’ decisions was the intelligence they received about one another’s movements, intentions, and capability. The eleven-day period after Gettysburg was a battle of wits to determine which commander better understood the information he received. Prepare for some surprising revelations.   The authors utilized a host of primary sources to craft this study, including letters, memoirs, diaries, official reports, newspapers, and telegrams. The immediacy of this material shines through in a fast-paced narrative that sheds significant new light on one of the Civil War’s most consequential episodes.    Winner, Edwin C. Bearss Scholarly Research Award   Winner, 2019, Hugh G. Earnhart Civil War Scholarship Award, Mahoning Valley Civil War Round Table

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The Buffalo Hunters - Mari Sandoz Cover Art

The Buffalo Hunters

The Buffalo Hunters The Story of the Hide Men by Mari Sandoz

In 1867 conservative estimates put the number of buffaloes in the trans-Missouri region at fifteen million. By the end of the 1880s, that figure had dwindled to a few hundred. The destruction of the great herds is the theme of The Buffalo Hunters . Mari Sandoz’s vast canvas is charged with color and excitement—accounts of Indian ambushes, hairbreadth escapes, gambling and gunfights, military expeditions, and famous frontier characters such as Wild Bill Hickok, Lonesome Charlie Reynolds, Buffalo Bill, Sheridan, Custer, and Indian chiefs Whistler, Yellow Wolf, Spotted Tail, and Sitting Bull.  

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Monsters in America - W. Scott Poole Cover Art

Monsters in America

Monsters in America Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting by W. Scott Poole

Monsters arrived in 2011—and now they are back. Not only do they continue to live in our midst, but, as historian Scott Poole shows, these monsters are an important part of our past—a hideous obsession America cannot seem to escape. Poole’s central argument in Monsters in America is that monster tales intertwine with America’s troubled history of racism, politics, class struggle, and gender inequality. The second edition of Monsters leads readers deeper into America’s tangled past to show how monsters continue to haunt contemporary American ideology. By adding new discussions of the American West, Poole focuses intently on the Native American experience. He reveals how monster stories went west to Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, bringing the preoccupation with monsters into the twentieth century through the American Indian Movement. In his new preface and expanded conclusion, Poole’s tale connects to the present—illustrating the relationship between current social movements and their historical antecedents. This proven textbook also studies the social location of contemporary horror films, exploring, for example, how Get Out emerged from the context of the Black Lives Matter movement. Finally, in the new section "American Carnage," Poole challenges readers to assess what their own monster tales might be and how our sordid past horrors express themselves in our present cultural anxieties. By the end of the book, Poole cautions that America’s monsters aren’t going away anytime soon. If specters of the past still haunt our present, they may yet invade our future. Monsters are here to stay.

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Katharine Graham's Washington - Katharine Graham Cover Art

Katharine Graham's Washington

Katharine Graham's Washington by Katharine Graham

As a fitting epilogue to a life intimately linked to Washington, D.C., Pulitzer Prize winner Katharine Graham, the woman who transformed The Washington Post into a paper of record, left behind this lovingly collected anthology of writings about the city she knew and loved, a moving tribute to the nation’s capital. To Russell Banks, it is a place where “no one is in charge and no one, therefore, can be held responsible for the mess.” To John Dos Passos, it is “essentially a town of lonely people.” Whatever your impressions of Washington, D.C., you will likely find them challenged here. Experience Christmas with the Roosevelts, as seen through the eyes of a White House housekeeper. Learn why David McCullough is happy to declare “I love Washington,” while The Washington Post ’s Sally Quinn wonders, “Why Do They Hate Washington?” Glimpse David Brinkley’s depiction of the capital during World War II, then experience Henry Kissinger’s thoughts on “Peace at Last,” post-Vietnam. Written by a who’s who of journalists, historians, First Ladies, politicians, and more, these varied works offer a wonderful overview of Katharine Graham’s beloved city.

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