Best of
American-History

1958

The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville


Shelby Foote - 1958
    1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac. The word "narrative" is the key to this extraordinary book's incandescence and its truth. The story is told entirely from the point of view of the people involved in it. One learns not only what was happening on all fronts but also how the author discovered it during his years of exhaustive research. This first volume in Shelby Foote's comprehensive history is a must-listen for anyone interested in one of the bloodiest wars in America's history.

Diary of an Early American Boy


Eric Sloane - 1958
    Profusely illustrated, it will give its readers a sense of participation in the past that is all too rare in conventional histories.

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story


Fellowship of Reconciliation - 1958
    King, and 50,000 others used the power of nonviolence to battle segregation on city buses—and win. First published in December 1957 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, it went unnoticed by the mainstream comic book industry but spread like wildfire among civil rights groups, churches, and schools, helping to mobilize a generation to join the global fight for equality—nonviolently. Personally endorsed by Martin Luther King, Jr. himself, over time this comic book has reached beyond his time and place to inspire activists in Latin America, South Africa, Vietnam, Egypt, and beyond… as well as inspiring March, the new graphic novel trilogy by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. This new fully-authorized digital edition is published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation in partnership with Top Shelf Productions. All proceeds go to F.O.R.'s work promoting nonviolence around the world.

The Zimmermann Telegram


Barbara W. Tuchman - 1958
    Tuchman’s classic histories of the First World War era   In January 1917, the war in Europe was, at best, a tragic standoff. Britain knew that all was lost unless the United States joined the war, but President Wilson was unshakable in his neutrality. At just this moment, a crack team of British decoders in a quiet office known as Room 40 intercepted a document that would change history. The Zimmermann telegram was a top-secret message to the president of Mexico, inviting him to join Germany and Japan in an invasion of the United States. How Britain managed to inform the American government without revealing that the German codes had been broken makes for an incredible story of espionage and intrigue as only Barbara W. Tuchman could tell it.  Praise for The Zimmermann Telegram   “A true, lucid thriller . . . a tremendous tale of hushed and unhushed uproars in the linked fields of war and diplomacy . . . Tuchman makes the most of it with a creative writer’s sense of drama and a scholar’s obeisance to the evidence.”—The New York Times  “The tale has most of the ingredients of an Eric Ambler spy thriller.”—Saturday Review

Abandon Ship!: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy's Greatest Sea Disaster


Richard F. Newcomb - 1958
    Indianapolis had just delivered a secret cargo that would trigger the end of World War II. Heading westward, she was sunk by a Japanese submarine. In twelve minutes, some 300 men went down with her. More than 900 other spent four horrific days and five nights in the ocean with no water to drink, savaged by a pitiless sun and swarms of sharks. Incredibly, no one knew they were there until a Navy patrol plane accidentally discovered them. In the end, only 316 crewmen survived.How could this have happened -- and why? This updated edition of Abandon Ship!, with an Introduction and Afterword by Peter Maas, supplies the chilling answer. A harrowing account of military malfeasance and human tragedy, Abandon Ship! also scrutinizes the role of the U.S. Navy in the disaster, especially the court-martial of the ship's captain, Charles Butler McVay III. Maas reveals facts previously unavailable to Richard Newcomb and chronicles a forty-year crusade to right a wrong, a crusade Abandon Ship! inspired.

The Klondike Fever: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush


Pierre Berton - 1958
    For the steamer Portland bore two tons of pure Klondike gold. And immediately, the stampede north to Alaska began. Easily as many as 100,000 adventurers, dreamers, and would-be miners from all over the world struck out for the remote, isolated gold fields in the Klondike Valley, most of them in total ignorance of the long, harsh Alaskan winters and the territory's indomitable terrain. Less than a third of that number would complete the enormously arduous mountain journey to their destination. Some would strike gold. Berton's story belongs less to the few who would make their fortunes than to the many swept up in the gold mania, to often unfortunate effects and tragic ends. It is a story of cold skies and avalanches, of con men and gamblers and dance hall girls, of sunken ships, of suicides, of dead horses and desperate men, of grizzly old miners and millionaires, of the land — its exploitation and revenge. It is a story of the human capacity to dream, and to endure.

Baa Baa Black Sheep


Gregory Boyington - 1958
    The legendary Marine Corps officer and his bunch of misfits, outcasts, and daredevils gave new definition to "hell-raising" - on the ground and in the skies.Pappy himself was a living legend - he personally shot down 28 Japanese planes, and won the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross. He broke every rule in the book in doing so, but when he fell into the hands of the vengeful Japanese his real ordeal began.Here, in his own words, is the true story of America's wildest flying hero, of his extraordinary heroism, and of his greatest battle of all - the fight to survive.

The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1: Fort Sumter to Kernstown: First Blood--The Thing Gets Underway


Shelby Foote - 1958
    

The Spirit Of Seventy-six: The Story Of The American Revolution As Told By Participants


Henry Steele Commager - 1958
    Renowned scholars Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris have provided a prudent, perceptive answer—the participants themselves—and in the process have fashioned from the vast source material a thrilling chronological narrative. The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six allows readers to experience events long-entombed in textbooks as they unfold for the first time for both Loyalists and Patriots: the Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, the Declaration of Independence, and more. In letters, journals, diaries, official documents, and personal recollections, the timeless figures of the Revolution emerge in all their human splendor and folly to stand beside the nameless soldiers.Profusely illustrated and enhanced by cogent commentary, this book examines every aspect of the war, including the Loyalist and British views; treason and prison escapes; songs and ballads; the home front and diplomacy abroad. In short, the editors have wrought a balanced, sweeping, and compelling documentary history.

First Lady Of The South: The Life Of Mrs. Jefferson Davis


Ishbel Ross - 1958
    The story gives a detailed account of their life in Washington and Richmond, the years of war, and follows their journey during the weeks and months of escape and then—following Jefferson Davis’ release from prison—exile.“EVERY move the made was noticed and commented on. She was accused of being friendly to the North, of harboring spies in her home, of feasting when others starred, of pretentious ways, of nepotism, of not reading the books which she quoted so freely, of extravagant entertaining in hours of crisis, and of meddling in politics and military affairs. Some of the stories were true; many were not, but it is self-evident that she instinctively generated heat lightning around her.”—First Lady of the South.Includes numerous illustrations.

The Great Republic: A History of America


Winston S. Churchill - 1958
    Historian and journalist Winston S. Churchill has added his grandfather's noteworthy speeches and essays on twentieth-century America, so that The Great Republic stands as the definitive state-ment of Churchill's thoughts on the history of the country he so admired and fondly called the "Great Republic." Arguably as gifted a historian as he was a statesman, only Sir Winston Churchill could have written a book that captures America's history, destiny, and character with such brilliance.

Lee of Virginia


Douglas Southall Freeman - 1958
    $4.50 price on DJ flap. A.9-58[v] on copyright page. DJ in Brodart protector.

Exploring with Frémont


Charles Preuss - 1958
    Frémont on his first, second and fourth expeditions.

A Diplomatic History of the American People


Thomas A. Bailey - 1958
    

Flintlock and Tomahawk: New England in King Philips's War


Douglas Edward Leach - 1958
    The battles, massacres, stratagems, and logistics of this war are all detailed, with the leaders of both sides figuring prominently in this tale of bloodshed, privation, and woe. The author weighs all the factors contributing to the Native Americans’ defeat and surveys the effects of the war on the lives of both Indians and colonists in the years to come. With insight, balance, and compassion, Leach portrays the tragedy of the war and points toward the future of the nascent American republic.

The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1897-1909


William Reynolds Braisted - 1958
    Navy won an undisputed place as a major force in the Pacific, and a consideration of the interrelationship of naval and diplomatic policies which brought this about.Professor Braisted's highly readable study covers an area of American naval history which, to a considerable degree, has been neglected, minimized, or misinterpreted. With sound scholarship and imaginative insight he relates in detail the conquest of Hawaii and the Philippines, the Boxer Rebellion and our Open-Door policy in China, the Russo-Japanese War, the maturation of the diplomatic policy of the United States in the Pacific area, and, finally, relations between America and a newly imperialistic Japan, climaxed by Theodore Roosevelt's "Big Stick" Navy world cruise, pointing toward events of the first and second world wars.American diplomatic history too often has been written without adequate attention to economic, military, intellectual, and other motivating factors behind foreign policy, and the study of our naval history too often has been limited to a narrow consideration of wars and campaigns without attention to the navy's continuing influence on foreign and domestic affairs in time of peace. Professor Braisted has avoided both of these pitfalls. He displays considerable literary talent in his perceptive portraits of leading military and political figures of the times.

Red River Campaign: Politics and Cotton in the Civil War


Ludwell H. Johnson - 1958
    General Nathaniel Banks conducted a combined military and naval campaign up the Red River that lasted only from March 12 to May 20, 1864, but was one of the most destructive of the Civil War."It is an ugly tale, and except piecemeal--in diaries, memoirs, and chapters in other books--has not been fully told. Ludwell H. Johnson's book is thorough, scholarly, and moving. He goes into the complex of reasons, beginning with the annexation of Texas, that impelled men to employ shady means top attain decent ends. He goes into the Washington phase of the matter, especially Mr. Lincoln's part in it, something until now unrevealed. . . . Johnson describes the fighting, dollying his camera nicely for close shots when he wants them, giving dreadful pictures of war."--James M. Cain, New York Times Book Review"At a time when so much repetitious material is being produced on the Civil War era it is refreshing to read a monograph characterized by as much originality as this one. The book is well documented and thoroughly done, and the title is well chosen, since the narrative represents a careful intertwining of the play of military factors, cotton, and politics."--H. H. Simms, American Academy of Political & Social Science Annals

The Myth of the Negro Past


Melville J. Herskovits - 1958
    Originally published in 1941, his unprecedented study of black history and culture recovered a rich African heritage in religious and secular life, the language and arts of the Americas.

Altgeld's America


Ray Ginger - 1958
    By the 1880's the "Lincoln morality" of earlier years had given way to the morality of success; compassion was forgotten in desire for wealth. In Chicago, blatant, vigorous, booming, restless, this was particularly true. Labor conditions were appalling, sweatshops were almost universal, child labor was a sickening sore & men injured at their jobs were thrown into the street. Against this background the Haymarket bomb, hurled during a strike at the McCormick plant, exploded with a violence that shook all America & brought to the fore such men as Altgeld, Darrow & Judge Gary who tried the alleged rioters, denying them constitutional rights, hanging some of them & sentencing others to life imprisonment, verdicts questioned by many. Altgeld, a fighter noted for his reforms who had already set his mark on Chicago's social history, was in 1892 elected Governor of Illinois & pardoned the rioters, an act which brought him defeat at the hands of Gary. He died, still fighting for reform, in 1902. Excellently documented, tautly written & highly readable, this book is an invaluable contribution to the literature of America's social & political development & philosophy. It's a must for college & public libraries & for students of social history.--Kirkus

The American Earthquake


Edmund Wilson - 1958
    The resulting chronicle was hailed by the New York Times as "the best reporting that the period of depression has brought forth in the United States," and forms the heart of the present volume. In prose that is by turns dramatic and naturalistic, inflammatory and evocative, satirical and droll, Wilson painted an unforgettable portrait of a time when "the whole structure of American society seemed actually to be going to pieces." The American Earthquake bookends this chronicle with a collection of Wilson's non-literary articles—including criticism, reportage, and some fiction—from the years of "The Follies," 1923–1928, and the dawn of the New Deal, 1932–1934. During this period, Wilson had grown from a little-known journalist to one of the most important American literary and social critics of the century. The American Earthquake amply conveys the astonishing breadth of Wilson's talent, provides an unparalleled vision of one of the most troubling periods in American history, and, perhaps inadvertently, offers a self-portrait comparable to The Education of Henry Adams .

Agriculture in Ante-Bellum Mississippi


John Hebron Moore - 1958
    Moore offers an insightful history of Mississippi's transition from the soil-exhausting frontier agriculture of the early Natchez era to the largely self-sufficient, scientifically based, and highly profitable upland cotton farming that followed in the 1850s and 1860s. The work is distinguished in its thorough discussion of the development of cotton culture in the Natchez District as independent from the efforts of cotton planters along the Atlantic Coast, its exploration of antebellum cotton breeding techniques, and its analysis of the role of the 1837–49 economic depression as the impetus for agricultural renaissance that made cotton Mississippi's most profitable crop in the 1850s.This Southern Classics edition includes a new introduction by agricultural historian Douglas Helms that places the book within the historical context of its original publication and discusses how its influence has become interwoven in current scholarship.

Russia, the Atom and the West


George F. Kennan - 1958
    

The Civil War Reader: The Union Reader / The Confederate Reader


Richard Barksdale Harwell - 1958
    

Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900


Leonard J. Arrington - 1958
    Great Basin Kingdom is perhaps his greatest work. A classic in Mormon studies and western history, Great Basin Kingdom offers insights into the 'underdeveloped' American economy, a comprehensive treatment of one of the few native American religious movements, and detailed, exciting stories from little-known phases of Mormon and American history. This edition includes thirty new pictures and an introduction by Ronald W. Walker that provides a brief biography of Arrington, as well as the history of the work, its place in Mormon and western historiography, and its lasting impact.

In God We Trust The Religious Beliefs And Ideas Of The American Founding Fathers


Norman Cousins - 1958
    

Secret of the Indian Mound


Wilson Gage - 1958