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An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
Henry Wiencek · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorA Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons
Elizabeth Dowling Taylor · 316 pages
Chronicles the life of a former slave to James and Dolley Madison, tracing his early years on their plantation, his service in the White House household staff and post-emancipation achievements as a memoirist.
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
Joseph J. Ellis · 440 pages
For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight--and not only during his active political career. After 1809, his longed-for retirement was compromised by a steady stream of guests and tourists who made of his estate at Monticello a virtual hotel, as well as by more than one thousand letters pe
Washington: A Life
Ron Chernow · 928 pages
In this work, the author, a biographer provides a portrait of the father of our nation, dashing forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man, and revealing an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people.
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
Lincoln
David Herbert Donald · 714 pages
The phenomenal national bestseller that is "the Lincoln biography for this generation" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.)-now in paperback. Drawing on resources not available until recently, including Lincoln's personal papers, archives, and newspaper reports, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Herbert Donald presents a masterful account of Lincoln's rise to the presidency and the political and p
The Hemingses of Monticello
Annette Gordon-Reed · 798 pages
Historian and legal scholar Gordon-Reed presents this epic work that tells the story of the Hemingses, an American slave family, and their close blood ties to Thomas Jefferson.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Doris Kearns Goodwin · 916 pages
Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the R
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Jon Meacham · 568 pages
In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was th
In the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives
Kenneth C. Davis · 295 pages
Here are the stories of five enslaved people who witnessed the birth of America: Billy Lee, valet to George Washington; Ona Judge, who escaped from Martha Washington; Isaac Granger, servant of Thomas Jefferson; Paul Jennings, who witnessed the War of 1812 in James Madison's White House; and Alfred Jackson, "owned" by Andrew Jackson. These true stories explore our country's great, tragic contradict
The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion
Stephen B. Oates · 208 pages
Portrays America's most famous slave rebel and the insurrection he led in southeastern Virginia's Southampton County in August, 1831.
American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant
Ronald C. White Jr. · 845 pages
In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the "Trinity of Great American Leaders." But the battlefield commander–turned–commander-in-chief fell out of favor in the twentieth century. In American Ulysses, Ronald C. White argues that we need to once more revise our estimates of him in the twenty-first. Based on seven years of research with prim
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
Tony Horwitz · 522 pages
In this book the author tells the tale of the daring insurrection that put America on the path to bloody war. Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, this work portrays Brown's uprising revealing a count
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.
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 Underground Abductor (An Abolitionist Tale about Harriet Tubman)
Nathan Hale · 128 pages
Araminta Ross was born a slave in Delaware in the early 19th century. Slavery meant that her family could be ripped apart at any time, and that she could be put to work in dangerous places and for abusive people. But north of the Mason-Dixon line, slavery was illegal. If she could run away and make it north without being caught or killed, she'd be free. Facing enormous danger, Araminta made it, an
Franklin Pierce
Michael F. Holt · 154 pages
This book tells the story of the genial but troubled New Englander whose single-minded partisan loyalties inflamed the nation's simmering battle over slavery. Charming and handsome, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was drafted to break the deadlock of the 1852 Democratic convention. Though he seized the White House in a landslide against the imploding Whig Party, he proved a dismal failure in offi
The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln
Sean Wilentz · 992 pages
1861: The Civil War Awakening
Adam Goodheart · 481 pages
As the United States marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, 1861 presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began. 1861 is an epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields. Early in that fateful year, a second American revolution unfolded, inspiring a new generation to reject their parents' faith in compromise and appeasement, to do the unthinkable in
The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers
Thomas J. Fleming
A compelling, intimate look at the founders-George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison-and the women who played essential roles in their livesWith his usual storytelling flair and unparalleled research, Tom Fleming examines the women who were at the center of the lives of the founding fathers. From hot-tempered Mary Ball Washington to promi
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever
Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard · 324 pages
This book is a riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the first work of history from mega-bestselling author Bill O'Reilly. The anchor of The O'Reilly Factor recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history -- how one gunshot changed the country forever. In the spring of 1865, the bloody saga of America's Civil
Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery
Eric Metaxas · 304 pages
Amazing Grace tells the story of the remarkable life of the British abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833). This accessible biography chronicles Wilberforce's extraordinary role as a human rights activist, cultural reformer, and member of Parliament. At the center of this heroic life was a passionate twenty-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle Wilberforce won in 1807, as w
Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different
Gordon S. Wood · 321 pages
A series of studies of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers. Each life is considered in the round, but the thread that binds the work together is the idea of character as a lived reality for these men. For these were men, Wood shows, who took the matter of character very seriously. They were the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made, men who considered the
Abraham Lincoln
Ingri d'Aulaire, Edgar Parin d'Aulaire · 56 pages
Text and illustrations present the life of the boy born on the Kentucky frontier who became the sixteenth president of the United States.