New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan

Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America

Ira Berlin · 504 pages

Today most Americans, black and white, identify slavery with cotton, the deep South, and the African-American church. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century, after almost two hundred years of African-American life in mainland North America, few slaves grew cotton, lived in the deep South, or embraced Christianity. Many Thousands Gone traces the evolution of black society from the first arr

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

C.L.R. James · 426 pages

En 1789, les deux tiers du commerce extérieur de la France se faisaient avec sa colonie antillaise de Saint-Domingue, laquelle représentait le plus grand marché de la traite européenne des esclaves. La plus grosse colonie du monde, fierté de la France et objet de convoitise de toutes les autres nations impérialistes, faisait partie intégrante de la vie économique d'alors. Tout cet ensemble reposai

The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World

Greg Grandin · 369 pages

Groundbreaking analysis and gripping storytelling from one of today's most original and highly acclaimed historians. 'The Empire of Necessity is scholarship at its best. Greg Grandin's deft penetration into the marrow of the slave industry is compelling, brilliant, and necessary.' -- Toni Morrison 'In this multifaceted masterpiece, Greg Grandin excavates the relentlessly fascinating history of a

The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

Andres Resendez · 448 pages

A landmark history: the sweeping story of the enslavement of tens of thousands of Indians across America, from the time of the conquistadors up to the early 20th century. Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andrés Reséndez illuminates, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the te

Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution

Laurent Dubois · 374 pages

The first and only successful slave revolution in the Americas began in 1791 when thousands of brutally exploited slaves rose up against their masters on Saint-Domingue, the most profitable colony in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Within a few years, the slave insurgents forced the French administrators of the colony to emancipate them, a decision ratified by revolutionary Paris in 1794. T

The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic

Peter Linebaugh, Marcus Rediker · 433 pages

"Long before the American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a motley crew of sailors, slaves, pirates, laborers, market women, and indentured servants had ideas about freedom and equality that would forever change history. The Many Headed-Hydra recounts their stories in a sweeping history of the role of the dispossessed in the making of the modern world."--BOOK JACKET.

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

Tom Reiss · 430 pages

“In the early 1800s, General Alex Dumas was purposefully disappeared by hie enemies. And though his son sought to make him live through his classic novels, for too long his story has remained silenced. The Black Count vividly vindicates the great general, restoring him to his rightful place at the center of the Age of Revolution.

An African American and Latinx History of the United States

Paul Ortiz · 296 pages

Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution

Simon Schama · 478 pages

In response to a declaration by the last royal governor of Virginia that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the King would be emancipated, tens of thousands of slaves--Americans who clung to the sentimental notion of British freedom--escaped from farms, plantations and cities to try to reach the British camp. This mass movement lasted as long as the war did, and a military strategy origi

Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire

Andrea Stuart · 353 pages

The author of "The Rose of Martinique" presents a history of the interdependence of sugar, slavery and colonial settlement in the New World through the story of the author's ancestors, exploring the myriad connections between sugar cultivation and her family's identity, genealogy and financial stability.

The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square

Ned Sublette · 368 pages

"Offering a new perspective on the unique cultural influences of New Orleans, this entertaining history captures the soul of the city and reveals its impact on the rest of the nation. Focused on New Orleans' first century of existence, a comprehensive, chronological narrative of the political, cultural, and musical development of Louisiana's early years is presented. This innovative history tracks

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad

Eric Foner · 301 pages

This book tells the dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. More than any other scholar, Eric Foner has influenced our understanding of America's history. Now, making brilliant use of extraordinary evidence, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian once again reconfigures the national saga of American slavery and freedom. A deeply

American Slavery, American Freedom

Edmund S. Morgan · 480 pages

Silencing the Past

Michel-Rolph Trouillot · 191 pages

In this provocative analysis of historical narrative, Michel-Rolph Trouillot demonstrates how power operates, often invisibly, at all stages in the making of history to silence certain voices. From the West's failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolt in history, to the continued debate over denials of the Holocaust, and the meaning of Columbus's arrival in th

A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn · 702 pages

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, *A People's History of the United States* is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers.

American Colonies: The Settling of North America

Alan Taylor · 535 pages

"In American Colonies, historian Alan Taylor challenges the traditional Anglocentric focus of colonial history by exploring the many cultural influences that gave birth to America. The result is a superlative history of the prerevolutionary era in North America that is unprecedented in its scope and sure to become a landmark."--BOOK JACKET.

The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630–1865

Mark Peterson · 784 pages

A Disability History of the United States

Kim E. Nielsen · 228 pages

Covers the entirety of U.S. disability history, from pre-1492 to the present. Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. It places the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it's a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical reposition

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari · 456 pages

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What hap

The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

Ned Blackhawk · 596 pages

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

Sven Beckert · 640 pages

The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality in the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism. Sven Beckert's rich, fascinating book tells the story of how, in a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful statesmen recast the world's most significant manufacturing industry combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new m

Battle Cry of Freedom

James M. McPherson · 928 pages

White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves

Giles Milton · 336 pages

1776

David McCullough · 393 pages

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based