The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century

My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams

Abigail Adams, John Adams · 528 pages

A collection of letters between Abigail and John Adams written from 1762 to 1801 covering topics of revolution, independence, and nation building, along with those that reflect their love for one another.

A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent

Robert W. Merry · 576 pages

In a one-term presidency, Polk completed the story of America's Manifest Destiny -- extending its territory across the continent, from sea to sea, by threatening England and manufacturing a controversial and unpopular two-year war with Mexico that Abraham Lincoln, in Congress at the time, opposed as preemptive. Robert Merry tells this story through powerful debates and towering figures. - Jacket f

Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab

Steve Inskeep · 434 pages

Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the United States faced a constitutional crisis. At its center stood two men, former military comrades locked in a struggle that tested the boundaries of democracy. Harrowing, inspiring, and deeply moving, Inskeep's Jacksonland is the story of America at a moment of transition, when the fate of states and nations was decided by the actions of two heroic ye

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

The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War

James D. Bradley · 387 pages

In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft on the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. Roosevelt's glamorous twenty-one year old daughter Alice served as mistress of the cruise, which included senators and congressmen. On this trip, Taft concluded secret agreements in Roosevelt's name.In 2005, a centu

From the Age of Discovery to a World at War

William J. Bennett · 573 pages

"An account of America in both successes and failures and triumphs and tragedies. Instead of criticizing our nation and those who have sacrificed for her, these stories affirm that the American experiment in democracy remains the hope our nation desperately needs. Volume I covers 1492-1914"--Rainbow Resource Center.

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

Joseph J. Ellis · 304 pages

In this landmark work of history, the National Book Award--winning author of American Sphinx explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals--Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison--confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation.The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade

The Age of Jackson

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. · 576 pages

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II

Doris Kearns Goodwin · 759 pages

From the best-selling author of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream comes a compelling chronicle of a nation and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. Presenting an aspect of American history that has never been fully told, Doris Kearns Goodwin writes a brilliant narrative account of how the United States of 1940, an isolationist cou

Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865

Abraham Lincoln · 788 pages

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789

Robert Middlekauff · 736 pages

Recounts the events leading up to the Revolution and discusses the major leaders, campaigns, and battles of the war.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

Edmund Morris · 886 pages

Biography of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, detailing his life from birth (1858) to his ascendancy to the Presidency (1901). This is the first book in Edmund Morris's trilogy on Roosevelt (followed by *Theodore Rex* and *Colonel Roosevelt*). It won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Bibliography or Autobiography and the 1980 National Book Award in Biography.

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia

James C. Scott · 442 pages

Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America

Chris Matthews · 400 pages

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

Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President

Harold Holzer · 374 pages

The Path to Power

Robert A. Caro · 882 pages

Traces Johnson's life from his Texas childhood through his rise to political power and his successful 1948 senatorial campaign.

Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power

Robert Dallek · 752 pages

With the publication of his magisterial biography of John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life, Robert Dallek cemented his reputation as one of the greatest historians of our time. Now, in this epic joint biography, he offers a provocative, groundbreaking portrait of a pair of outsize leaders whose unlikely partnership dominated the world stage and changed the course of history.More than thirty years af

Alexander Hamilton

Ron Chernow · 832 pages

From National Book Award winner Ron Chernow, a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, National Book Award winner Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. Acc

Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism

Peter Marshall · 778 pages

Navigating the broad "river of anarchy," from Taoism to Situationism, from Ranters to Punk rockers, from individualists to communists, from anarcho-syndicalists to anarcha-feminists, Demanding the Impossible is an authoritative and lively study of a widely misunderstood subject. It explores the key anarchist concepts of society and the state, freedom and equality, authority and power, and investig

Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House

Sally Bedell Smith · 608 pages

Drawing on interviews with Kennedy intimates, as well as newly available personal documents, a study of America's most storied presidency reveals the personalities and relationships that molded the politics, culture, and style of an era.

The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

Jonathan Alter · 432 pages

This is the story of a political miracle--the perfect match of man and moment. FDR took office in 1933 as America touched bottom. Banks were closing, millions of people lost everything--the Great Depression had caused a national breakdown. Journalist Alter brings us closer than ever before to the Roosevelt magic. Facing the gravest crisis since the Civil War, instead of circumventing Congress and

The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It

Richard Hofstadter · 560 pages

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell · 232 pages

[Homage to Catalonia][1] is [George Orwell][2]'s account of his experiences fighting in the 'Spanish Civil War'. Alongside many British workers, trades unionists, and socialists keen to help the Spanish defend their Republic from General Franco's Fascist forces. Orwell joined the [POUM][3] Militia in the Catalan region of Spain, was injured in the fighting and invalided back to England. After leav