Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

Amity Shlaes · 466 pages

This imaginative illustrated edition brings to life one of the most devastating periods in our nation's history--the Great Depression--through the lives of American people, from politicians and workers to businessmen, farmers, and ordinary citizens.

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.

Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America

Adam Cohen · 372 pages

Brings to life a fulcrum moment in American history--the tense, feverish first one hundred days of FDR's presidency, when he and his inner circle completely reinvented the role of the federal government in response to the Crash of 1929 and its consequences.

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815

Gordon S. Wood · 778 pages

As part of the Oxford History of the United States series the author offers an account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812. As he reveals, the period was marked by tumultuous change in all aspects of American life, in politics, society, economy, and culture. The men who founded the new government had high hope

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

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 Age of Jackson

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. · 576 pages

One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein

Whitney Alyse Webb · 544 pages

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945

David M. Kennedy · 936 pages

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. Freedom from Fear tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities. David M. Kennedy demonstrates that the economic crisis of the 1930s was more than a reaction to the excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--And How It Shattered a Nation

Andrew Ross Sorkin · 592 pages

1929 is a tale of power, psychology, and the seductive illusion that “this time is different.” It's about disregarded alarm bells, financiers who fell from grace, and skeptics who saw the crash coming—only to be dismissed until it was too late.

Confidence Men

Ron Suskind · 515 pages

Draws on hundreds of hours of interviews and in-depth research to relate the complete story of the nation's financial meltdown, from the trading floors of lower Manhattan to the power corridors inside the Beltway.

War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals

David Halberstam · 544 pages

"More than twenty-five years ago Halberstam told the riveting story of the men who conceived and executed the Vietnam War. Today the author has written another chronicle of Washington politics, this time exploring the complex dynamics of foreign policy in post-Cold War America.". "Halberstam evokes the internecine conflicts, the untrammeled egos, and the struggles for dominance among the key figu

The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia changed the balance of power in the Middle East

Andrew Scott Cooper · 530 pages

This is an account of an era we thought we knew: how the US decision in the mid-1970s to choose Saudi Arabia as the dominant oil power in the Mideast ultimately led to the Islamic revolution in Iran, and how oil came to dominate U.S. domestic and international affairs. The author draws on newly declassified documents and interviews with some key figures of the time to show how Nixon, Ford, Kissing

Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century

Orville Schell, John Delury · 478 pages

"Through a series of ... portraits of iconic modern Chinese leaders and thinkers, two of today's foremost specialists on China provide a panoramic narrative of this country's rise to preeminence that is at once analytical and personal. How did a nation, after a long and painful period of dynastic decline, intellectual upheaval, foreign occupation, civil war, and revolution, manage to burst forth o

The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation

Jonathan Hennessey, Aaron McConnell · 149 pages

An introduction to the United States Constitution, presented in graphic form, detailing important people and events in the creation of the founding document, its Preamble, and twenty-seven amendments.

The Age of Extremes: A History of the World 1914-1991

Eric Hobsbawm · 627 pages

In this masterful and highly accessible study of our times, one of the world's leading historians sheds exciting new light on our understanding of the twentieth century, with incisive assessments of events that have marked this turbulent period. Eric Hobsbawm, whose own life spans this century, deftly examines from both personal and scholarly perspectives such events as the great economic depre

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

Eduardo Galeano · 338 pages

The Untold History of The United States

Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick · 750 pages

A companion to the ten-part documentary series outlines provocative arguments against official American historical records to reveal the origins of conservatism and the obstacles to progressive change.

The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It

Richard Hofstadter · 560 pages

Mao's Great Famine

Frank Dikotter · 448 pages

""Between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake Britain in less than fifteen years. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives." So opens Frank Dikotter's astonishing, riveting, magnificently detailed chronicle o

American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic

Joseph J. Ellis · 304 pages

From the first shots fired at Lexington to the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, Joseph J. Ellis guides us through the decisive issues of the nation's founding, and illuminates the emerging philosophies, shifting alliances, and personal and political foibles of our now iconic leaders--Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Adams. He c

The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln

Sean Wilentz · 992 pages

The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World

Vijay Prashad · 374 pages

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

John Maynard Keynes