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The Story of America: Essays on Origins
Par Jill Lepore. 2012
From celebrated writer Jill Lepore, a literary and political history of American origin stories 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 democracy is bound up with the history of print. Over the centuries, Americans have read and written their way into a political culture of ink and type.Part civics primer, part cultural history, The Story of America excavates the origins of everything from the paper ballot and the Constitution to the I.O.U. and the dictionary. Along the way it presents fresh 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, Lepore argues, Americans have wrestled with the idea of democracy by telling stories. In this thoughtful and provocative book, Lepore offers at once a history of origin stories and a meditation on storytelling itself.The Evolution of a Nation: How Geography and Law Shaped the American States (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World #37)
Par Daniel Berkowitz, Karen B. Clay. 2012
Although political and legal institutions are essential to any nation's economic development, the forces that have shaped these institutions are…
poorly understood. Drawing on rich evidence about the development of the American states from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, this book documents the mechanisms through which geographical and historical conditions--such as climate, access to water transportation, and early legal systems--impacted political and judicial institutions and economic growth. The book shows how a state's geography and climate influenced whether elites based their wealth in agriculture or trade. States with more occupationally diverse elites in 1860 had greater levels of political competition in their legislature from 1866 to 2000. The book also examines the effects of early legal systems. Because of their colonial history, thirteen states had an operational civil-law legal system prior to statehood. All of these states except Louisiana would later adopt common law. By the late eighteenth century, the two legal systems differed in their balances of power. In civil-law systems, judiciaries were subordinate to legislatures, whereas in common-law systems, the two were more equal. Former civil-law states and common-law states exhibit persistent differences in the structure of their courts, the retention of judges, and judicial budgets. Moreover, changes in court structures, retention procedures, and budgets occur under very different conditions in civil-law and common-law states. The Evolution of a Nation illustrates how initial geographical and historical conditions can determine the evolution of political and legal institutions and long-run growth.Religion in American Politics: A Short History
Par Frank Lambert. 2008
The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention blocked the establishment of Christianity as a national religion. But they could not…
keep religion out of American politics. From the election of 1800, when Federalist clergymen charged that deist Thomas Jefferson was unfit to lead a "Christian nation," to today, when some Democrats want to embrace the so-called Religious Left in order to compete with the Republicans and the Religious Right, religion has always been part of American politics. In Religion in American Politics, Frank Lambert tells the fascinating story of the uneasy relations between religion and politics from the founding to the twenty-first century. Lambert examines how antebellum Protestant unity was challenged by sectionalism as both North and South invoked religious justification; how Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" competed with the anticapitalist "Social Gospel" during postwar industrialization; how the civil rights movement was perhaps the most effective religious intervention in politics in American history; and how the alliance between the Republican Party and the Religious Right has, in many ways, realized the founders' fears of religious-political electoral coalitions. In these and other cases, Lambert shows that religion became sectarian and partisan whenever it entered the political fray, and that religious agendas have always mixed with nonreligious ones. Religion in American Politics brings rare historical perspective and insight to a subject that was just as important--and controversial--in 1776 as it is today.Top Secret/Majic: Operation Majestic-12 and the United States Government's UFO Cover-up
Par Stanton T. Friedman. 2005
Exposing the U.S. government's biggest-kept secret: a fifty-eight-year UFO cover-up.Top Secret/Majic is the result of nuclear physicist and renowned UFO investigator…
Stanton T. Friedman's twenty-one year search for the truth about the mysterious Operation Majestic 12, President Truman's top-secret UFO investigation team. In this updated edition of his landmark book, he tells the incredible tale of the July 1947 recovery of a crashed flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico, and the establishment by President Truman of a truly all-star cast to deal with the saucer and its non-human inhabitants. The first four Directors of Central Intelligence, the first Secretary of Defense, and several outstanding scientists and military leaders were part of the team. Through painstaking research and startling evidence—including documents that have never before been published.This open access book investigates how representation of Native Americans and Mexican-origin im/migrants takes place in high school history textbooks.…
Manually analyzing text and images in United States textbooks from the 1950s to 2022, the book documents stories of White victory and domination over Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) groups that disproportionately fill educational curricula. While representation and accurate information of non-White perspectives improves over time, the same limited tropes tend to be recycled from one textbook to the next. Textual analysis is augmented by focus groups and interviews with BIPOC students in California high schools. Together, the data show how misrepresentation and absence of BIPOC perspectives in textbooks impact youth identity. This book argues for an innovative rethinking of US history curricula to consider which stories are told, and which perspectives are represented.This book focuses on the Union Army from April 14 - July 21, 1861. The book traces command and recruiting…
problems, carefully studies the first Bull Run, and then analyzes the battle and relates its results to the actions of Union leaders.“LACK OF PREPAREDNESS for war was a United States tradition in the nineteenth century. Without the military background of the formidable continental powers, this nation stubbornly refused to maintain a large, efficient armed force during peacetime. When conflict occurred, the government paid a stiff price for this attitude and was forced to create a military machine almost from the ground up.The author tells in detail of the period between the fall of Fort Sumter and the First Battle of Bull Run. The book falls into three divisions: the first, describing command and recruiting problems, along with personality sketches, at the war’s beginning; the second, setting down a careful study of the first Bull Run, seen through Northern eyes; the third, analyzing the battle and relating its result to the potentialities and actions of Union leaders.Strategy and tactics during these first, crucial days are carefully treated. Winfield Scott’s plans, Robert Patterson’s misadventure in the Shenandoah Valley, and the ultimate rout of Irvin McDowell’s forces make up the bulk of the book. Samuel Heintzelman, David Hunter, Daniel Tyler, Dixon Miles, Erasmus Keyes, Ambrose Burnside, Israel Richardson and other major leaders have their day in court.”-Introduction.The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe
Par Helene Stapinski, Bonnie Siegler. 2023
In this &“necessary and beautifully told story of struggle, compassion and serendipity&” (Forbes), the publisher of DC Comics comes to…
the rescue of a family trying to flee Nazi Berlin, their lives linking up with a dazzling cast of 20th-century icons, all eagerly pursuing the American Dream.Family lore had it that Bonnie Siegler&’s grandfather crossed paths in Midtown Manhattan late one night in 1954 with Marilyn Monroe, her white dress flying up around her as she filmed a scene for The Seven Year Itch. An amateur filmmaker, Jules Schulback had his home movie camera with him, capturing what would become the only surviving footage of that legendary night. Bonnie wasn&’t sure she quite believed her grandfather&’s story…until, cleaning out his apartment, she found the film reel. The discovery would prompt her to investigate all of her grandfather&’s seemingly tall tales—and lead her in pursuit of a remarkable piece of forgotten history that reads like fiction but is all true. A &“fast-moving American epic with a cast of refugees and starlets, publishers and bootleggers, comic-book creators and sports legends&” (The Washington Post), The American Way follows two very different men—Jules Schulback and his unlikely benefactor, DC Comics publisher (and sometimes pornographer) Harry Donenfeld—on an exuberant true-life adventure linking glamorous old Hollywood, the birth of the comic book, and one family&’s experiences during the Holocaust. It&’s an &“amazing&” story told &“with grace, verve, and compassion&” (The Jerusalem Post) of two strivers living through an extraordinary moment in American history, their lives intersecting with a glittering array of stars in a &“colorful&” and &“punchy&” (The New York Times Book Review) tale of hope and reinvention, of daring escapes and fake identities, of big dreams and the magic of movies, and what it means to be a real-life Superman.The Dilworth Story.: The Biography of Richard Dilworth, Pioneer Developer of the Diesel Locomotive
Par Franklin M. Reck. 2023
Biography of Richard Dilworth, the man generally credited as the mechanical genius behind the development of the first successful passenger…
and freight diesel locomotives. Illustrated throughout with black and white photos.Guns on the Western Waters: The Story of River Gunboats
Par H. Allen Gosnell. 2023
H. Allen Gosnell's Guns on the Western Waters present a full, accurate treatment of the important gunboat operations in the…
western theater of the Civil War or naval history. Gosnell provides descriptions of the major types of Union and Confederate gunboats with a brief but authoritative essay on the strategy and tactics of river warfare. He shows that the extremely heavy guns mounted on the shallow-draft vessels proved to be both terrible and effective weapons in certain aspects of the war. The guns played major roles, for example, in the Red River campaign, the Vicksburg campaign, and the attacks on Forts Henry and Donelson. Employing a concise, graphic style, Grosnell also draws on firsthand accounts to describe many of the dramatic episodes in which the boats figured. The book contains photographs of the principal gunboats and the soldiers who fought on them, and maps illustrating the important river and bayou operations in the West.-Print ed.Sand in Their Shoes: The Story of American Steel Foundries
Par Franklin M. Reck. 2023
Fascinating history of American Steel Foundries, manufacturer of railroad couplers, trucks, and draft gear that cushion the shocks as well…
as cast armor for tanks, hydraulic presses, and numerous other specialized steel items. With corporate timeline. Illustrated throughout with pen and ink sketches.Historic Houses of New Jersey: [Illustrated Edition]
Par W. Jay Mills. 2023
One of the standard works on notable early houses in the state.“UNTIL now the State possessing the most inexhaustible supply…
of colonial, Revolutionary, and republican souvenirs has been almost neglected. Indeed, few of the original thirteen States can be compared with New Jersey in the number and importance of its landmarks. Her society, too, was as intellectual as that which sprang from the rocks of Puritanism, and it formed a brilliant pageant, rivalling the glittering line of the cavaliers. There is scarcely an acre of soil in the northern part of the State not once pressed by the foot of the Revolutionary soldier, and there are few of the many hundreds of dwellings which have survived the march of a century that did not shelter at one time or another some of the heroes of ‘76, or the colonial dames and daughters who played scarcely less potent parts in the drama of our struggle for freedom. This is the only book to tell the true story of the old houses of New Jersey, and such a record possesses deep significance for every American, as it has much more than a local or State interest.Of the glowing and passionate pictures of early days little more than the frames and the sentiment lingering about them now remain. It has been the author’s pleasure to fill in the frames with the portraits and the scenes that history and tradition, as contained in family recollection, in unpublished letters, and in local records suggest. Anecdote and gossip have supplied him with many a side-light on the great figures and their stirring times, and their chronicler will be satisfied if his story shall make more real the facts with which fancy delights to play.”Frontier Defence on the Upper Ohio, 1777-1778
Par Reuben Gold Thwaites. 2023
But the barbaric enemy facing the frontier differed greatly from the well-equipped, well-drilled professional army from Europe that confronted the…
armed men of the tidewater. The stealthy foes of the border aimed their heaviest blows at the homes, wives, and children of the settlers; no life was safe from them, no person secure. Through long and bitter experience, the backwoodsmen had come to understand the art of defense by concentration within neighborhood blockhouses and log forts. But a new danger presented itself. The Indians were now guided and stimulated by the nation’s white enemies, so that to their native cunning were added the superior intelligence and more astute methods of the English. The situation soon became desperate.The British authorities at Detroit were especially active in urging the Indians to war against the Americans. Permissory orders to that effect were received by Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton early in June, 1777. With consummate skill he roused the barbarians to frenzy; under his stimulus they prepared to hurl themselves upon the American frontier. The invading parties were provided by Hamilton with proclamations prepared both by Governor Carleton and himself, calling on the Western inhabitants to submit to King George and take refuge within the British posts, where a land bounty would be given them for loyal service. This project was adroitly devised to mingle terror and mercy, in the hope that the colonists’ rebellion would speedily be crushed on the Western borders; and that the Easterners, finding themselves between two fires, would be obliged to yield. The effect of these proclamations, scattered by Indian raiders throughout the American backwoods settlements, was considerable. In some cases they were suppressed by American officers, but the Loyalist disaffection in the trans-Alleghany is largely attributable to this source.The Civil War Letters of David R. Garrette,: Detailing the Adventures of the 6th Texas Cavalry, 1861-1865
Par David R. Garrette. 2023
With annotations and background information from the great grandson of David Garrett, this book details the adventures of the 6th…
Texas Cavalry (1861-1865) during the Civil War. It contributes to the soldier's viewpoint of the war; though beset by incredible hardships that soldier yet managed to find time to write the folks back home. The book includes a facsimile letter as well as maps, historic photographic images and genealogical information.Sibley's New Mexico Campaign
Par Martin Hardwick Hall. 2023
This long out-of-print and hard-to-find classic tells the story of the Texas invasion of New Mexico during the American Civil…
War. In early 1862, Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley marched thirty-four hundred coarse Texas farmboys, cowhands, and frontiersmen into New Mexico and up the Rio Grande Valley. Although seriously bloodied, they repulsed Union troops at the Battle of Valverde. As the poorly supplied Texans pushed northward, New Mexicans stripped the land bare of food, fodder, and livestock. East of Santa Fe at Glorieta, Union volunteers defeated Sibley's Confederates and burned their quartermaster trains, and the starving Texans retreated back down the Rio Grande to El Paso.-Print ed.The Story of Wisconsin
Par Reuben Gold Thwaites. 2023
This is a short history that profiles the Badger State, which became part of the U.S. in 1848 but had…
settlements decades earlier. It also looks at the Native American history of the state.“Reuben Gold Thwaites (1853-1913) was a librarian, historian and editor. He attended public schools, and, after moving to Oshkosh in 1866, put himself through a "college course" while teaching school and working on local farms. He worked for a time on various newspapers in the Oshkosh area, and in 1874 enrolled in Yale University as a graduate student in history and economics.Returning to Wisconsin two years later, Thwaites settled in Madison, where he served for a time as managing editor of the Wisconsin State Journal. In 1885 he became assistant to Lyman C. Draper (q.v.), corresponding secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and when Draper retired in Jan., 1887, Thwaites succeeded him as executive officer of the Society; he served in this capacity from 1887 until his death. His energy in historical undertakings, and his ability as an administrator made the Society one of the leading organizations of its kind in the country, and made Thwaites "the best known non-political man in Wisconsin."Thwaites' own scholarly reputation rested primarily upon his skill as an editor of historical documents. Among the more important projects completed by Thwaites and his corps of assistants during his years with the Society were The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (73 vols.), Lewis and Clark Journals (8 vols.), Early Western Travels (32 vols.), and Collections of the State Historical Society (vols. 11-20).”-Wisconsin Hist.Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew
Par Patti Davis. 2024
A remarkably poignant writer for our troubled times, Patti Davis writes about love, loss, and the power of redemption in…
this poetic letter to her long-gone parents. Written with dignity and grace in the form of a letter to her parents, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Dear Mom and Dad is that surprisingly poignant work that succeeds not only as a memoir but as a moving account that will inspire readers to recall their own childhoods in a totally new light. Eager to retell the narrative of her own family and her coming-of-age, Patti Davis casts aside misperceptions that defined her in the past. Far from being the enfant terrible, Dear Mom and Dad reveals young Patti as a sensitive child, who was not able to be the public person her family demanded. Just as she re-examines her own role in an increasingly dysfunctional family drama, Davis casts an empathetic yet honest eye on her parents—on her father, the eternal lifeguard, who saved seventy-seven people, yet failed to create a coherent AIDS policy, and her mother, who never escaped her own tortured youth. What comes across are Davis’s burnished skills as a writer, something she always dreamed of becoming. Even as she unravels her mother’s highly edited persona, and her father’s loving but distant personality, Davis remains steadfast in her artistic expression, as she melds irony, comedy, and tragedy with dreamlike memories of an ever-present past. Dear Mom and Dad, with its account of her father’s Alzheimer's and her mother’s end-of-life struggles, becomes an account of forgiveness, reaching levels of redemption rarely found in contemporary memoirs.A Wall Is Just a Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in the Twentieth-Century United States
Par Reiko Hillyer. 2024
Throughout the twentieth century, even the harshest prison systems in the United States were rather porous. Incarcerated people were regularly…
released from prison for Christmas holidays; the wives of incarcerated men could visit for seventy-two hours relatively unsupervised; and governors routinely commuted the sentences of people convicted of murder. By the 1990s, these practices had become rarer as politicians and the media—in contrast to corrections officials—described the public as potential victims who required constant protection against the threat of violence. In A Wall Is Just a Wall Reiko Hillyer focuses on gubernatorial clemency, furlough, and conjugal visits to examine the origins and decline of practices that allowed incarcerated people to transcend prison boundaries. Illuminating prisoners’ lived experiences as they suffered, critiqued, survived, and resisted changing penal practices, she shows that the current impermeability of the prison is a recent, uneven, and contested phenomenon. By tracking the “thickening” of prison walls, Hillyer historicizes changing ideas of risk, the growing bipartisan acceptance of permanent exile and fixing the convicted at the moment of their crime as a form of punishment, and prisoners’ efforts to resist.Washington on Foot, Sixth Edition Revised and Expanded
Par William Bonstra, Judith Meany. 2024
An essential walking tour guide to one of the most walkable and historic cities in the US, perfect for first-time…
visitors and longtime residents alikeThis updated 6th edition of the perennial favorite Washington on Foot features 24 user-friendly maps, including new content on the Wharf, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, H Street NE, and the Brookland/Catholic University neighborhood. With architectural illustrations and fascinating information on the city's history and culture, Washington on Foot makes touring DC (and its neighboring Old Town Alexandria and Takoma Park) easy, entertaining, and educational. The book guides readers on how to best appreciate all the city has to offer, from familiar monuments and museums to hidden gems and lesser-known historic sites and neighborhoods. Some exciting stops include: The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception US Botanic Garden Dumbarton Oaks National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden Friendship Firehouse Mexican Cultural Institute Old Georgetown Incinerator U Street NW There's no better way to experience the history and culture of the nation's capital than to walk through it and catch details you might miss otherwise. Washington on Foot highlights those details, large and small, to make for an unbeatable DC experience.A fascinating examination of what &“the pursuit of happiness&” meant to our nation&’s Founders and how that famous phrase defined…
their lives and became the foundation of our democracy.The Declaration of Independence identified &“the pursuit of happiness&” as one of our unalienable rights, along with life and liberty. Jeffrey Rosen, the president of the National Constitution Center, profiles six of the most influential founders—Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton—to show what pursuing happiness meant in their lives. By reading the classical Greek and Roman moral philosophers who inspired the Founders, Rosen shows us how they understood the pursuit of happiness as a quest for being good, not feeling good—the pursuit of lifelong virtue, not short-term pleasure. Among those virtues were the habits of industry, temperance, moderation, and sincerity, which the Founders viewed as part of a daily struggle for self-improvement, character development, and calm self-mastery. They believed that political self-government required personal self-government. For all six Founders, the pursuit of virtue was incompatible with enslavement of African Americans, although the Virginians betrayed their own principles. The Pursuit of Happiness is more than an elucidation of the Declaration&’s famous phrase; it is a revelatory journey into the minds of the Founders, and a deep, rich, and fresh understanding of the foundation of our democracy.The Search for Reagan: The Appealing Intellectual Conservatism of Ronald Reagan
Par Craig Shirley. 2024
Never before has anyone explored the mind, soul, and heart of Ronald Reagan. The Search for Reagan explores the challenges…
and controversies in Reagan&’s life and how he successfully dealt with each, depicting a man who was never as conservative as some conservatives wanted him to be, but rather as conservative as he was comfortable being—a man who wanted to win on his own terms and integrity.Ronald Reagan was a singularly unique man and conservative who championed a wildly successful revolution—leading to more freedom and less government for the American people and to the fall of communism, while boosting American morale, which had been his three big goals. He was the first president in many years who believed optimism from the Oval Office had a direct bearing on the affairs of the nation. As a consequence, he left office more popular than when he entered with a whopping 73 percent approval. He is beloved even today as his presidential library is visited far more than any other presidential library, by more than five million people each year. He understood that American conservatism was based upon the individual and not the group. He is still regarded as one of the most admired men in America. The range of Reagan scholarship by virtue of books sold about him continues to grow. In his presidency, he solved the mystery of high inflation that had bedeviled his predecessor, high interest rates, and high gas prices. He created over twenty million new jobs, and the number of American millionares grew from 4,414 to 34,944. He quite literally changed our world for the better and is considered by most historians to be one of our four greatest presidents, along with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt.