In the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives

A 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.

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

Behind the Scenes Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House

Elizabeth Keckley · 172 pages

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.

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

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

Edward E. Baptist · 543 pages

Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution —the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success—. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in the prizewinning *The Half Has Never Been Told*, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American inde

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

Douglas A. Blackmon · 474 pages

In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history--an "Age of Neoslavery" that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II.Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for

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.

To Be a Slave

Julius Lester · 160 pages

A compilation, selected from various sources and arranged chronologically, of the reminiscences of slaves and ex-slaves about their experiences from the leaving of Africa through the Civil War and into the early twentieth century.

An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America

Henry Wiencek · 404 pages

When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington was born an

Bury the Chains

Adam Hochschild · 466 pages

An account of the first great human rights crusade, which originated in England in the 1780s and resulted in the freeing of hundreds of thousands of slaves around the world. In 1787, twelve men gathered in a London printing shop to pursue a seemingly impossible goal: ending slavery in the largest empire on earth. Along the way, they would pioneer most of the tools citizen activists still rely on t

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

Nikole Hannah-Jones · 590 pages

When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection

Norman R. Yetman · 157 pages

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.

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 Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South

Kenneth M. Stampp · 435 pages

In ten sparkling chapters the book details and illuminates every aspect of slavery....Slavery is viewed not as a method of regulating race relations, not as an arrangement that was in its essence paternalistic, but as a practical system of controlling and exploiting labor. How the slaves worked, how they resisted bondage, how they were disciplined, how they lived their lives in the quarters, and h

Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made

Eugene D. Genovese · 823 pages

This landmark history of slavery in the South -- a winner of the Bancroft Prize -- challenged conventional views of slaves by illuminating the many forms of resistance to dehumanization that developed in slave society. Rather than emphasizing the cruelty and degradation of slavery, historian Eugene Genovese investigates the ways that slaves forced their owners to acknowledge their humanity through

The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832

Alan Taylor · 624 pages

Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom's swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Over many nights, hundreds of slaves paddled out to the warships seeking protection for their families from the ravages of slavery. The runa

Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World

David Brion Davis · 440 pages

"Davis begins with the dramatic Amistad case, which vividly highlights the international character of the Atlantic slave trade and the roles of the American judiciary, the presidency, the media, and both black and white abolitionists. The heart of the book looks at slavery in the American South, describing black slaveholding planters; the rise of the Cotton Kingdom; the daily life of ordinary slav

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

Up from Slavery

Booker T. Washington · 192 pages

Booker T. Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period. "Up From Slavery" is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington's life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transi

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass · 570 pages

"Born and raised a slave, Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895) made two escape attempts before reaching freedom, educated himself against all odds, and became a leading abolitionist and spokesperson for African Americans." "My Bondage and My freedom is his account of his life, and that of slaves generally, in antebellum Maryland. Just as impressive as Douglass's gift for conveying the stark terrors and

How the Word Is Passed - Carton of 10 Signed Copies (Special Markets)

Clint Smith