Showing 20 results for subject:"History / United States / General"
Understanding Emerson
"The American Scholar" and His Struggle for Self-reliance
Kenneth Sacks
Publisher Description
American Sphinx
The Character of Thomas Jefferson
Joseph J. Ellis
Offers a reassessment of the life, image, and career of Thomas Jefferson, examining his complex personality, controversies about the man and his beliefs, and his accomplishments.
The Wages of Whiteness
Race and the Making of the American Working Class
David R. Roediger
THE WAGES OF WHITENESS provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. In an Afterword to this second edition, Roediger discusses recent studies of whiteness and the changing face of labor itself--then surveys criticism of his work. He accepts the views of some critics but challenges others.
The First Casualty
The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq
Phillip Knightley
"The first casualty when war comes, is truth," said American Senator Hiram Johnson in 1917. In his gripping, now-classic history of war journalism, Phillip Knightley shows just how right Johnson was. From William Howard Russell, who described the appalling conditions of the Crimean War in the Times of London, to the ranks of reporters, photographers, and cameramen who captured the realities of war in Vietnam, The First Casualty tells a fascinating story of heroism and collusion, censorship and suppression. Since Vietnam, Knightley reveals, governments have become much more adept at managing the media, as highlighted in chapters on the Falklands War, the Gulf War, and the conflict between NATO and Serbia over Kosovo. And in a new chapter on the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Knightley details even greater degrees of government manipulation and media complicity, as evidenced by the "embedding" of reporters in military units and the uncritical, openly patriotic coverage of these conflicts. "The age of the war correspondent as hero," he concludes, "appears to be over." Fully updated, The First Casualty remains required reading for anyone concerned about freedom of the press, journalistic responsibility, and the nature of modern warfare.
Bitter Fruits of Bondage
The Demise of Slavery and the Collapse of the Confederacy, 1861-1865
Armstead L. Robinson
In this controversial history the author tells the story of how the Civil Warand slavery were intertwined, and how internal social conflict undermined theConfederacy in the end.
Beyond Toleration
The Religious Origins of American Pluralism
Chris Beneke
Publisher description
The Generals
Andrew Jackson, Sir Edward Pakenham, and the Road to the Battle of New Orleans
Benton Rain Patterson
The fight for the "booty and beauty" of New Orleans that propelled one general to the presidency.
The Kennedy Curse
Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years
Edward Klein
Death was merciful to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for it spared her a parent's worst nightmare: the loss of a child. But if Jackie had lived to see her son, JFK Jr., perish in a plane crash on his way to his cousin's wedding, she would have been doubly horrified by the familiar pattern in the tragedy. Once again, on a day that should have been full of joy and celebration, America's first family was struck by the Kennedy Curse. In this probing expose, renowned Kennedy biographer Edward Klein-a bestselling author and journalist personally acquainted with many members of the Kennedy family-unravels one of the great mysteries of our time and explains why the Kennedys have been subjected to such a mind-boggling chain of calamities. Drawing upon scores of interviews with people who have never spoken out before, troves of private documents, archives in Ireland and America, and private conversations with Jackie, Klein explores the underlying pattern that governs the Kennedy Curse. The reader is treated to penetrating portraits of the Irish immigrant Patrick Kennedy; Rose Kennedy's father, "Honey Fitz"; the dynasty's founding father Joe Kennedy and his ill-fated daughter Kathleen, President Kennedy, accused rapist William Kennedy Smith, and the star-crossed lovers, JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. Each of the seven profiles demonstrates the basic premise of this book: The Kennedy Curse is the result of the destructive collision between the Kennedy's fantasy of omnipotence-an unremitting desire to get away with things that others cannot-and the cold, hard realities of life.
Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson
The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding
Darren Staloff
The author compares the intellectual understanding of the Enlightenment of Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, and shows how the personal experiences and regional cultural traditions of each man shaped his interpretation of that movement and how those ideals played into the birth of the new nation.
The United States and Biological Warfare
Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea
Stephen Endicott, Edward Hagerman
Contains primary source material.
Justice at War
The Story of the Japanese-American Internment Cases
Peter Irons
Justice at War irrevocably alters the reader's perception of one of the most disturbing events in U.S. history—the internment during World War II of American citizens of Japanese descent. Peter Irons' exhaustive research has uncovered a government campaign of suppression, alteration, and destruction of crucial evidence that could have persuaded the Supreme Court to strike down the internment order. Irons documents the debates that took place before the internment order and the legal response during and after the internment.
A People's History of the United States
1492 to the Present
Howard Zinn
Presents the history of the United States from the point of view of those who were exploited in the name of American progress
A Nation by Design
Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America
Aristide R. Zolberg
According to the national mythology, the United States has long opened its doors to people from across the globe, providing a port in a storm and opportunity for any who seek it. Yet the history of immigration to the United States is far different. Even before the xenophobic reaction against European and Asian immigrants in the late nineteenth century, social and economic interest groups worked to manipulate immigration policy to serve their needs. In A Nation by Design, Aristide Zolberg explores American immigration policy from the colonial period to the present, discussing how it has been used as a tool of nation building. A Nation by Design argues that the engineering of immigration policy has been prevalent since early American history. However, it has gone largely unnoticed since it took place primarily on the local and state levels, owing to constitutional limits on federal power during the slavery era. Zolberg profiles the vacillating currents of opinion on immigration throughout American history, examining separately the roles played by business interests, labor unions, ethnic lobbies, and nativist ideologues in shaping policy. He then examines how three different types of migration--legal migration, illegal migration to fill low-wage jobs, and asylum-seeking--are shaping contemporary arguments over immigration to the United States. A Nation by Design is a thorough, authoritative account of American immigration history and the political and social factors that brought it about. With rich detail and impeccable scholarship, Zolberg's book shows how America has struggled to shape the immigration process to construct the kind of population it desires.
The Conservative Century
From Reaction to Revolution
Gregory L. Schneider
This concise history focuses on the development of American conservatism in the twentieth century up to the present. Gregory L. Schneider traces the course of a once-reactionary movement opposed to progressive reform and the New Deal and describes how it came to advance alternative policies and programs that revolutionized the shaping of domestic politics, foreign policy, and economic policy. Along the way he profiles such influential thinkers as William F. Buckley, Frank Meyer, Henry Regnery, and Barry Goldwater. He also details how the decline of liberalism after the 1960s helped conservatives gain political power, and how their energized activism and organization culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Schneider also describes how the years since the Reagan Revolution have been decidedly mixed for American conservatives.
Crimes of the Century
From Leopold and Loeb to O.J. Simpson
Gilbert Geis, Leigh B. Bienen
In compelling narrative, the authors probe the sensational cases of Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., and Richard A. Loeb, the Scottsboro "boys," Bruno Richard Hauptmann, Alger Hiss, and O.J. Simpson, highlighting significant lessons about criminal behavior and the administration of criminal justice. Each case study details the crime, the police investigation, and the court proceedings, profiles the major players, and examines the outcome and aftermath of the trial. The authors untangle the perplexities surrounding the cases and illuminate the many mysteries that remain unsolved today. These celebrated trials reveal issues of overzealous prosecution, sloppy police work, judicial bias, race, class, and ethnic struggles, and the role of wealth in securing a competent defense. They also show how the temper of the times and frenzied media coverage heightened the intensity of drama in the cases.
African American Midwifery in the South
Dialogues of Birth, Race, and Memory
Gertrude Jacinta Fraser
In an important contribution to African American studies and anthropology, African American Midwifery in the South brings new voices to the discourse on the hidden world of midwives and birthing.
Coming to America (Second Edition)
A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life
Roger Daniels
With a timely new chapter on immigration in the current age of globalization, a new Preface, and new appendixes with the most recent statistics, this revised edition is an engrossing study of immigration to the United States from the colonial era to the present.
The Columbia Guide to Asian American History
Gary Y. Okihiro
Offering a rich and insightful road map of Asian American history as it has evolved over more than 200 years, this book marks the first systematic attempt to take stock of this field of study. It examines, comments, and questions the changing assumptions and contexts underlying the experiences and contributions of an incredibly diverse population of Americans. Arriving and settling in this nation as early as the 1790s, with American-born generations stretching back more than a century, Asian Americans have become an integral part of the American experience; this cleverly organized book marks the trajectory of that journey, offering researchers invaluable information and interpretation. * Part 1 offers a synoptic narrative history, a chronology, and a set of periodizations that reflect different ways of constructing the Asian American past. * Part 2 presents lucid discussions of historical debates--such as interpreting the anti-Chinese movement of the late 1800s and the underlying causes of Japanese American internment during World War II--and such emerging themes as transnationalism and women and gender issues. * Part 3 contains a historiographical essay and a wide-ranging compilation of book, film, and electronic resources for further study of core themes and groups, including Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Hmong, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, and others.
A History of Wine in America, Volume 2
From Prohibition to the Present
Thomas Pinney
Describes how Prohibition devastated the wine industry, the conditions of renewal after Repeal, the various New Deal measures that affected wine, and the early markets and methods. Goes on to examine the effects of World War II and how the troubled postwar years led to the great wine boom of the late 1960s, the spread of winegrowing in almost every state, and its continued expansion to the present day.