History of the Americas

A panoramic history of American individualism from its nineteenth-century origins to today's bitterly divided politicsIndividualism is a defining feature of American public life. Its influence is pervasive today, with liberals and conservatives alike...

A necessary reckoning with America's troubled history of injustice to Indigenous people.After One Hundred Winters confronts the harsh truth that the United States was founded on the violent dispossession of Indigenous people and asks what reconciliation...

From their acclaimed biographer, a final, powerful book about how Emerson, Thoreau, and William James forged resilience from devastating loss, changing the course of American thoughtIn Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial...

How the legacy of monarchical empires shaped Britain, France, Spain, and the United States as they became liberal entitiesHistorians view the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a turning point when imperial monarchies collapsed and modern...

The forgotten story of the nineteenth-century freethinkers and twentieth-century humanists who tried to build their own secular religion.In The Church of Saint Thomas Paine, Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in...

Up from the Depths tells the interconnected stories of two of the most important writers in American history-the novelist and poet Herman Melville (18191891) and one of his earliest biographers, the literary critic and historian Lewis Mumford (18951990)...

How nineteenth-century "disciplines of attention" anticipated the contemporary concern with mindfulness and being "spiritual but not religious"Today, we're driven to distraction, our attention overwhelmed by the many demands upon it-most of which emanate...

The untold story of the founding father's likely Jewish birth and upbringing-and its revolutionary consequences for understanding him and the nation he fought to create In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of...

The surprising story of how George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson came to despair for the future of the nation they had createdAmericans seldom deify their Founding Fathers any longer, but they do still tend to venerate...

A War on Global Poverty provides a fresh account of U.S. involvement in campaigns to end global poverty in the 1970s and 1980s. From the decline of modernisation programs to the rise of microcredit, Joanne Meyerowitz looks beyond familiar histories of...

A richly illustrated celebration of the paintings of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle ObamaFrom the moment of their unveiling at the National Portrait Gallery in early 2018, the portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama have become two of the...

As Featured on Wall Street Journal's Holiday Books Round-up Nature The enduring influence of naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt on American art, culture, and politics.Alexander von Humboldt (17691859) was one of the most influential...

From one of our finest writers and leading environmental thinkers, a powerful book about how the land we share divides us-and how it could unite usToday, we are at a turning point as we face ecological and political crises that are rooted in conflicts...

A vivid history of the controversial building of Dodger Stadium and how it helped transform Los AngelesWhen Walter O'Malley moved his Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957 with plans to construct a new ballpark, he ignited a bitter half-decade dispute...

An in-depth look at how politics and economics shape the relationship between Congress and the Federal ReserveBorn out of crisis a century ago, the Federal Reserve has become the most powerful macroeconomic policymaker and financial regulator in the...

The unknown history of deportation and of the fear that shapes immigrants' livesConstant headlines about deportations, detention camps, and border walls drive urgent debates about immigration and what it means to be an American in the twenty-first...

An original and engaging account of the Obama years from a group of leading political historiansBarack Obama's election as the first African American president seemed to usher in a new era, and he took office in 2009 with great expectations. But by his...

The racist legacy behind the Western idea of freedom.The era of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to our modern conceptions of freedom and democracy, was also the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. America, a nation founded on the principle of...

A new history of the United States that turns American exceptionalism on its head American Empire is a panoramic work of scholarship that presents a bold new global perspective on the history of the United States. Drawing on his expertise in economic...

How silver influenced two hundred years of world history, and why it matters todayThis is the story of silver's transformation from soft money during the nineteenth century to hard asset today, and how manipulations of the white metal by American...

The shocking untold story of how the FBI partnered with white evangelicals to champion a vision of America as a white Christian nation.On a Sunday morning in 1966, a group of white evangelicals dedicated a stained glass window to J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI...

In 1831, at the age of twenty-five, Alexis de Tocqueville made his fateful journey to America, where he observed the thrilling reality of a functioning democracy. From that moment onward, the French aristocrat would dedicate his life as a writer and...

This sweeping history of twentieth-century America follows the changing and often conflicting ideas about the fundamental nature of American society: Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow...

Political Islam has often been compared to ideological movements of the past such as fascism or Christian theocracy. But are such analogies valid? How should the Western world today respond to the challenges of political Islam? Taking an original...

How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In...

As a child growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line, ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood. Decades later, his love for exploring the city is as...

In Illiberal Reformers, Thomas Leonard reexamines the economic progressives whose ideas and reform agenda underwrote the Progressive Era dismantling of laissez-faire and the creation of the regulatory welfare state, which, they believed, would humanize...

The United States witnessed an unprecedented failure of its political system in the mid-nineteenth century, resulting in a disastrous civil war that claimed the lives of an estimated 750,000 Americans. In his other acclaimed books about the American...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bancroft Prize, and the Parkman PrizeFrom acclaimed diplomat and historian George Kennan, a landmark history of the crucial months in 19171918 that forged the pattern of Soviet-American...

A definitive biography of the U.S. diplomat and prize-winning historian George F. Kennan.The diplomat and historian George F. Kennan (19042005) ranks as one of the most important figures in American foreign policy - and one of its most complex. Drawing...

The American racial order--the beliefs, institutions, and practices that organize relationships among the nation's races and ethnicities--is undergoing its greatest transformation since the 1960s. Creating a New Racial Order takes a groundbreaking look...

The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s,...

In The Story of America, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories--from John Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address--to show how American...

How American colonists laid the foundations of American capitalism with an economy built on creditEven before the United States became a country, laws prioritizing access to credit set colonial America apart from the rest of the world. Credit Nation...

A history of the twentieth-century feminists who fought for the rights of women, workers, and the poor, both in the United States and abroadFor the Many presents an inspiring look at how US women and their global allies pushed the nation and the world...

The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism tells the gripping story of perhaps the most significant political force of our time through the lives and careers of six leading figures at the heart of the movement. David Farber traces the history of...

A groundbreaking new history of how the Vietnam War thwarted U.S. liberal ambitions in the developing world and at home in the 1960sAt the start of the 1960s, John F. Kennedy and other American liberals expressed boundless optimism about the ability of...

What turns rich nations into great powers? How do wealthy countries begin extending their influence abroad? These questions are vital to an understanding of the emergence of a new power - a source of instability in international politics. In this text,...

Based on the most recent archaeological discoveries, this volume offers a balanced interpretation of the complex relationships between Aztec cultural practices, social order, and religious myths and symbols. In addition to examining such topics as the...

Here, in a single volume, is a selection of the classic critiques of the new Constitution penned by such ardent defenders of states' rights and personal liberty as George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Melancton Smith; pro-Constitution writings by James...

A self-described "song-hunter," the folklorist Alan Lomax traveled the Mississippi Delta in the 1930's and '40s, armed with primitive recording equipment and a keen love of the Delta's music heritage. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets where the blues...

IN 1971, the inmates of Attica revolted, took hostages, and forced the authorities into four days of desperate negotiation. The rebels demanded - and were granted - the presence of a group of observers to act as unofficial mediators. Tom Wicker, then the...

"Winter Soldiers is an immensely valuable contribution to the history of the Vietnam War. It brings to life, through the words of the veterans themselves, the journey each individual made, through the crucible of combat, from warrior to protester...

In 1901, the Northern Pacific was an unlikely prize: a twice-bankrupt construction of the federal government, it was a two-bit railroad (literally--five years back, its stock traded for twenty-five cents a share). But it was also a key to connecting...

Sexuality and Socialism is a remarkably accessible analysis of many of the most challenging questions for those concerned with full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.Inside are essays on the roots of LGBT oppression, the...

A collection of essays spans the tumultuous decade from 1968, the year of the San Francisco State University strike, to 1978 and the twin traumas of the Jonestown massacre and the assassinations of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. This...

Secrets of Voodoo traces the development in Haiti and the Americas of this complex religion from its sources in the brilliant civilizations of ancient Africa. This book presents a straightforward account of the gods of loas and their function, the...

The Obama presidency represents a major milestone in black history and the struggle for political, economic and cultural equality in the United States. But how if at all has the first black presidency helped move things forward for people of color? Has...