American History Titles
Browse our American History titles listed below.
Jack Kerouac and the Making of the Beat Generation
by John Tytell
United States History, American History, U.S. History, BiographyJack Kerouac’s On the Road in 1957 burst onto a fifties America supposedly safe and stuffy, and announced the coming of the “beat” generation. This new and wildly disorganized view of life seemed to extol amorality and self-gratification. Here is an insightful mini-biography of the beats’ icon.
Gang Democracy and the Collapse of Government in San Francisco's Gold Rush Years
by Cecelia Holland
United States History, American History, U.S. History, U.S. GovernmentThe 1849 Gold Rush in California brought to a boiling point the new state’s unruly politics and produced mob rule in the muddy streets of San Francisco. Cecelia Holland’s compelling account of these events reveals a disturbing underside of democratic government in a nation headed for civil war.
The American West as It Once Was
by Francis Parkman
United States History, American HistoryIn 1846, Francis Parkman traveled some seventeen hundred miles through the unspoiled West, meeting trappers, gamblers, woodsmen, soldiers, emigrant pioneers, and Indians, and hunting buffalo with a band of Oglala Sioux. His account remains one of the great books ever produced by an American.
Reflections on the Father of the Atomic Bomb
by Jeremy Bernstein
United States History, Military History, American History, U.S. History, U.S. Government, Biography, BiographyJeremy Bernstein remembers the “father” of the atomic bomb—a man unsure of his identity and scarred by the famous government hearing that took away his security clearance.
The Hooded Remedy for Social Misbehavior
by Thomas R. Pegram
United States History, American History, U.S. HistoryIn the social unease that followed World War I, some groups sought to preserve white Protestant morality in the face of new challenges to the old order. A reborn Ku Klux Klan focused not on racial matters but on social behavior, with a peculiar, not-so-subtle intervention in family affairs.
Franklin Roosevelt Takes Command in the Depths of the Great Depression
by William E. Leuchtenburg
United States History, Political Science, American History, U.S. History, U.S. Government, EssaysWhen Franklin Roosevelt came to the White House, 13 million—roughly 25 percent of the work force—were unemployed. By the day of his inauguration, thirty-eight states had closed their banks. Soon the nation would witness the most furious period of legislative activity in American history.
by P.T. Barnum
United States History, Philosophy, American HistoryThe greatest showman of his age, P. T. Barnum was also the most gifted advocate for the Gospel of Success in nineteenth-century America. Barnum’s autobiography, The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself, which sold almost half a million copies, included the “Rules of Success.” They were also incorporated into his lecture, “The Art of Money-Getting,” which he delivered more than a hundred times. Horace Greeley thought it “worth a hundred-dollar greenback to a beginner in life.”
Kubrick, Bobby Fischer and the Attraction of Chess
by Jeremy Bernstein
United States History, European History, American History, U.S. History, Sports History, Essays, SportsThe 1972 world championship chess match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky was an event of international importance—and a media bonanza. Out of a heady cast of characters, Jeremy Bernstein fashions a tale of large personalities involved in an intense, brainy competition.