American Social History

A comprehensive history of the people and cases that have changed history, this is the definitive account of the nation's highest court.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the US-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul.

In Inhuman Bondage, David Brion Davis sums up a lifetime of insight. He looks at slavery in the American South; the rise of the Cotton Kingdom; the daily life of slaves; the destructive internal long-distance slave trade; the sexual exploitation of slaves; the emergence of an African-American culture; and much more. A definitive history by a writer deeply immersed in the subject, Inhuman Bondage links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism.

From National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Sam Quinones, the story of a demanding instrument, the determined people who play it, and the hope they offer a fractured nation.

In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris’ ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois’ work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative Black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible.

In this groundbreaking portrait of corporate seizure of political power, We the Corporations reveals how American businesses won equal rights and transformed the Constitution to serve the ends of capital. Corporations - like minorities and women - have had a civil rights movement of their own and now possess nearly all the same rights as ordinary people. Uncovering the deep historical roots of Citizens United, Adam Winkler shows how that controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision was the capstone of a 200-year battle....

From This American Life contributor and self-described “history nerd” Sarah Vowell comes a collection of humorous and personal essays investigating American history, pop culture, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell travels through...

The 1950s through the early 1970s are widely seen as American academia's golden age, when universities - well funded and viewed as essential for national security, economic growth, and social mobility - embraced an egalitarian mission. Swelling in size, schools attracted new types of students and professors, including radicals who challenged their institutions' calcified traditions. But that halcyon moment soon came to a painful and confusing end, with consequences that still afflict the halls of ivy.

In March 1621, when Plymouth’s survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth’s governor, John Carver, declared their people’s friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the 'First Thanksgiving'. The treaty remained operative until King Philip’s War in 1675, when 50 years of uneasy peace between the two parties would come to an end.

In May 1830, the United States formally launched a policy to expel Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington's small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government's auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence.

Rex M. Ellis weaves the strands of African folklore, early American history, and contemporary interpretations into the rich quilt that is the African-American experience. His stories spin a thread from the Windward Coast of West Africa to the shores of Jamestown and beyond. He uses storytelling as both a historical teaching tool and a method for dealing with controversial subjects.

Let's take stock of young America. Compared to previous generations, American youth have more schooling (college enrollments have never been higher); more money ($100 a week in disposable income); more leisure time (five hours a day); and more news and information (Internet, The Daily Show, RSS feeds). What do they do with all that time and money? They download, upload, IM, post, chat, and network. (Nine of their top ten sites are for social networking.) They watch television and play video games (2 to 4 hours per day).

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas meets Octavia Butler’s Earthseed series, as acclaimed author Monica Byrne (The Girl in the Road) crafts an unforgettable piece of speculative fiction about where humanity came from, where we are now, and where we’re going—and how, in every age, the same...

The J. G. Randall Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Illinois and associate editor of North and South magazine, Bruce Levine presents a gripping chronicle of the cultural and economic upheaval the South experienced during and after the Civil War. Drawing upon a treasure trove of diaries, letters, newspaper articles, and government documents, Levine offers a unique perspective on the old South's demise through the voices of those who lived through the conflict.

Virtually anyone, anywhere knows that six million Jewish human beings were killed in the Jewish Holocaust. But how many African human beings were killed in the Black Holocaust - from the start of the European slave trade (c. 1500) to the Civil War (1865)? And how many were enslaved? The Black Holocaust, a travesty that killed millions of African human beings, is the most underreported major event in world history.

Much of the attention paid to Trump's rise to power has focused on his corrosive personality and divisive style of governing. But he alone is not the problem. The vulnerability is much broader and deeper. The ascendance of Trump is the culmination of nearly 250 years of political reforms that gradually ceded party nominations to small cliques of ideologically motivated party activists, interest groups, and donors. Author Lawrence Jacobs provides a highly engaging history of political reforms since the late-eighteenth century that over time dangerously weakened democracy.

An urgent, historically-grounded take on the four major factors that undermine American democracy, and what we can do to address them. While many Americans despair of the current state of U.S. politics, most assume that our system of government and democracy itself are invulnerable to decay. Yet...

In this fascinating work, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota and Red Lake Ojibwe Nation member Brenda J. Child spotlights the remarkable women of the Ojibwe Nation. A stunning look at a seldom explored subject in history, Holding Our World Together shows how American Indian women have profoundly influenced Native American life - from the days of the European fur trade to the present - in activism, community, and beyond.

Over the past decade, Mary Pipher has been a great source of wisdom, helping us to better understand our family members. Now she connects us with the newest members of the American family - refugees. In cities all over the country, refugees arrive daily. Lost Boys from Sudan, survivors from Kosovo, families fleeing Afghanistan and Vietnam: they come with nothing but the desire to experience the American dream. Their endurance in the face of tragedy and their ability to hold on to the virtues of family, love, and joy are a lesson for America. Their stories will make you laugh and weep.

Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger's widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks.