The 100 Most Influential Americans by
Who do you think are the most influential Americans ever? Walt Disney or Benjamin Franklin? Rosa Parks or Oprah Winfrey? This book is an in-depth look at the men and women who changed the world's most powerful nation. Heroes and villains, film stars and physicists, generals and peaceniks. Each entry comes with a full biography of the individual and why they had such a powerful impact on America
The Age of Illusions by
"A thought provoking and penetrating account of the post-Cold war follies and delusions that culminated in the age of Donald Trump, from the bestselling author of The Limits of Power. When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world's 'indispensable nation, ' its 'sole superpower, ' the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable. In the decades to come, Americans would put that claim to the test. They would embrace the promise of globalization as a source of unprecedented wealth, while embarking on wide-ranging military campaigns to suppress disorder and enforce American values abroad, confident in the ability of U.S. forces to defeat any foe. Meanwhile, they placed all their bets on the White House to deliver on the promise of their Cold War triumph: unequaled prosperity, lasting peace, and absolute freedom. In The Age of Illusions, bestselling author Andrew Bacevich takes us from that moment of seemingly ultimate victory to the age of Trump, telling an epic tale of folly and delusion. Writing with his usual eloquence and vast knowledge, he explains how, within a quarter of a century, the United States ended up with gaping inequality, permanent war, moral confusion, and an increasingly angry and alienated population, as well, of course, as the strangest president in American history
America's Hidden History: untold tales of the first pilgrims, fighting women, and forgotten founders who shaped a nation by
An iconoclastic look at America's past: overlooked episodes that shaped the nation's destiny and character. Spanning a period from the Spanish arrival in America to George Washington's inauguration in 1789, these narratives bring to light little-known but fascinating, myth-busting facts. Read the story of the first real Pilgrims in America, who were wine-making French Huguenots, not dour English Separatists; the coming-of-age story of Queen Isabella, who suggested that Columbus take pigs on his voyage, which may have spread disease to many Native Americans; the long, bloody relationship between the Pilgrims and Indians, running counter to the idyllic scene of the Thanksgiving feast; the little-known story of George Washington as a headstrong young soldier who committed a war crime, signed a confession, and started a war. Full of color, intrigue, and human interest, this book connects some of the dots between history and today's headlines
American Dialogue by
We live in a divided America that is currently incapable of sustained argument and is feeling unsure of its destiny. Ellis shows how the founders went back to the Greek and Roman classics for seasoned wisdom in their time, and now he takes us back to our classics: America's founders. In discussing Thomas Jefferson and racism, John Adams and economic inequality, James Madison and constitutional law, George Washington and foreign policy, Ellis reminds us that the founders' greatest legacy lies not in providing political answers, but in helping us find a better way to frame the question.
American Overdose by
A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic--devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions. The opioid epidemic has been described as 'one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine.' But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it. The starting point for McGreal's deeply reported investigation is the miners promised that opioid painkillers would restore their wrecked bodies, but who became targets of 'drug dealers in white coats.' A few heroic physicians warned of impending disaster. But American Overdose exposes the powerful forces they were up against, including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers--resulting in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal tells the story, in terms both broad and intimate, of people hit by a catastrophe they never saw coming. Years in the making, its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future."--Jacket. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the opioid epidemic, McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it. A few physicians warned of impending disaster, but the forces they were up against-- including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers-- resulted in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal shows how its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future.
The American Story : conversations with master historians by
Co-founder of The Carlyle Group and patriotic philanthropist David M. Rubenstein takes readers on a sweeping journey across the grand arc of the American story through revealing conversations with our greatest historians. In these lively dialogues, the biggest names in American history explore the subjects they've come to so intimately know and understand: David McCullough on John Adams, Jon Meacham on Thomas Jefferson, Ron Chernow on Alexander Hamilton, Walter Isaacson on Benjamin Franklin, Doris Kearns Goodwin on Abraham Lincoln, A. Scott Berg on Charles Lindbergh, Taylor Branch on Martin Luther King, Robert Caro on Lyndon B. Johnson, Bob Woodward on Richard Nixon, and many others, including a special conversation with Chief Justice John Roberts. Through his popular program The David Rubenstein Show, David Rubenstein has established himself as one of our most thoughtful interviewers. Now, in The American Story, David captures the brilliance of our most esteemed historians, as well as the souls of their subjects. The book features introductions by Rubenstein as well a foreword by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to lead our national library. Richly illustrated with archival images from the Library of Congress, the book is destined to become a classic for serious readers of American history. Through these captivating exchanges, these bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors offer fresh insight on pivotal moments from the Founding Era to the late 20th century.
Culling the Masses: the democratic origins of racist immigration policy in the Americas by
Culling the Masses questions the widely held view that in the long run democracy and racism cannot coexist. David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Mart#65533;n show that democracies were the first countries in the Americas to select immigrants by race, and undemocratic states the first to outlaw discrimination. Through analysis of legal records from twenty-two countries between 1790 and 2010, the authors present a history of the rise and fall of racial selection in the Western Hemisphere.
The United States led the way in using legal means to exclude "inferior" ethnic groups. Starting in 1790, Congress began passing nationality and immigration laws that prevented Africans and Asians from becoming citizens, on the grounds that they were inherently incapable of self-government. Similar policies were soon adopted by the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire, eventually spreading across Latin America as well.
Undemocratic regimes in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Cuba reversed their discriminatory laws in the 1930s and 1940s, decades ahead of the United States and Canada. The conventional claim that racism and democracy are antithetical-because democracy depends on ideals of equality and fairness, which are incompatible with the notion of racial inferiority-cannot explain why liberal democracies were leaders in promoting racist policies and laggards in eliminating them. Ultimately, the authors argue, the changed racial geopolitics of World War II and the Cold War was necessary to convince North American countries to reform their immigration and citizenship laws.
Dreamland: the true tale of America's opiate epidemic by
Journalist Sam Quinones chronicles how, over the past fifteen years, as opioid-based pain medications like OxyContin began flooding the prescription drug market, enterprising sugar cane farmers in a small county on the west coast of Mexico created a unique distribution system that brought black tar heroin-- the cheapest, most addictive form of the opiate, two to three times purer than its white powder cousin-- to the United States. The result has been a drug scourge that has layed waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon, Indiana to New Mexico.
The End of the Myth by
Ever since this nation's founding, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, the frontier made possible the United States' belief in itself as an exceptional nation -- democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, the country has a new symbol: the border wall. In [this book], acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the effect that constant, relentless expansion had on America's domestic politics, examining the full sweep of U.S. history -- from the American Revolution to the Spanish-American War, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, the ability to move outward -- fighting wars and opening markets -- provided America with a "gate of escape," helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts. But this deflection meant that the country's problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophes of the 2008 financial meltdown, our unwinnable wars in the Middle East, and a deepening ecological crisis have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home. It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism."--Dust jacket flap.
Failure to Adjust by
Americans know that something has gone wrong in this country's effort to prosper in the face of growing global economic competition. The vast benefits promised by the supporters of globalization, and by their own government, have never materialized for most Americans. This book is the story of what went wrong, and how to correct the course. It is a compelling history of the last four decades of US economic and trade policies that have left Americans unable to adapt to or compete in the current global marketplace. Failure to Adjust argues that, despite the deep partisan divisions over how best to respond to America's competitive challenges, there is achievable common ground on such issues as fostering innovation, overhauling tax rules to encourage investment in the United States, boosting graduation rates, investing in infrastructure, and streamlining regulations. The federal government needs to become more like US state governments in embracing economic competitiveness as a central function of government. This book presents an especially timely analysis of the trade policies of the Obama administration and discusses how America can reassert itself as a leader in setting rules for international economic competition that would spread the benefits of global trade and investment more broadly."
Fantasyland by
How did we get here?
In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what's happening in our country today--this post-factual, "fake news" moment we're all living through--is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA.
Over the course of five centuries--from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials--our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies--every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails.
Fantasyland could not appear at a more perfect moment. If you want to understand Donald Trump and the culture of twenty-first-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, you must read this book.
Fat Nation: A History of Obesity in America by
"Fat Nation is a social history of obesity in the United States since the second World War. In confronting this familiar topic from a historical perspective, Jonathan Engel attempts to show that obesity is a symptom of complex changes that have transpired over the past half century to our food, our living habits, our life patterns, our built environments, and our social interactions. He offers readers solid grounding in the known science underlying obesity (genetic set points, complex endocrine feedback loops, neurochemical messengering) but then makes the novel argument that obesity is a result of the interaction of our genes with our environment. That is, our bodies have always been programmed to become obese, but until recently never had the opportunity to do so. Now, with cheap calories ubiquitous (particularly in the form of sucrose), unwalkable physical spaces, deteriorating rituals and norms surrounding eating, and the withering of cooking skills, nearly every American daily confronts the challenge of not putting on weight. Given the outcomes, though, for those who are obese, Engel encourages us to address the problems and offers suggestions to help remedy the problem."
The Founding Fathers by
Words, images, meanings -- Contexts: The history that made the founding fathers -- Achievements and challenges: The history the founding fathers made -- Legacies: What history has made of the founding fathers -- Epilogue: The founding fathers, history, and us -- Chronology -- Appendix: The founding Fathers: a partial list.
The Gifted Generation by
A sweeping and path-breaking history of the post-World War II decades, during which an activist federal government guided the country toward the first real flowering of the American Dream.
In The Gifted Generation , historian David Goldfield examines the generation immediately after World War II and argues that the federal government was instrumental in the great economic, social, and environmental progress of the era. Following the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation, the returning vets and their children took the unprecedented economic growth and federal activism to new heights. This generation was led by presidents who believed in the commonwealth ideal: the belief that federal legislation, by encouraging individual opportunity, would result in the betterment of the entire nation. In the years after the war, these presidents created an outpouring of federal legislation that changed how and where people lived, their access to higher education, and their stewardship of the environment. They also spearheaded historic efforts to level the playing field for minorities, women and immigrants. But this dynamic did not last, and Goldfield shows how the shrinking of the federal government shut subsequent generations off from those gifts.
David Goldfield brings this unprecedented surge in American legislative and cultural history to life as he explores the presidencies of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. He brilliantly shows how the nation's leaders persevered to create the conditions for the most gifted generation in U.S. history.
The Heartland by
When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the D.C. metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home, well, isolated. Even provincial. After all, she had landed in the American heartland, a place where the nation's identity exists in its pristine form. Or so we have been taught to believe. Struck by the gap between reputation and reality, she determined to get to the bottom of history and myth. The deeper she dug into the making of the modern heartland, the wider her story became as she realized that she'd uncovered an unheralded crossroads of people, commerce, and ideas. But the really interesting thing, Hoganson found, was that over the course of American history, even as the region's connections with the rest of the planet became increasingly dense and intricate, the idea of the rural Midwest as a steadfast heartland became a stronger and more stubbornly immovable myth. In enshrining a symbolic heart, the American people have repressed the kinds of stories that Hoganson tells, of sweeping breadth and depth and soul.
How the Post Office Created America by
Discover the surprising role of the postal service in our nation's political, social, economic, and physical development. The founders established the post office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time it represented the government for most citizens. The post became the catalyst of the nation's transportation grid, from the stagecoach lines to the airlines, and the lifeline of the great migration from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Gallagher traces its origins and leaders and describes its role in every major event in American history, from the Revolutionary War to the dawn of the Internet age.
How the States Got Their Shapes by
We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. But every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand. This is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Packed with oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.--From publisher description.
How to Hide an Empire by
"We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire," exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories--the islands, atolls, and archipelagos--this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century's most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history."
The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America by 
Ladies for Liberty by
Throughout the United States' history, women have played an intrinsic role in the movement for liberty. John Blundell gives a lively portrait of more than 20 leading American women who spoke out, helping to shape the political and social fabric of the United States. Ladies for Liberty combats the myth that women want, and benefit from, big government. The underlying motivation of the women portrayed in these pages was that self-determination is a virtue, and that individuals should be allowed to pursue their own ends, free from the coercion of others. With this collection of biographies, the author seeks to inform and inspire readers. We read so much about the Founding Fathers, but far less material has been made available to introduce the ladies, smart and strong in their own right, who have helped to form the political as well as the social universe that we are proud to call America. His selection focuses on women of Conservative/ Libertarian views, whether they were active in politics, business owners, writers or other cultural figures. Black as well as white, these women were revolutionary, some directly influencing the colonial breakaway from great Britain, some fighting for Abolition, others breaking new ground professionally. Each one not only made women's voices heard but made it clear that women have something to say that is both valid and valuable. This book is intended for American and British readers alike, high school and above, and all who are interested in American history, Conservative/ Libertarian politics, or Women's Studies.
Out in the Rural by
Out in the Rural is the unlikely story of the Tufts-Delta Health Center, which in 1966 opened in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, to become the first rural community health center in the United States. Its goal was simple: to provide health care and outreach to the region's thousands of rural poor,most of them black sharecroppers who had lived without any medical resources for generations.In Out in the Rural, historian Thomas J. Ward explores the health center's story alongside the remarkable life of its founder, Dr. H. Jack Geiger. A former teenage runaway, through a serendipitous turn of events he was befriended and taken in by the actor and Harlem Renaissance icon Canada Lee. Leewould later loan Geiger money for college, and after stints as a journalist and Merchant Marine, Geiger attended medical school and became a physician.Geiger's personal history brings a profound human element to what was accomplished deep in the Mississippi Delta. In addition to providing medical care, the staff of the Tufts-Delta Health Center worked upstream to address the fundamental determinants of health-factors such as education, poverty,nutrition, and the environment-and ask the question, "What does it take to stay healthy?"Equal parts social history and personal history, Out in the Rural is a story of both community health and of a stranger's kindness and determination to bring health care to areas out of reach. (less)
A People's History of the United States by
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.
Smuggler Nation: how illicit trade made America by
America is a smuggler nation. Our long history of illicit imports has ranged from West Indies molasses and Dutch gunpowder in the 18th century, to British industrial technologies and African slaves in the 19th century, to French condoms and Canadian booze in the early 20th century, to Mexican workers and Colombian cocaine in the modern era. Far from being a new and unprecedented danger to America, the illicit underside of globalization is actually an old American tradition. As Andreas shows, it goes back not just years but centuries. And its impact has been decidedly double-edged, not only subverting but also empowering America.
The Soul of America by
We have been here before. In this timely and revealing book, ... author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. With clarity and purpose, Meacham explores contentious periods and how presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism. Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature' have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women's rights; the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson's crusade against Jim Crow. Each of these dramatic hours in our national life has been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear--a struggle that continues even now. While the American story has not always--or even often--been heroic, we have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, "The good news is that we have come through such darkness before"--as, time and again, Lincoln's better angels have found a way to prevail.
The Story of America by
In this book, the author investigates American origin stories, from John Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address, in order to show how American democracy is bound up with the history of print. It excavates the origins of everything from the paper ballot and the Constitution to the I.O.U. and the dictionary. It presents readings of Benjamin Franklin's Way to Wealth, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, and Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as histories of lesser-known genres, including biographies of presidents, novels of immigrants, and accounts of the Depression. From past to present, the author argues, Americans have wrestled with the idea of democracy by telling stories; here, she offers both a history of origin stories and a meditation on storytelling itself.
Talk Radio's America by
The march to the Trump presidency began in 1988, when Rush Limbaugh went national. Brian Rosenwald charts the transformation of AM radio entertainers into political kingmakers. By giving voice to the conservative base, they reshaped the Republican Party and fostered demand for a president who sounded as combative and hyperbolic as a talk show host.
These Truths by
"In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian ... Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history. Written in elegiac prose, Lepore's groundbreaking investigation places truth itself--a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence--at the center of the nation's history. The American experiment rests on three ideas--'these truths,' Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? [This book] tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation's truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore traces the intertwined histories of American politics, law, journalism, and technology, from the colonial town meeting to the nineteenth-century party machine, from talk radio to twenty-first-century Internet polls, from Magna Carta to the Patriot Act, from the printing press to Facebook News. Along the way, Lepore's sovereign chronicle is filled with arresting sketches of both well-known and lesser-known Americans, from a parade of presidents and a rogues' gallery of political mischief makers to the intrepid leaders of protest movements, including Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist orator; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and ultimately tragic populist; Pauli Murray, the visionary civil rights strategist; and Phyllis Schlafly, the uncredited architect of modern conservatism. Americans are descended from slaves and slave owners, from conquerors and the conquered, from immigrants and from people who have fought to end immigration. 'A nation born in contradiction will fight forever over the meaning of its history,' Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. 'The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden,' [this book] observes. 'It can't be shirked. 'There's nothing for it but to get to know it'"
This Green and Growing Land by
From Benjamin Franklin's campaign to combat pollution at the Philadelphia's docks in the 1750s to the movement against climate change today, American environmentalists have sought to protect the natural world and promote a healthy human society. In This Green and Growing Land, historian Kevin Armitage shows how the story of American environmentalism--part philosophy, part social movement--is in no small way a story of America itself, of the way citizens have self-organized, have thought of their communities and their government, and have used their power to protect and enrich the land. Armitage skillfully analyzes the economic and social forces begetting environmental change and emphasizes the responses of a variety of ordinary Americans--as well as a few well-known leaders--to these complex issues. This concise and engaging survey of more than 250 years of activism tells the story of a magnificent American achievement--and the ongoing problems that environmentalism faces.
This Radical Land by
"Daegan Miller is our guide on a beautifully written, revelatory trip across the continent during which we encounter radical thinkers, settlers, and artists who grounded their ideas of freedom, justice, and progress in the very landscapes around them, even as the runaway engine of capitalism sought to steamroll everything in its path. Here we meet Thoreau, the expert surveyor, drawing anticapitalist property maps. We visit a black antislavery community in the Adirondack wilderness of upstate New York. We discover how seemingly commercial photographs of the transcontinental railroad secretly sent subversive messages, and how a band of utopian anarchists among California's sequoias imagined a greener, freer future. At every turn, everyday radicals looked to landscape for the language of their dissent--drawing crucial early links between the environment and social justice, links we're still struggling to strengthen today." -- Publisher's description.
Trace by
Each of us, too, is a landscape inscribed by memory and loss. One life-defining lesson Lauret Savoy learned as a young girl was this: the American land did not hate. As an educator and Earth historian, she has tracked the continent's past from the relics of deep time; but the paths of ancestors toward her--paths of free and enslaved Africans, colonists from Europe, and peoples indigenous to this land--lie largely eroded and lost. In this provocative and powerful mosaic of personal journeys and historical inquiry across a continent and time, Savoy explores how the country's still unfolding history, and ideas of 'race, ' have marked her and the land. From twisted terrain within the San Andreas Fault zone to a South Carolina plantation, from national parks to burial grounds, from 'Indian Territory' and the U.S.-Mexico Border to the U.S. capital, Trace grapples with a searing national history to reveal the often unvoiced presence of the past. In distinctive and illuminating prose that is attentive to the rhythms of language and landscapes, she weaves together human stories of migration, silence, and displacement, as epic as the continent they survey, with uplifted mountains, braided streams, and eroded canyons.
Understanding and Teaching U. S. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History by
"Though largely neglected in classrooms, LGBT history can provide both a fuller understanding of U.S. history and contextualization for the modern world. This is the first book designed for university and high school teachers who want to integrate queer history into the standard curriculum. With its inspiring stories, classroom-tested advice, and rich information, it is a valuable resource for anyone who thinks history should be an all-inclusive story. Understanding and Teaching U.S. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History offers a wealth of insight for teachers. Introductory essays by Leila J. Rupp and Susan K. Freeman make clear why queer history is important and provide global historical context, showing that same-sex sexual desire and gender change are not new, modern phenomena. Teachers in diverse educational settings provide narratives of their experiences teaching queer history. A topical section offers seventeen essays on such themes as sexual diversity in early America, industrial capitalism and emergent sexual cultures, and gay men and lesbians in World War II. Contributors include detailed suggestions for integrating these topics into a standard U.S. history curriculum, including creative and effective assignments. A final section addresses sources and interpretive strategies well suited to the history classroom. Taken as a whole, Understanding and Teaching U.S. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History will help teachers at all levels navigate through cultural touchstones and political debates and provide a fuller knowledge of significant events in history."--Publisher description.
The Whites of Their Eyes by
Americans have always put the past to political ends. The Union laid claim to the Revolution--so did the Confederacy. Civil rights leaders said they were the true sons of liberty--so did Southern segregationists. This book tells the story of the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of the nation's founding, including the battle waged by the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and evangelical Christians to "take back America."
Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, offers a wry and bemused look at American history according to the far right, from the "rant heard round the world," which launched the Tea Party, to the Texas School Board's adoption of a social-studies curriculum that teaches that the United States was established as a Christian nation. Along the way, she provides rare insight into the eighteenth-century struggle for independence--the real one, that is. Lepore traces the roots of the far right's reactionary history to the bicentennial in the 1970s, when no one could agree on what story a divided nation should tell about its unruly beginnings. Behind the Tea Party's Revolution, she argues, lies a nostalgic and even heartbreaking yearning for an imagined past--a time less troubled by ambiguity, strife, and uncertainty--a yearning for an America that never was.
White Trash: the 400-year untold history of class in America by
The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement. They were alternately known as "waste people," "offals," "rubbish," "lazy lubbers," and "crackers." By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called "clay eaters" and "sandhillers," known for prematurely-aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, history professor Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America s supposedly class-free society ; where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics - a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ s Great Society and they now haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.
The Wild Frontier by
The real story of the ordeal experienced by both settlers and Indians during the Europeans' great migration west across America, from the colonies to California, has been almost completely eliminated from the histories we now read. In truth, it was a horrifying and appalling experience. Nothing like it had ever happened anywhere else in the world. In The Wild Frontier, William M. Osborn discusses the changing settler attitude toward the Indians over several centuries, as well as Indian and settler characteristics--the Indian love of warfare, for instance (more than 400 inter-tribal wars were fought even after the threatening settlers arrived), and the settlers' irresistible desire for the land occupied by the Indians. The atrocities described in The Wild Frontier led to the death of more than 9,000 settlers and 7,000 Indians. Most of these events were not only horrible but bizarre. Notoriously, the British use of Indians to terrorize the settlers during the American Revolution left bitter feelings, which in turn contributed to atrocious conduct on the part of the settlers. Osborn also discusses other controversial subjects, such as the treaties with the Indians, matters relating to the occupation of land, the major part disease played in the war, and the statements by both settlers and Indians each arguing for the extermination of the other. He details the disgraceful American government policy toward the Indians, which continues even today, and speculates about the uncertain future of the Indians themselves. Thousands of eyewitness accounts are the raw material of The Wild Frontier, in which we learn that many Indians tortured and killed prisoners, and some even engaged in cannibalism; and that though numerous settlers came to the New World for religious reasons, or to escape English oppression, many others were convicted of crimes and came to avoid being hanged. The Wild Frontier tells a story that helps us understand our history, and how as the settlers moved west, they often brutally expelled the Indians by force while themselves suffering torture and kidnapping.
A Beginner's Guide to America: for the immigrant and the curious by
"Into the maelstrom of unprecedented contemporary debates about immigrants in the United States, this perfectly timed book gives us a portrait of what the new immigrant experience in America is really like. Written as a "guide" for the newly arrived, and providing practical information and advice, Roya Hakakian, an immigrant herself, reveals what those who settle here love about the country, what they miss about their homes, the cruelty of some Americans, and the unceasing generosity of others. She captures the texture of life in a new place in all its complexity, laying bare both its beauty and its darkness as she discusses race, sex, love, death, consumerism, and what it is like to be from a country that is in America's crosshairs. Her tenderly perceptive and surprisingly humorous account invites us to see ourselves as we appear to others, making it possible for us to rediscover our many American gifts through the perspective of the outsider."
Culture and Customs of the United States by
American life and culture is truly unique in that it was born from many other cultures around the world. When immigrants migrated to the Land of Opportunity, they brought with them pieces of their own heritage: foods, religions, holidays, festivals, music, and art, just to name a few. Through time, these customs have developed into what we now know as American life. Explore how even within the US, various cultures and customs differ from New England to the Midwest to the Pacific. Discover how many religions are practiced all over the country, and how each sect differs in its celebration. Learn how gender plays an important role in American society, and how things have changed and progressed in the past century. Readers will learn about American holidays-religious, federal, and even those fabricated by Hallmark and television! Sports, leisure activities, and fashion also play a major role in American culture, as discussed in this all-encompassing work. Discover how American cuisine has evolved from other cultures, such as Italian, Greek, Mexican, Chinese, Indian, and West Africa, and how each region has its own indigenous dishes, including New England clam chowder, Southern jambalaya, and Mid-western lutefisk. Contemporary and classic literature is also discussed, along with the evolution of poetry. Readers will learn about the development of mass media, as well as the growth of cinema and films from the first silent film to today's popular blockbuster trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean. Music and dance are also discussed in detail, covering the New York Philharmonic to Woodstock. Contemporary art and architecture is discussed as well as types of housing across all the regions of the U.S. This unique two-volume addition to the Culture and Customs of the World series gives high school students, both national and international, the chance to examine the United States from the outside in. The mosaic of American culture comes to life in this expansive yet detailed study of what makes the United States a complex blend of customs and traditions.Each volume in this comprehensive two-volume study offers chapters that detail how American life was born and how it has grown, covering the history of customs as well as how traditions are now celebrated in New England, the South, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southwest, as well as Alaska and Hawaii. Narrative chapters include the following:
No Longer Homeless by
Research suggests that between 6 and 14 percent of the US population has been homeless at some point in their lives--a huge number of people. No Longer Homeless shares the stories of people who have formerly been homeless to examine how they transition off the streets, find housing, and stay housed. No Longer Homeless offers a unique perspective of people who have managed to change their lives, the resources they needed, and the factors that contributed to lasting change. The book profiles men and women of different races and ages across the country, and it shares stories of people who have been off the streets from two months to twenty years. It addresses topics such as addiction, mental health, income--from formal employment and off-the-books work, and community resources. No Longer Homeless is a powerful look at a group of people we rarely hear about--those who have formerly been on the streets--sharing the details of their lives to help individuals, organizations, and communities learn to better support the ongoing challenges of homelessness.
Encyclopedia of Human Rights in the United States by
This title offers easy to grasp explanations of the basic concepts and laws in the field, with emphasis on human rights in the historical, political, and legal experience of the United States. This indispensable resource surveys the legal protection of human dignity in the United States, examines the sources of human rights norms, cites key legal cases, explains the role of international governmental and non-governmental organizations, and charts global, regional, and UN human rights measures.
Our America by
Maps the influence of America's Hispanic past, from the explorers and conquistadors who helped colonize Puerto Rico and Florida, to the missionaries and rancheros who settled in California and the 20th-century resurgence in major cities like Chicago and Miami.
Undocumented - Portraits of Latino Immigrants by
Unauthorized: Portraits of Latino Immigrants takes readers inside the diverse contemporary worlds of undocumented Latino immigrants in the United States, exploring the myths and realities of education, health care, work, deportation, and more. This book aims to dispel common misconceptions while introducing readers to real people behind the headlines. Chapters explore the myths and realities of topics including education, health care, work, deportation, and more. As immigration remains a controversial topic in the United States, this book aims to dispel common misconceptions about immigration while introducing readers to the real people behind the headlines. The topic of undocumented immigration has received tremendous attention--from the debate on immigration reform to the Executive Actions of President Obama to the growing numbers of unaccompanied minors from Central America and more. In addition, the Syrian refugee crisis and the anti-immigrant discourse of presidential candidate Donald Trump have enraged many observers and emboldened others. This book provides factual information to readers who are interested in learning more about these issues and the people who are labeled "illegal." Each chapter draws on both existing and original research to provide an accessible overview of key themes, and case studies bring issues to life.
America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by
"The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In [this book], acclaimed historian Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Americans have been wary of almost every group of foreigners that has come to the United States. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed German immigrants for their 'strange and foreign ways.' Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement in the 1850s. Over the century that followed, Chinese immigrants were excluded, Japanese incarcerated, and Mexicans deported. Today, Americans fear Muslims, Central Americans, and the so-called browning of America. Xenophobia has not been an exception to America's immigration tradition, an episodic aberration on an inevitable march toward inclusion. It is, in fact, Lee argues, an American tradition in its own right, deeply embedded in our society, economy, and politics, Forcing us to confront this history, [this book] explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens us all. It is a necessary corrective and spur to action for any concerned citizen."
Critical Race Theory (Third Edition) by
"Since the publication of the first edition of [this book], the United States has lived through two economic downturns, an outbreak of terrorism, and the onset of an epidemic of hate directed against immigrants, especially undocumented Latinos and Middle Eastern people. On a more hopeful note, the country elected and re-elected its first black president and has witnessed the impressive advance of gay rights. As a field, critical race theory has taken note of all these developments, and this primer does so as well. It not only covers a range of emerging new topics and events, it also addresses the rise of a fierce wave of criticism from right-wing websites, think tanks, and foundations, some of which insist that America is now colorblind and has little use for racial analysis and study."
In the Shadow of Statues by
"There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence for it." When Mitch Landrieu addressed the people of New Orleans in May 2017 about his decision to take down four Confederate monuments, including the statue of Robert E. Lee, he struck a nerve nationally, and his speech has now been heard or seen by millions across the country. In his first book, Mayor Landrieu discusses his personal journey on race as well as the path he took to making the decision to remove the monuments, tackles the broader history of slavery, race and institutional inequities that still bedevil America, and traces his personal relationship to this history. His father, as state legislator and mayor, was a huge force in the integration of New Orleans in the 1960s and 19070s. Landrieu grew up with a progressive education in one of the nation's most racially divided cities, but even he had to relearn Southern history as it really happened.
So You Want to Talk about Race by
A current, constructive, and actionable exploration of today's racial landscape, offering straightforward clarity that readers of all races need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor at Large of The Establishment, Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions readers don't dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans. Oluo is an exceptional writer with a rare ability to be straightforward, funny, and effective in her coverage of sensitive, hyper-charged issues in America. Her messages are passionate but finely tuned, and crystalize ideas that would otherwise be vague by empowering them with aha-moment clarity. Her writing brings to mind voices like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay, and Jessica Valenti in Full Frontal Feminism, and a young Gloria Naylor, particularly in Naylor's seminal essay "The Meaning of a Word.
Stamped from the Beginning by
Americans like to insist that we are living in a postracial, color-blind society. In fact, racist thought is alive and well; it has simply become more sophisticated and more insidious. And as historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas in this country have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the lives of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and anti-racists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America. As Kendi provocatively illustrates, racist thinking did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Racist ideas were created and popularized in an effort to defend deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and to rationalize the nation's racial inequities in everything from wealth to health. While racist ideas are easily produced and easily consumed, they can also be discredited--From publisher's website.
Accessory to War by
"An exploration of the age-old complicity between skywatchers and warfighters, from the best-selling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. In this fascinating foray into the millennia-long relationship between science and military power, acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and writer Avis Lang examine how the methods and tools of astrophysics have been enlisted in the service of war. "The overlap is strong, and it's a two- way street," say the authors, because the astrophysicists and military planners care about many of the same things: multi- spectral detection, ranging, tracking, imaging, high ground, nuclear fusion, and access to space. Tyson and Lang call it a "curiously complicit" alliance. Spanning early celestial navigation to satellite-enabled warfare, Accessory to War is a richly researched and provocative examination of the intersection of science, technology, industry, and power that will introduce Tyson's millions of fans to yet another dimension of how the universe has shaped our lives and our world."
