History of the Americas Books

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...

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,...

"The Great Starvation Experiment is wide-ranging, weaving progress in the war into the day-to-day suffering of the hungry volunteers." -Saint Paul Pioneer Press"Fascinating . . ." -Minneapolis Star TribuneNear the end of World War II, thirty-six...

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...

If you enjoyed the chilling reading of In Cold Blood and were at the edge of your seat while watching Oliver Stone's JFK, you'll love this investigative look into all the facets of one of the top conspiracies of the twentieth century and beyond...

Long after its outbreak, the revolution remains the defining moment in Mexico's modern history. Yet the debate over its legacy continues to this day. In a comprehensible style, aimed at students and general readers, The Mexican Revolution recounts the...

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...

The official spin on numerous government programs is flat-out bullsh*t, according to Jesse Ventura. In this incredible collection of actual government documents, Jesse Ventura, the ultimate non-partisan truth-seeker, proves it beyond any doubt. He and...

Short Listed for the 2011 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize Unable to analyze the dynamics of specific forms of social labour in the antebellum U.S., most historians of the US Civil War have ignored its deep social roots. To search out these...

Long an iconic figure for radicals, Huey Newton is now being discovered by those interested in the history of America's social movements. This new release of a classic collection of his writings and speeches traces the development of Newton's personal...

Have you ever heard the story on the news of a politician being "found dead" or "committing suicide," and it seemed a little strange to you? You think, "There's something they're not telling me." Well, after you read Dead Wrong, you'll realize that your...

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...

For some, nothing is as pleasurable as the smell and taste of a great cigar. For them, Playboy The Book of Cigars will be the next best thing to lighting up. Whether you want to learn the ?ner points of cutters, cutting, or humidors, or want to...

Blackshirts & Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, revolution, democracy, and ecology-terms often bandied about but seldom explored in the original and exciting way that has become Michael Parenti's...

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...

The Secret Team, L. Fletcher Prouty's expose of the CIA's brutal methods of maintaining national security during the Cold War, was first published in the 1970s. However, virtually all copies of the book disappeared upon distribution, having been...

Pinochet File reveals a record of complicity with atrocity by the U.S. government. The documents, first declassified for the original edition of the book, formed the heart of the campaign to hold Gen. Pinochet accountable for murder, torture and...

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...

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...

Unlike most studies of the Incas, this book reconstructs the daily life not only of the ruling Inca elite but also of the rest of the society, including the conquered peoples. From food and drink to religious rituals, the major aspects of life at all...

In the Age of Obama, the ugly charge of racism is more prevalent than ever. Why? Because telling the truth about racial profiling, crime, the social fallout of single parent homes, and the ways racial preferences distort the very meaning of equity and...

A Short History of Brazil examines the events that have led to Brazil's ascendancy, looking at the indigenous peoples who populated the territory until its discovery in 1500 and chronicling the tempestuous years since, leading to the economic miracle of...

Detroit: I Do Mind Dying tracks the extraordinary development of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers as they became two of the landmark political organizations of the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely heralded...

In a work of narrative nonfiction that weaves together the racially fraught history of public education in Milwaukee and the broader story of hypersegregation in the rust belt, Lessons from the Heartland tells of an iconic city's fall from grace - and of...