Offers brief profiles of each British monarch, and looks at events, places, objects, and rituals associated with the British throne.

    A multigenerational saga that depicts the lives of two families of Teton Sioux from the late 1700s to the 1830s, before the arrival of the white man.

    Millions of mostly young people defiantly flooded into the nation’s streets, demanding an end to police brutality and to the broader, systemic repression of Black people and other people of color. To many observers, the protests appeared to be without precedent in their scale and persistence. Yet, as the acclaimed historian Elizabeth Hinton demonstrates in America on Fire, the events of 2020 had clear precursors—and any attempt to understand our current crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.Even in the aftermath of Donald Trump, many Americans consider the decades since the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s as a story of progress toward greater inclusiveness and equality. Hinton’s sweeping narrative uncovers an altogether different history, taking us on a troubling journey from Detroit in 1967 and Miami in 1980 to Los Angeles in 1992 and beyond to chart the persistence of structural racism and one of its primary consequences, the so-called urban riot. Hinton offers a critical corrective: the word riot was nothing less than a racist trope applied to events that can only be properly understood as rebellions—explosions of collective resistance to an unequal and violent order. As she suggests, if rebellion and the conditions that precipitated it never disappeared, the optimistic story of a post–Jim Crow United States no longer holds.Black rebellion, America on Fire powerfully illustrates, was born in response to poverty and exclusion, but most immediately in reaction to police violence. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson launched the “War on Crime,” sending militarized police forces into impoverished Black neighborhoods. Facing increasing surveillance and brutality, residents threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at officers, plundered local businesses, and vandalized exploitative institutions. Hinton draws on exclusive sources to uncover a previously hidden geography of violence in smaller American cities, from York, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, to Stockton, California.The central lesson from these eruptions—that police violence invariably leads to community violence—continues to escape policymakers, who respond by further criminalizing entire groups instead of addressing underlying socioeconomic causes. The results are the hugely expanded policing and prison regimes that shape the lives of so many Americans today.Presenting a new framework for understanding our nation’s enduring strife, America on Fire is also a warning: rebellions will surely continue unless police are no longer called on to manage the consequences of dismal conditions beyond their control, and until an oppressive system is finally remade on the principles of justice and equality.

    It is the surprising story of America in the year 1919. In the aftermath of an unprecedented worldwide war and a flu pandemic, Americans began the year full of hope, expecting to reap the benefits of peace. But instead, the fear of terrorism filled their days. Bolshevism was the new menace, and the federal government, utilizing a vast network of domestic spies, began to watch anyone deemed suspicious. A young lawyer named J. Edgar Hoover headed a brand-new intelligence division of the Bureau of Investigation (later to become the FBI). Bombs exploded on the doorstep of the attorney general's home in Washington, D.C., and thirty-six parcels containing bombs were discovered at post offices across the country. Poet and journalist Carl Sandburg, recently returned from abroad with a trunk full of Bolshevik literature, was detained in New York, his trunk seized. A twenty-one-year-old Russian girl living in New York was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for protesting U.S. intervention in Arctic Russia, where thousands of American soldiers remained after the Armistice, ostensibly to guard supplies but in reality to join a British force meant to be a warning to the new Bolshevik government.In 1919, wartime legislation intended to curb criticism of the government was extended and even strengthened. Labor strife was a daily occurrence. And decorated African-American soldiers, returning home to claim the democracy for which they had risked their lives, were badly disappointed. Lynchings continued, race riots would erupt in twenty-six cities before the year ended, and secret agents from the government's "Negro Subversion" unit routinely shadowed outspoken African-Americans.Adding a vivid human drama to the greater historical narrative, "Savage Peace" brings 1919 alive through the people who played a major role in making the year so remarkable. Among them are William Monroe Trotter, who tried to put democracy for African-Americans on the agenda at the Paris peace talks; Supreme Court associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who struggled to find a balance between free speech and legitimate government restrictions for reasons of national security, producing a memorable decision for the future of free speech in America; and journalist Ray Stannard Baker, confidant of President Woodrow Wilson, who watched carefully as Wilson's idealism crumbled and wrote the best accounts we have of the president's frustration and disappointment.Weaving together the stories of a panoramic cast of characters, from Albert Einstein to Helen Keller, Ann Hagedorn brilliantly illuminates America at a pivotal moment.

    entry into World War I and closing with the Great Depression, The Perils of Prosperity traces the transformation of America from an agrarian, moralistic, isolationist nation into a liberal, industrialized power involved in foreign affairs in spite of itself. William E. Leuchtenburg's lively yet balanced account of this hotly debated era in American history has been a standard text for many years. This substantial revision gives greater weight to the roles of women and minorities in the great changes of the era and adds new insights into literature, the arts, and technology in daily life. He has also updated the lists of important dates and resources for further reading. “This book gives us a rare opportunity to enjoy the matured interpretation of an American Historian who has returned to the story and seen how recent decades have added meaning and vividness to this epoch of our history.”—Daniel J. Boorstin, from the Preface

    Radicalism is as American as apple pie. One can scarcely imagine what American society would look like without the abolitionists, feminists, socialists, union organizers, civil-rights workers, gay and lesbian activists, and environmentalists who have fought stubbornly to breathe life into the promises of freedom and equality that lie at the heart of American democracy. The first anthology of its kind, The Radical Reader brings together more than 200 primary documents in a comprehensive collection of the writings of America's native radical tradition. Spanning the time from the colonial period to the twenty-first century, the documents have been drawn from a wealth of sources—speeches, manifestos, newspaper editorials, literature, pamphlets, and private letters. From Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" to Kate Millett's "Sexual Politics," these are the documents that sparked, guided, and distilled the most influential movements in American history. Brief introductory essays by the editors provide a rich biographical and historical context for each selection included. Includes: • Common Sense, Thomas Paine • Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln • Confession, Nat Turner • Last Speech to the Jury, John Brown • Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, Sarah Grimke • Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca Falls Convention • Life in the Iron Mills, Rebecca Harding Davis • Speech to Striking Coal Miners, Mother Jones • Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. • The Ballot or the Bullet, Malcolm X • The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan • Silent Spring, Rachel Carson

    In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?”, The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States."Recent months have witnessed an attack of unprecedented passion and ferocity against the national government. The Republican Party has apparently embarked on a crusade to destroy national standards, national projects, and national regulations and to transfer domestic governing authority from the national government to the states. A near majority of the Supreme Court even seems to want to replace the Constitution by the Articles of Confederation…"Unbridled rhetoric is having consequences far beyond anything that antigovernment politicians intend. The flow of angry words seems to have activated and in a sense legitimized what the historian Richard Hofstadter called the 'paranoid strain' in American politics." - Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Wall Street Journal, June 7, 1995

     Frequently the two groups resorted to violence assert their rights to the lands. J. W. Wilbarger’s remarkable book Indian Depredations in Texas contains more than 250 separate narratives of attacks and counterattacks that occurred from the 1820s to the 1870s. Wilbarger, a pioneer who had emigrated to Texas in 1837, was fully aware of the dangers that he faced by living on the frontier of the American West as his own brother had miraculously survived being scalped and left for dead in 1833. Over the course of the next fifty years Wilbarger compiled accounts of Native American attacks that formed the basis of his book. Yet, rather than simply relying on hearsay and rumors of attacks, he sought out the victims and as he states in his Preface, many of the articles had been “written by others, who were either cognizant of the facts themselves or had obtained them from reliable sources." This book is fascinating work that remains an importance source covering the early settlement of the region by Americans, based on stories told by surviving pioneers. "unique among pioneer chronicles." — J. Frank Dobie J. B. Wilbarger was a Methodist minister, author and pioneer. He first moved West to Texas in 1837 at the urging of his brother Josiah Pugh Wilbarger. His book Indian Depredations in Texas was first published in 1889 and he passed away in 1892.

    The ensuing fifteen-month campaign, memorialised in John Huston's extraordinary documentary film, was 'the weirdest war ever waged': a terrible, elemental and always three-sided battle, between the Americans, the Japanese and the weather. Frozen puddies of oil could be lifted like boards. Servicement burned summer clothing for fuel. Aircrews flew amidst icy rain, driven upside-down by gales. The eventual liberation of the island of Attu was second only to Iwo Jima in the percentage of American casualties. Brian Garfield's book, never before published in the UK, is the definitive history of this 'Forgotten War'.

    O’Keefe takes us on a heart-pounding journey at the sharp end of combat during the infamous Normandy campaign. More than 300 soldiers from the Black Watch found themselves pinned down, as the result of strategic blunders and the fog of war, and only a handful walked away. Thrust into a nightmare, Black Watch Highlanders who hailed from across Canada, the United States, Great Britain and the Allied world found themselves embroiled in a mortal contest against elite Waffen-SS units and grizzled Eastern Front veterans, where station, rank, race and religion mattered little, and only character won the day. Drawing on formerly classified documents and rare first-person testimony of the men who fought on the front lines, O’Keefe follows the footsteps of the ghosts of Normandy, giving a voice yet again to the men who sacrificed everything in the summer of 1944.

    The US president and his wife have just enough time to pack their belongings and escape from the White House before the enemy enters. The invaders tuck into the dinner they find still sitting on the dining-room table and then set fire to the place. September 11th, 2001 was not the first time the heartland of the United States was struck a devastating blow by outsiders. Two centuries earlier, Great Britain - now America's close friend, then its bitterest enemy - set Washington ablaze before turning its sights to Baltimore. In his compelling narrative style, Peter Snow recounts the fast-changing fortunes of both sides of this extraordinary confrontation, the outcome of which inspired the writing of the 'Star-Spangled Banner', America's national anthem. Using a wealth of material including eyewitness accounts, he also describes the colourful personalities on both sides of these spectacular events: Britain's fiery Admiral Cockburn, the cautious but immensely popular army commander Robert Ross, and sharp-eyed diarists James Scott and George Gleig. On the American side: beleaguered President James Madison, whose young nation is fighting the world's foremost military power, his wife Dolley, a model of courage and determination, military heroes such as Joshua Barney and Sam Smith, and flawed incompetents like Army Chief William Winder and War Secretary John Armstrong. When Britain Burned the White House highlights this unparalleled moment in American history, its far-reaching consequences for both sides and Britain's and America's decision never again to fight each other.

    Delivered in New York in February 1860, the Cooper Union speech dispelled doubts about Lincoln's suitability for the presidency and reassured conservatives of his moderation while reaffirming his opposition to slavery to Republican progressives. Award-winning Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer places Lincoln and his speech in the context of the times -- an era of racism, politicized journalism, and public oratory as entertainment -- and shows how the candidate framed the speech as an opportunity to continue his famous "debates" with his archrival Democrat Stephen A. Douglas on the question of slavery. Holzer describes the enormous risk Lincoln took by appearing in New York, where he exposed himself to the country's most critical audience and took on Republican Senator William Henry Seward of New York, the front runner, in his own backyard. Then he recounts a brilliant and innovative public relations campaign, as Lincoln took the speech "on the road" in his successful quest for the presidency.

    Here for the first time he reveals the contents of those documents, and makes clear their shocking relevance for today.The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg’s hair-raising insider’s account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy—and proposed renewal under the Trump administration—threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high-level access to them. No other insider has written so candidly of that long-classified history, though the policies remain fundamentally, and frighteningly, unchanged Ellsberg, in the end, offers steps we can take under the current administration to avoid nuclear catastrophe. Framed as a memoir, this gripping exposé reads like a thriller with cloak-and-dagger intrigue, placing Ellsberg back in his natural role as whistle-blower. It is a real-life Dr. Strangelove story, but an ultimately hopeful—and powerfully important—book.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    But then, Tom Paine isn't your typical founding father. A firebrand rebel and a radical on the run, Paine alone claims a key role in the development of three modern democracies. In death, his story turns truly bizarre. Shunned as an infidel by every church, he had to be interred in an open field on a New York farm. Ten years later, a former enemy converting to Paine's cause dug up the bones and carried them back to Britain, where he planned to build a mausoleum in Paine's honor. But he never got around to it. So what happened to the body of this founding father?Well, it got lost. Paine's missing bones, like saint's relics, have been scattered for two centuries, and their travels are the trail of radical democracy itself. Paul Collins combines wry, present-day travelogue with an odyssey down the forgotten paths of history as he searches for the remains of Tom Paine and finds them hidden in, among other places, a Paris hotel, underneath a London tailor's stool, and inside a roadside statue in New York. Along the way he crosses paths with everyone from Walt Whitman and Charles Darwin to sex reformers and hellfire ministers—not to mention a suicidal gunman, a Ferrari dealer, and berserk feral monkeys.In the end, Collins's search for Paine's body instead finds the soul of democracy—for it is the story of how Paine's struggles have lived on through his eccentric and idealistic followers.