American History Biographies

On March 20, 1822, the Missouri Republican published a notice addressed “to enterprising young men” in the St. Louis area. “The subscriber,” it said, “wishes to engage one hundred young men to ascend the Missouri River to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years. For particulars enquire of Major Andrew Henry…or of the subscriber near St. Louise.” The “subscriber” was General William H. Ashley, and among the “enterprising young men” who embarked with Major Henry less than a month later was 18-year-old James Bridger.

A sweeping narrative ranging from the unsettled early American frontier and the battlefields of the Revolution to the history-making clashes within Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Bret Baier’s To Rescue the Constitution dramatically illuminates the life of George Washington, the Founder who did more than perhaps any other individual to secure the future of the United States.

Karen Abbott illuminates one of the most fascinating yet little-known aspects of the Civil War: The stories of four courageous women - a socialite, a farmgirl, an abolitionist, and a widow - who were spies. After shooting a Union soldier in her front hall with a pocket pistol, Belle Boyd became a courier and spy for the Confederate army, using her charms to seduce men on both sides. Emma Edmonds cut off her hair and assumed the identity of a man to enlist as a Union private, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

General William Tecumseh Sherman has come down to us as the implacable destroyer of the Civil War, notorious for his burning of Atlanta and his brutal march to the sea. A probing biography that explains Sherman's style of warfare and the threads of self-possession and insecurity that made up his character.

George Rogers Clark was an American general during the Revolutionary War—the epic conflict in which the newly formed United States of America broke free from British rule. A seasoned frontiersman, he became a leading figure in the expansion of the American frontier into what was then known as the Northwest Territory. Before states like Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky even existed, Clark was actively charting their course. When the Revolutionary War erupted, George Rogers Clark did not hesitate to answer the call to action.

A hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg has completed Wilson - the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the 28th President. This is not just Wilson the icon - but Wilson the man.

In a narrative that moves from Washington's headquarters on the Hudson River, to the wooded hillside in North Carolina where Nathanael Greene fought Lord Cornwallis to a vicious draw, to Lafayette's brilliant series of maneuvers across Tidewater Virginia, author Nathaniel Philbrick details the epic and suspenseful year through to its triumphant conclusion. A riveting and wide-ranging story, full of dramatic, unexpected turns, In the Hurricane's Eye reveals that the fate of the American Revolution depended, in the end, on Washington and the sea.

In Betty Reid Soskin’s 96 years of living, she has been a witness to a grand sweep of American history. When she was born in 1921, the lynching of African-Americans was a national epidemic, blackface minstrel shows were the most popular American form of entertainment, white women had only just won the right to vote, and most African-Americans in the Deep South could not vote at all. From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the times of terror and struggle for Black folk that followed.

In these moving stories of Angelina Grimke Weld, wife of abolitionist Theodore Weld; Varina Howell Davis, wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis; and Julia Dent Grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant, Carol Berkin reveals how women understood the cataclysmic events of their day. Their stories, taken together, help reconstruct the era of the Civil War with a greater depth and complexity by adding women's experiences and voices to their male counterparts.

Born in Virginia in 1818, Elizabeth Keckley grew up enslaved until she was able to purchase her and her son's freedom with money made from working as a seamstress. As she continued to perfect her craft, her styles caught the attention of the elite in Washington, DC. It wasn't until the day of Abraham Lincoln's inauguration that she crossed paths with Mary Todd Lincoln, who took Elizabeth on as her personal confidante and seamstress. Behind the Scenes offers an intimate look into the enslaved and free life of Elizabeth Keckley and the lives of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.

The first hundred years of the American Mafia's existence would come to be seen as a golden age. From small-town Sicily to glittering Las Vegas, the mob had carefully expanded and consolidated their power until their influence touched almost every aspect of American society. But in the 1960s, everything changed. In CLASH OF TITANS, the second volume of former Mafia associate Louis Ferrante's groundbreaking Borgata trilogy, we discover for the first time the true scale of the conflicts that rocked the organisation between 1960 and 1985.

A new biography of Bunny Mellon, the style icon and American aristocrat who designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend JFK and served as a living witness to 20th century American history, operating in the high-level arenas of politics, diplomacy, art, and fashion.

The forgotten story of a criminal trial that brought national attention to a young defendant named Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as told by Fred D. Gray, Dr. King’s lawyer and friend, along with New York Times bestselling authors Dan Abrams and David Fisher. The audiobook concludes with an exclusive conversation between Fred Gray and Dan Abrams.

What You Have Heard is True is a devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others. Written by one of the most gifted poets of her generation, this is the story of a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life.

The True Story of Pocahontas is the first public publication of the Powhatan perspective that has been maintained and passed down from generation to generation within the Mattaponi Tribe, and the first written history of Pocahontas by her own people.

Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.

Journalist Michael J. Mooney reveals the life story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the American Sniper, from his Texas childhood up through his death in February 2013. A brutal warrior but a gentle father and husband, Kyle led the life of an American hero and legend. His heroism and reputation in the military service earned him the nickname "the devil" among insurgents and the nickname The Legend among his SEAL brethren, but his impact extended beyond that after he came home, through his work with fellow veterans.

From its founding in 1966 to contemporary attempts to censure its history and revise its significance, the Black Panther party has aroused fear, hope, pride, vilification, and government-sponsored oppression. This is the first and only collection of the most vital, representative writings of the party. Here are Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, David Hilliard, and Fred Hampton; Kathleen Cleaver and other Panther women; the party's court battles and acquittals; its positions on black separatism, the power structure, the police, violence, education, and more.

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. Historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. Becoming Ella Fitzgerald clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer's difficult childhood, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls' reformatory school—where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer.

Chief Joseph, of the Nez Perce tribe, lived from 1840 to 1904. He became a legend through his heroic efforts to keep his people in their homeland in Oregon's Wallowa Valley. For years he tried to accommodate encroaching white men on his tribal lands, but finally gave up and attempted, in the fall of 1877, to lead his people safely to Canada.