U.S. History
Showing 129–144 of 144 results
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Law and History
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Universities and Empire
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Bay of Pigs Declassified
The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba$24.95For decades, the CIA’s top secret postmortem on the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion has been the holy grail of historians, students, and survivors of the failed invasion of Cuba. But the scathing internal report on the worst foreign policy debacle of the Kennedy administration, written by the CIA’s then–inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick, has remained tightly guarded—until now.
Dislodged from the government through the Freedom of Information Act, here is an uncompromising look at high officials’ arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence, as displayed in their attitude toward Castro’s revolution and toward the Cuban exiles the CIA had organized to invade the island. Including the complete report and a wealth of supplementary materials, Bay of Pigs Declassified provides a fascinating picture of the operation and of the secret world of the espionage establishment, with stories of plots, counterplots, and intra-agency power struggles worthy of a Le Carré novel.
Includes: the complete text of the CIA report; a critical introduction; the newly declassified response to the report from Richard Bissell, who masterminded the operation; the first joint interview with the managers of the invasion, Jacob Esterline and Colonel Jack Hawkins; a comprehensive chronology; and biographies of the key participants.
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Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
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Families and Freedom
A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era$16.95A sequel to the award-winning Free at Last that includes moving letters from freed enslaved people to their familiesDrawn from the work of award-winning Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland, Families and Freedom tells the story of the remaking of the black family during the tumultuous years of the Civil War era. Through the dramatic and moving letters and testimony of freed enslaved persons, the documents in Families and Freedom provide deep insight into the most intimate aspects of the transformation of captives to free people. This book is the sequel to the 1994 Lincoln Prize winner Free at Last, which was described in the New York Times as “this generation’s most significant encounter with the American past.” -
Black Heritage Sites
The South$20.95Winner of a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award, Black Heritage Sites is a unique guide to the major landmarks of African American history across the United States. The two companion volumes include descriptions and detailed visitor information for hundreds of places of national and local significance, from churches and schools to landmarks of the civil rights movement.
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Like a Hurricane
The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee$21.99 – $25.00It’s the mid-1960s, and everyone is fighting back. Black Americans are fighting for civil rights, the counterculture is trying to subvert the Vietnam War, and women are fighting for their liberation. Indians were fighting, too, though it’s a fight too few have documented, and even fewer remember. At the time, newspapers and television broadcasts were filled with images of Indian activists staging dramatic events such as the seizure of Alcatraz in 1969, the storming of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building on the eve of Nixon’s re-election in 1972, and the American Indian Movement (AIM)-supported seizure of Wounded Knee by the Oglala Sioux in 1973. Like a Hurricane puts these events into historical context and provides one of the first narrative accounts of that momentous period.
Unlike most other books written about American Indians, this book does not seek to persuade readers that government policies were cruel and misguided. Nor is it told from the perspective of outsiders looking in. Written by two American Indians, Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior, Like a Hurricane is a gripping account of how for a brief, but brilliant season Indians strategized to change the course and tone of American Indian-U.S. government interaction. Unwaveringly honest, it analyzes not only the period’s successes but also its failures.
Smith and Warrior have gathered together the stories of both the leaders and foot soldiers of AIM, conservative tribal leaders, top White House aides, and the ordinary citizens caught up in the maelstrom of activity that would shape a new generation of political thought. Here are insider accounts of how local groups coalesced to form a national movement for change. Here, too, is a clear-eyed assessment of the period’s key leaders: the fancy dance revolutionary Clyde Warrior, the enigmatic Hank Adams, and AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means. The result is a human story of drama, sacrifice, triumph, and tragedy that gives a ground-level view of events that forever changed the lives of Americans, particularly American Indians. -
East to America
$16.95In more than 30 powerful, candid interviews, individuals from New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles render a portrait of the Korean-American community grappling with racial tensions, class and gender differences, and differing notions of family and home. Includes a concise overview of Korean history and a Foreword by Obie Award winner Anna Deavere Smith.
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Ellis Island and the Peopling of America
The Official Guide$19.95Over 3 million people visit Ellis Island, the “Golden Door to America,” every year. Ellis Island has become an invaluable resource center on immigration and genealogy as well as a national tourist attraction, widely praised for its excellent displays and informative exhibits. Now, the best of the Ellis Island Museum is available to readers everywhere from the Ellis Island-Statue of Liberty Foundation. Fascinating primary-source documents offer an exciting overview of Ellis Island, placing it in historical context with a concise history of immigration and global migration. This comprehensive guide is a must for anyone interested in immigration in general and Ellis Island in particular.
Ellis Island: A Reader and Resource Guide includes:
- Entry interviews with immigrants
- Descriptions of mental and physical health evaluations
- Oral histories and memoirs of immigrants and immigration officers
- Correspondence from the 1921 Commissioner of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor
- Census information on immigrants
- Photographs and prints from the 1800s to the present
- Maps, charts, graphs, and political cartoons
- Activities and topics for writing and discussion
- A bibliography of related materials: books, videos, and CD-ROMs
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“The Sex Side of Life”
Mary Ware Dennett's Pioneering Battle for Birth Control and Sex Education$15.00The publication of Constance M. Chen’s “The Sex Side of Life” rescued from obscurity the life and accomplishments of an extraordinary woman: Mary Ware Dennett, suffragette, leader of the American Arts and Crafts movement, peace activist, and crusader for the right to obtain and distribute information about contraception.
In her battle to make birth control information accessible to all, Dennett tangled both with reluctant Congressmen and Margaret Sanger. She was brought to trial in a landmark censorship case surrounding the sex education pamphlet “The Sex Side of Life,” which she wrote for her sons.
At a time when family planning information and the Draconian communication laws are at the center of national debates, this biography is as timely and important as ever. -
Inside U.S.A.
$40.00The seventy-fifth anniversary edition of Gunther’s classic portrait of America
John Gunther’s Inside series were among the most popular books of reportage of the 1930s and 1940s. For Inside U.S.A., his magnum opus, Gunther set out from California and visited every state in the country, offering frank, lucid, and humorous observations along the way in what legendary publisher Robert Gottlieb, writing in the New York Times, calls Gunther’s “fluent, personal, casual, snappy” voice. Gunther’s insights on race, labor, the impact of massive New Deal public works projects, rural life, urbanization, and much more yield fascinating insight into life in a postwar America that had vaulted into the status of the world’s preeminent superpower.
This seventy-fifth-anniversary edition of Inside U.S.A. provides an invaluable picture of America as it was and is both a delight to read and filled with insights that remain deeply relevant today.
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Working
People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do$18.99 – $24.99Studs Terkel’s classic oral history of Americans’ working lives—and the inspiration for Barack Obama’s new Netflix series about work in the twenty-first century
“Reading these stories, I started to consider my own place in the world, and understand how connected we are to one another. [Working] helped inform the choices I made in my own work.” —President Barack Obama
Perhaps Studs Terkel’s best-known book, Working is a compelling, fascinating look at jobs and the people who do them. Consisting of over one hundred interviews conducted with everyone from gravediggers to studio heads, this book provides a moving snapshot of people’s feelings about their working lives, as well as a timeless look at how work fits into American life.
Working received rave reviews upon its initial publication, including from the New York Times Book Review, which praised its “incredible abundance of marvelous beings” and “very special electricity and emotional power,” and the Boston Globe, which called it a “magnificent book . . . a work of art,” adding, “To read it is to hear America talking.”
Nearly fifty years after its initial publication, Working remains a deeply relevant American classic, one of the most important works of oral history ever published.
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Freedom’s Unfinished Revolution
$24.99Written by the award-winning duo who produced the groundbreaking college textbook Who Built America?, this book is an innovative examination of the ways that ordinary people–men and women, white and black, Northern and Southern–experienced and helped shape the events during the time of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The vital role of African Americans is especially highlighted. Illustrations & photos throughout.
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Black Fire
$19.95In prose the Washington Post hailed as Wolfean or Whitmanesque , Peery writes eloquently of the passions that led him to fight abroad for opportunities denied him at home. Whether describing his childhood in rural Minnesota or his tour of duty as a soldier in the all-black 93rd Infantry Division, Peery s is an intimate account of one soldier s political awakening.
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The WPA Guide to New York City
$25.95This tour guide for time travelers offers New York lovers and 1930s buffs an endlessly fascinating look at life as it was lived in the days when a trolley ride cost five cents, a room at the Plaza was $7.50, and the new World s Fair was the talk of the town. Hailed by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books ever written about the city. Photos. Maps.
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Anatomy of a War
Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience$19.95Kolko’s groundbreaking and widely cited study of the Vietnam War, with a new postscript by the author.
Showing 129–144 of 144 results
