U.S. History
Showing 97–128 of 144 results
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And They All Sang
Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey$16.99 – $25.95The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian talks with some of twentieth century’s most iconic musicians—“Riveting . . . Just about every interview has a revelation” (San Francisco Chronicle).
Through the second half of the twentieth century, Studs Terkel hosted the legendary radio show “The Wax Museum,” presenting Chicago’s music fans with his inimitable take on music of all kinds, from classical, opera, and jazz to gospel, blues, folk, and rock. Featuring more than forty of Terkel’s conversations with some of the greatest musicians of the past century, And They All Sang is “a tribute to music’s universality and power” (Philadelphia Inquirer). Included here are fascinating conversations with Louis Armstrong, Leonard Bernstein, Big Bill Broonzy, Bob Dylan, Dizzy Gillespie, Mahalia Jackson, Janis Joplin, Rosa Raisa, Pete Seeger, and many others.
As the esteemed music critic Anthony DeCurtis wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “the terms ‘interview’ or ‘oral history’ don’t begin to do justice to what Terkel achieves in these conversations, which are at once wildly ambitious and as casual as can be.” Whether discussing Enrico Caruso’s nervousness on stage with opera diva Edith Mason or the Beatles’ 1966 encounter in London with revered Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, “Terkel’s singular gift for bringing his subjects to life in their own words should strike a chord with any music fan old enough to have replaced a worn-out record needle” (The New York Times).
“Whether diva or dustbowl balladeer, Studs treats them all alike, with deep knowledge and an intimate, conversational approach . . . as this often remarkable book shows, Studs Terkel has remained mesmerized by great music throughout his life.” —The Guardian
“[Terkel’s] expertise is evident on every page, whether debating the harmonic structure of the spirituals or discerning the subtleties of Keith Jarrett’s piano technique . . . As ever, he is the most skillful of interviewers.” —The Independent
“What makes And They All Sang a rousing success isn’t just Terkel’s phenomenal range and broad knowledge, it’s his passionate love of the music and his deep humanity.” —San Francisco Chronicle -
Conspiracy in the Streets
The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Seven$17.99THE TRIAL THAT IS NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
Reprinted to coincide with the release of the new Aaron Sorkin film, this book provides the political background of this infamous trial, narrating the utter craziness of the courtroom and revealing both the humorous antics and the serious politics involved
Opening at the end of 1969—a politically charged year at the beginning of Nixon’s presidency and at the height of the anti-war movement—the Trial of the Chicago Seven (which started out as the Chicago Eight) brought together Yippies, antiwar activists, and Black Panthers to face conspiracy charges following massive protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, protests which continue to have remarkable contemporary resonance.
The defendants—Rennie Davis, Dave Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale (the co-founder of the Black Panther Party who was ultimately removed from the trial, making it seven and not eight who were on trial), and Lee Weiner—openly lampooned the proceedings, blowing kisses to the jury, wearing their own judicial robes, and bringing a Viet Cong flag into the courtroom. Eventually the judge ordered Seale to be bound and gagged for insisting on representing himself. Adding to the theater in the courtroom an array of celebrity witnesses appeared, among them Timothy Leary, Norman Mailer, Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins, and Allen Ginsberg (who provoked the prosecution by chanting “Om” on the witness stand).
This book combines an abridged transcript of the trial with astute commentary by historian and journalist Jon Wiener, and brings to vivid life an extraordinary event which, like Woodstock, came to epitomize the late 1960s and the cause for free speech and the right to protest—causes that are very much alive a half century later. As Wiener writes, “At the end of the sixties, it seemed that all the conflicts in America were distilled and then acted out in the courtroom of the Chicago Conspiracy trial.”
An afterword by the late Tom Hayden examines the trial’s ongoing relevance, and drawings by Jules Feiffer help recreate the electrifying atmosphere of the courtroom.
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History Lessons
How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History$18.95 – $26.95A “fascinating” look at what students in Russia, France, Iran, and other nations are taught about America (The New York Times Book Review).
This “timely and important” book (History News Network) gives us a glimpse into classrooms across the globe, where opinions about the United States are first formed.
History Lessons includes selections from textbooks and teaching materials used in Russia, France, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Canada, and others, covering such events as the American Revolution, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Iran hostage crisis, and the Korean War—providing some alternative viewpoints on the history of the United States from the time of the Viking explorers to the post-Cold War era.
By juxtaposing starkly contrasting versions of the historical events we take for granted, History Lessons affords us a sometimes hilarious, often sobering look at what the world thinks about America’s past.
“A brilliant idea.” —Foreign Affairs -
Prophets Of Protest
Reconsidering The History Of American Abolitionism$22.95 – $60.00The campaign to abolish slavery in the United States was the most powerful and effective social movement of the nineteenth century and has served as a recurring source of inspiration for every subsequent struggle against injustice. But the abolitionist story has traditionally focused on the evangelical impulses of white, male, middle-class reformers, obscuring the contributions of many African Americans, women, and others.
Prophets of Protest, the first collection of writings on abolitionism in more than a generation, draws on an immense new body of research in African American studies, literature, art history, film, law, women’s studies, and other disciplines. The book incorporates new thinking on such topics as the role of early black newspapers, antislavery poetry, and abolitionists in film and provides new perspectives on familiar figures such as Sojourner Truth, Louisa May Alcott, Frederick Douglass, and John Brown.
With contributions from the leading scholars in the field, Prophets of Protest is a long overdue update of one of the central reform movements in America’s history.
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Iraq
The Logic of Withdrawal$19.95Three years after the start of the war in Iraq, violence and misery continue to plague the country, and conservatives and liberals alike are struggling with the question of when—and under what circumstances—U.S. and coalition forces should leave. In this cogent and compelling book, Anthony Arnove argues that the U.S. occupation is the major source of instability and suffering for the Iraqi people. Challenging the idea that George W. Bush has ever been interested in bringing democracy to the country—as well as the view held by many on both sides of the political spectrum that it would be more damaging to leave prematurely—Arnove explores the real reasons behind the invasion. He shows why continuing the occupation is both a wildly unrealistic and reckless strategy, one that is making the world a more dangerous place.
Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal concludes by laying out a clear vision for the antiwar movement, one that constructively involves soldiers, military families, and the many communities affected by the occupation, who together, Arnove argues, can build the needed coalition to bring the troops home.
Nearly forty years ago, historian, activist, and bestselling author Howard Zinn—whose foreword and afterword frame Arnove’s book—published Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, which argued with remarkable foresight that getting out of Vietnam was the only realistic option. Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal will likely prove equally prescient.
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Lessons of Empire
Imperial Histories And American Power$19.95 – $60.00In the shadow of America’s recent military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, distinguished historians of empires and noted international relations specialists consider the dirty word “empire” in the face of contemporary political reality. Is “empire” a useful way to talk about America’s economic, cultural, political, and military power?
This final volume in the Social Science Research Council “After September 11” series examines what the experience of past empires tells us about the nature and consequences of global power. How do the goals and circumstances of the United States today compare to classical imperialist projects of rule over others, whether for economic exploitation or in pursuit of a “civilizing mission”?
Reviewing the much contested history of domination by Western colonizing powers, Lessons of Empire asks what lessons the history of these empires can teach us about the world today.
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Slavery And Public History
The Tough Stuff of American Memory$27.95 – $27.99“A fascinating collection of essays” by eminent historians exploring how we teach, remember, and confront the history and legacy of American slavery (Booklist Online).
In recent years, the culture wars have called into question the way America’s history of slavery is depicted in books, films, television programs, historical sites, and museums. In the first attempt to examine the historiography of slavery, this unique collection of essays looks at recent controversies that have played out in the public arena, with contributions by such noted historians as Ira Berlin, David W. Blight, and Gary B. Nash.
From the cancellation of the Library of Congress’s “Back of the Big House” slavery exhibit at the request of the institution’s African American employees, who found the visual images of slavery too distressing, to the public reaction to DNA findings confirming Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings, Slavery and Public History takes on contemporary reactions to the fundamental contradiction of American history—the existence of slavery in a country dedicated to freedom—and offers a bracing analysis of how Americans choose to remember the past, and how those choices influence our politics and culture.
“Americans seem perpetually surprised by slavery—its extent (North as well as South), its span (over half of our four centuries of Anglo settlement), and its continuing influence. The wide-ranging yet connected essays in [this book] will help us all to remember and understand.” —James W. Loewen, author of Sundown Towns -
Economic Apartheid In America
A Primer On Economic Inequality & Insecurity$16.95 – $23.95This updated edition of the widely touted Economic Apartheid in America looks at the causes and manifestations of wealth disparities in the United States, including tax policy in light of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and recent corporate scandals.
Published with two leading organizations dedicated to addressing economic inequality, the book looks at recent changes in income and wealth distribution and examines the economic policies and shifts in power that have fueled the growing divide.
Praised by Sojurners as “a clear blueprint on how to combat growing inequality,” Economic Apartheid in America provides “much-needed groundwork for more democratic discussion and participation in economic life” (Tikkun). With “a wealth of eye-opening data” (The Beacon) focusing on the decline of organized labor and civic institutions, the battle over global trade, and the growing inequality of income and wages, it argues that most Americans are shut out of the discussion of the rules governing their economic lives. Accessible and engaging and illustrated throughout with charts, graphs, and political cartoons, the book lays out a comprehensive plan for action.
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Slavery in New York
$25.00The recent discovery of the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan reminded Americans that slavery in the United States was not merely a phenomenon of the antebellum South. In fact, for most of its history, New York was a slave city.
Edited by Ira Berlin, the Bancroft Prize–winning author of Many Thousands Gone, and Leslie Harris, Slavery in New York brings together twelve new contributions by leading historians of slavery and African American life in New York. Published to accompany a major exhibit at the New York Historical Society, the book demonstrates how slavery shaped the day-to-day experience of New Yorkers, black and white, and how, as a way of doing business, it propelled New York to become the commercial and financial power it is today.
Powerfully illustrated with images from the New York Historical Society exhibit, Slavery and the Making of New York will be the definitive account of New York’s slave past.
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American Dreams
Lost and Found$16.95In this unique look at one of our most pervasive national myths, Studs Terkel persuades an extraordinary range of Americans to articulate their version of “The American Dream.” Beginning with an embittered winner of the Miss U.S.A. contest who sees the con behind the dream of success and including an early interview with a highly ambitious Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terkel explores the diverse landscape of the promise of the United States—from farm kids dreaming of the city to city kids determined to get out, from the Boston Brahmin to the KKK member, from newly arrived immigrants to families who have lived in this country for generations, these narratives include figures both famous and infamous. Filtered through the lens of our leading oral historian, the chorus of voices in American Dreams highlights the hopes and struggles of coming to and living in the United States. Originally published in 1980, this is a classic work of oral history that provides an extraordinary and moving picture of everyday American lives.
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Hard Times
An Illustrated Oral History of the Great Depression$17.99 – $25.99
First published in 1970, Studs Terkel’s bestselling Hard Times has been called “a huge anthem in praise of the American spirit” (Saturday Review) and “an invaluable record” (The New York Times). With his trademark grace and compassion, Terkel evokes a mosaic of memories from those who were richest to those who were destitute: politicians, businessmen, artists and writers, racketeers, speakeasy operators, strikers, impoverished farmers, people who were just kids, and those who remember losing a fortune.
Now, in a handsome new illustrated edition, a selection of Studs’s unforgettable interviews are complemented by images from another rich documentary trove of the Depression experience: Farm Security Administration photographs from the Library of Congress. Interspersed throughout the text of Hard Times, these breathtaking photographs by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Jack Delano, and others expand the human scope of the voices captured in the book, adding a new dimension to Terkel’s incomparable volume. Hard Times is the perfect introduction to Terkel’s work for new readers, as well as a beautiful new addition to any Terkel library.
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A Matter Of Law
$17.95 – $24.95 -
A People’s History Of The Vietnam War
$20.95This latest addition to The New Press’s People’s History series offers an incisive account of the war America lost, from the perspective of those who opposed it on both sides of the battlefront as well as on the homefront.
The protagonists in Neale’s history of the “American War” (as the Vietnamese refer to it) are common people struggling to shape the outcome of events unfolding on an international stage—American foot soldiers who increasingly opposed American military policy on the ground in Vietnam, local Vietnamese activists and guerrillas fighting to build a just society, and the American civilians who mobilized to bring the war to a halt.
His narrative includes vivid, first-person commentary from the ordinary men and women whose collective actions resulted in the defeat of the world’s most powerful military machine.
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Cold War Triumphalism
$18.95 – $27.95 -
Brown V. Board
The Landmark Oral Argument Before the Supreme Court$29.95The transcripts, never before available to the general reading public, of “the most important American governmental act of any kind since the Emancipation Proclamation” (Louis Pollack, Yale University)Brown v. Board of Education sparked a revolution in race relations that transformed America’s social and political landscape. Argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952 and 1953, the case was a historic encounter between the forces of racial segregation and the burgeoning civil rights movement. The resulting decision, which outlawed segregation in public schools, set the stage for decades of legal and political disputes that have yet to be resolved.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the decision, The New Press is publishing the transcripts of the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the Brown case. Never before available to a general reading audience, the Brown transcripts are among the most revealing documents of contemporary history, with a cast of characters—Thurgood Marshall, Hugo Black, and Felix Frankfurter—that includes some of the towering legal and political figures of the past century. -
The Class of ’75
Reflections on the Last Quarter of the 20th Century by Harvard Graduates$25.95At the time of their twenty-fifth reunion in the year 2000, members of the Harvard Class of ’75 were uniquely poised to reflect on their first quarter century out of college, which happened to coincide with the last quarter century of the millennium. Published here with the participation of contributing graduates, independent of the university, these essays offer a fascinating perspective on life trajectories, changing mores, evolving priorities, and issues of race, class, and gender as seen and lived by graduates of one of the country’s premier universities.
With a substantial analytic essay by Pulitzer Prize–winning Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles, “before” and “after” photos, and fascinating data on career choices, marital choices, and avocational interests, The Class of ’75 will take its place next to Michael Medved’s What Really Happened to the Class of 65 and George Vaillant’s classic study of Harvard graduates, Adaptation to Life, as a seminal longitudinal look at a landmark era in the words of the people who lived through it.
This book has not been authorized by Harvard University.
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A Race Against Death
Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust$17.95In his landmark bestseller The Abandonment of the Jews, David Wyman exhaustively detailed America’s failure to help rescue the victims of Nazi genocide. But one man, Peter Bergson, led a tireless battle against that tide of indifference, making it impossible for American leaders to plead ignorance of the German atrocities. Now, Wyman, along with Rafael Medoff, tells for the first time the story of the man who led America’s most effective campaign to rescue victims of the Holocaust.
A Race Against Death utilizes extensive firsthand interviews to present Peter Bergson’s own account of his remarkable life and struggles. Facing deportation from America and threats on his life, Bergson employed every conceivable method to influence policy and public opinion: he personally hounded Congressmen to support a rescue; placed controversial full-page ads in major newspapers demanding action; and drew a record crowd of 40,000 to a rally and memorial pageant at Madison Square Garden.
Award-winning historian David Wyman is the definitive authority on America’s action—and inaction—during the Holocaust. In A Race Against Death, he and Rafael Medoff return to this tragic era in American history and chronicle one of its few heroes.
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The Radical Reader
$24.99 – $65.00The first anthology of its kind, The Radical Reader brings together more than 200 primary documents in the most comprehensive collection ever assembled of the writings of America s native radical tradition.
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The White House Tapes
Eavesdropping on the President$35.00A book and CD set, the first collection that permits Americans to listen directly to their presidents as they speak not in the studied phrases of speeches but in the real heat of the moment, based on transcripts of the conversations
The White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on the President is a fascinating portrait of eight recent American presidents—including Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan—as they respond to some of the most critical events of the late twentieth century. Edited by historian John Prados, the book contains transcripts of the heat-of-the-moment Oval Office phone conversations and confidential meetings (often with participants who did not know they were being recorded) that changed the course of history. A comprehensive introductory essay on the history of presidential recordings and detailed introductions to the transcripts themselves put these key moments in American history in context.
Never intended for public consumption, one exchange captured here constitutes the famous “smoking gun” tapes of the Watergate era. Another sequence has Lyndon Johnson finding out from J. Edgar Hoover about the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi just as he also learns from Robert McNamara about the breaking crisis in Vietnam’s Gulf of Tonkin. Take together, the selected conversations with top aides, political figures, and heads of state (including Walter White, Sam Rayburn, William Colby, Martin Luther King Jr., Billy Graham, H.R. Haldeman, Henry Kissinger, Yitzhak Rabin, and Anwar el-Sadat), reveal the true inner workings of the American presidency and offer us an unparalleled opportunity to be a fly on the wall at the meetings we were never supposed to hear.
This book is published in conjunction with “White House Tapes: The President Calling,” a new radio documentary produced by Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis of American Radio Works®. A compact disc of the program accompanies this book in a set that also includes eight compact discs on the secret Oval Office recordings featured here.
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The Decline of American Power
The U.S. in a Chaotic World$19.95 – $50.00The internationally renowned theorist contends that the sun is setting on the American empire in this “lucid, informed, and insightful” account (The New York Times).
The United States currently finds itself [a] superpower that lacks true power, a world leader nobody follows and few respect, and a nation drifting dangerously amidst a global chaos it cannot control.
The United States in decline? Its admirers and detractors alike claim the opposite: America is now in a position of unprecedented global supremacy. But in fact, Immanuel Wallerstein argues, a more nuanced evaluation of recent history reveals that America has been fading as a global power since the end of the Vietnam War, and its response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 looks certain to hasten that decline. In this provocative collection, the visionary originator of world-systems analysis and the most innovative social scientist of his generation turns a practiced analytical eye to the turbulent beginnings of the twenty-first century. Touching on globalization, Islam, racism, democracy, intellectuals, and the state of the left wing, Wallerstein upends conventional wisdom to produce a clear-eyed—and troubling—assessment of the crumbling international order.
“[Wallerstein’s thought] provides a new framework for the subject of European history . . . it is compelling, a new explanation, a new classification, indeed a revolutionary one, of received knowledge and current thought.” —Fernand Braudel -
A People’s History of the United States
The Civil War to the Present$19.95 – $30.00An abridged classroom edition of Howard Zinn’s bestselling history of the United States, with teaching materials to accompany each chapter.
Like Volume I, each chapter in Volume II provides exercises and teaching materials that allow students to begin a critical inquiry into the American past. Volume II covers the Civil War through the present, with new chapters on the Clinton Presidency, the 2000 elections, and the “war on terrorism.” -
White
The Biography of Walter White, Mr. Naacp$29.95From his earliest years, Walter White was determined to transcend the rigid boundaries of segregation-era America. An African American of exceptionally light complexion, White went undercover as a young man to expose the depredations of Southern lynch mobs. As executive secretary of the NAACP from 1931 until his death in 1955, White was among the nation’s preeminent champions of civil rights, leading influential national campaigns against lynching, segregation in the military, and racism in Hollywood movies.
White is portrayed here for the first time in his full complexity, a man whose physical appearance enabled him to negotiate two very different worlds in segregated America, yet who saw himself above all as an organization man, “Mr. NAACP.” Deeply researched and richly documented, White’s biography provides a revealing vantage point from which to view the leading political and cultural figures of his time—including W.E.B. Du Bois, Eleanor Roosevelt, and James Weldon Johnson—and an unrivaled glimpse into the contentious world of civil rights politics and activism in the pre–civil rights era.
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The Unmaking of the American Working Class
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From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend
An Illustrated History of Labor in the United States$18.95 – $21.99Newly updated: “An enjoyable introduction to American working-class history.” —The American Prospect
Praised for its “impressive even-handedness”, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend has set the standard for viewing American history through the prism of working people (Publishers Weekly, starred review). From indentured servants and slaves in seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley, the book “[puts] a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor”, enlivened by illustrations from the celebrated comics journalist Joe Sacco (Library Journal).
Now, the authors have added a wealth of fresh analysis of labor’s role in American life, with new material on sex workers, disability issues, labor’s relation to the global justice movement and the immigrants’ rights movement, the 2005 split in the AFL-CIO and the movement civil wars that followed, and the crucial emergence of worker centers and their relationships to unions. With two entirely new chapters—one on global developments such as offshoring and a second on the 2016 election and unions’ relationships to Trump—this is an “extraordinarily fine addition to U.S. history [that] could become an evergreen . . . comparable to Howard Zinn’s award-winning A People’s History of the United States” (Publishers Weekly).
“A marvelously informed, carefully crafted, far-ranging history of working people.” —Noam Chomsky -
The Unfinished City
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Radical Hollywood
The Untold Story Behind America's Favorite Movies$19.95 – $29.95Radical Hollywood is the first comprehensive history of the Hollywood Left. From the dawn of sound movies to the early 1950s, Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner trace the political and personal lives of the screenwriters, actors, directors, and producers on the Left and the often decisive impact of their work upon American film’s Golden Age.
Full of rich anecdotes, biographical detail, and explorations of movies well known, unjustly forgotten, and delightfully bizarre, the book is “an intelligent, well argued and absorbing examination of how politics and art can make startling and often strange bedfellows” (Publishers Weekly). Featuring an insert of rare film stills, Radical Hollywood relates the story behind the story of films in such genres as crime, women’s films, family cinema, war, animation, and, particularly, film noir.
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The First American Revolution
$15.99 – $26.95The best single-volume history of the Revolution I have read.
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Dr. Seuss Goes to War
The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel$21.99 – $24.99“A fascinating collection” of wartime cartoons from the beloved children’s author and illustrator (The New York Times Book Review).
For decades, readers throughout the world have enjoyed the marvelous stories and illustrations of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. But few know the work Geisel did as a political cartoonist during World War II, for the New York daily newspaper PM. In these extraordinarily trenchant cartoons, Geisel presents “a provocative history of wartime politics” (Entertainment Weekly). Dr. Seuss Goes to War features handsome, large-format reproductions of more than two hundred of Geisel’s cartoons, alongside “insightful” commentary by the historian Richard H. Minear that places them in the context of the national climate they reflect (Booklist).
Pulitzer Prize–winner Art Spiegelman’s introduction places Seuss firmly in the pantheon of the leading political cartoonists of our time.
“A shocker—this cat is not in the hat!” —Studs Terkel
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Working-Class New York
Life and Labor Since World War II$25.95 – $27.99A “lucid, detailed, and imaginative analysis” (The Nation) of the model city that working-class New Yorkers created after World War II—and its tragic demise
More than any other city in America, New York in the years after the Second World War carved out an idealistic and equitable path to the future. Largely through the efforts of its working class and the dynamic labor movement it built, New York City became the envied model of liberal America and the scourge of conservatives everywhere: cheap and easy-to-use mass transit, work in small businesses and factories that had good wages and benefits, affordable public housing, and healthcare for all.
Working-Class New York is an “engrossing” (Dissent) account of the birth of that ideal and the way it came crashing down. In what Publishers Weekly calls “absorbing and beautifully detailed history,” historian Joshua Freeman shows how the anticommunist purges of the 1950s decimated the ranks of the labor movement and demoralized its idealists, and how the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s dealt another crushing blow to liberal ideals as the city’s wealthy elite made a frenzied grab for power.
A grand work of cultural and social history, Working-Class New York is a moving chronicle of a dream that died but may yet rise again.
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Capital Moves
Rca's Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor$19.95Globalization is the lead story of the new century, but its roots reach back nearly one hundred years, to major corporations’ quest for stable, inexpensive, and pliant sources of labor. Before the largest companies moved beyond national boundaries, they crossed state lines, abandoning the industrial centers of the Eastern Seaboard for impoverished rural communities in the Midwest and South. In their wake they left the decaying urban landscapes and unemployment rates that became hallmarks of late twentieth-century America. This is the story that Jefferson Cowie, in “a stunningly important work of historical imagination and rediscovery” (Nelson Lichtenstein), tells through the lens of a single American corporation, RCA.
Capital Moves takes us through the interconnected histories of Camden, New Jersey; Bloomington, Indiana; Memphis, Tennessee; and Juárez, Mexico—four cities radically transformed by America’s leading manufacturer of records and radio sets. In a sweeping narrative of economic upheaval and class conflict, Cowie weaves together the rich detail of local history with the national—and ultimately international—story of economic and social change.
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Hitler’s Exiles
Personal Stories of the Flight from Nazi Germany to America$16.95A 1998 Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, Hitler’s Exiles is a panoramic, first-person account of the flight from Hitler’s Germany to America. From forgotten archives and obscure published sources, Hitler’s Exiles brings to life the unknown voices of that harrowing time by focusing on the ordinary people who underwent a most extraordinary voyage. Also included are little-known writings by such major figures as Thomas Mann, Hannah Arendt, and Bertolt Brecht. Hitler’s Exiles is at once a moving human account and a new classic of the literature of exile.
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The Kissinger Transcripts
$18.95Considered among the most important Cold War records to emerge thus far by the former Beijing bureau chief of the New York Times, The Kissinger Transcripts gives readers the unvarnished record of Henry Kissinger s diplomacy during the Nixon years.
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