History Nation State

In the two decades before the Civil War, free Americans engaged in history wars every bit as ferocious as those waged today over the proposed National History Standards or the commemoration at the Smithsonian Institution of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In One Nation Divided by Slavery, author Michael F. Conlin investigates the different ways antebellum Americans celebrated civic holidays, read the Declaration of Independence, and commemorated Revolutionary War battles.

A powerful documentary that brings light to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in Nashville, TN and initial modeling of non-violent protest that transformed a nation.

Since Thomas Jefferson first recorded those self-evident truths in the Declaration of Independence, America has been a nation that has unfolded as much on the page and the podium as on battlefields or in statehouses. Here Stephen Prothero reveals which texts continue to generate controversy and drive debate. He then puts these voices into conversation, tracing how prominent leaders and thinkers of one generation have commented upon the core texts of another, and invites listeners to join in.

A provocative and penetrating investigation into the rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, whose infamous duel left the founding father dead and turned a sitting vice president into a fugitive. In the summer of 1804, two of America's most eminent statesmen squared off, pistols raised, on a bluff along the Hudson River. That two such men would risk not only their lives but the stability of the young country they helped forge is almost beyond comprehension. Yet we know that it happened.

This second volume takes the listener through the agonies of World War Two, the call to America to assume global responsibilities in the rising Cold War, and with that, the rise to greatness in the 1950s and early 1960s of "Middle America". The narrative looks closely at the need of American citizens themselves to retake the initiative and duty of maintaining their own political sovereignty, to take action to preserve America's longstanding Christian tradition of "democracy from below". And most critically, it looks at the matter of America getting back into a covenant with God.

American Fisherman traces the impact fishing has had in shaping America's history, and reveals the influential role it has played in defining our lives. Willie Robertson persuasively argues that America became what it is today in no small part because of the anglers that call it home. From harvesting New England cod to fly fishing for Yellowstone trout to raising Pacific Northwest salmon, the fishing industry has long played an essential role in the establishment of many of the nation's earliest ports.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson considers why the Civil War remains so deeply embedded in our national psyche and identity. The drama and tragedy of the war help explain why the Civil War remains a topic of interest. But the legacy of the war extends far beyond historical interest or scholarly attention.

This audiobook begins with a look at the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans - as well as medieval feudalism and Calvin's Geneva, in laying the moral foundations for both feudal Virginia and Puritan New England. It looks at some early spiritual wanderings...and a great awakening that brought American back on course - in time to fend off a British effort to end America's spirit of independence. It covers the creation of the new republic, the growing divide over slavery, and the civil war that followed.

In this narrative history of the US through major outbreaks of contagious disease, from yellow fever to the Spanish flu, from HIV/AIDS to Ebola, Polly J. Price examines how law and government affected the outcome of epidemics—and how those outbreaks in turn shaped our government. Price presents a fascinating history that has never been fully explored and draws larger conclusions about the gaps in our governmental and legal response.

Using exclusive interviews with Suu Kyi since her release from 15 years of house arrest, as well as recently disclosed diplomatic cables, Pederson uncovers new facets to Suu Kyi's extraordinary story. The Burma Spring also reveals the extraordinary steps taken by First Lady Laura Bush to help Suu Kyi, as well as how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton injected new momentum into Burma's democratic rebirth.

2021: As the centennial of one of the nation's worst race massacres approached, citizens of Tulsa faced the prospect with hope and dread. Hope that the anniversary would show Tulsa had changed since that day, when a white mob left the city's thriving African American Greenwood neighborhood a smoldering ruin. Dread that Tulsa's faults would be exposed as never before, its racism reinforced rather than mitigated. The anniversary was even more fraught than expected.

A legendary diplomat, scholar, and civil rights leader, Ralph Bunche was one of the most prominent Black Americans of the twentieth century. The first African American to obtain a political science Ph.D. from Harvard and a celebrated diplomat at the United Nations, he was once so famous he handed out the Best Picture award at the Oscars. Yet today Ralph Bunche is largely forgotten. In The Absolutely Indispensable Man, Kal Raustiala restores Bunche to his rightful place in history.

While Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first hundred days may be the most celebrated period of his presidency, the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor proved the most critical. Beginning as early as 1939, when Germany first attacked Poland, Roosevelt skillfully navigated a host of challenges: a reluctant population, an unprepared military, and disagreements within his cabinet to prepare the country for its inevitable confrontation with the Axis.

Against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history, as riots and demonstrations spread across the nation, the Tigers of poor, segregated East High School in Columbus, Ohio, did something no team from one school had ever done before: They won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way brought blacks and whites together, eased a painful racial divide throughout the state, and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success.

This particular volume (Volume One) begins with the period in the early 1600s when two very different English societies were established in the New World, one in Virginia and one in New England. The Virginia society simply re-created the rigidly class-based feudal society of the times. The New England society was a most unusual democracy of social equals, covenanted to live under God's—not man's—personal rule. These two American social types would find themselves in rather constant struggle....

War Letters presents historic, dramatic, personal accounts of both World Wars, the Civil War, Vietnam, Korea, the Cold War, Somalia and the Balkans, revealing in vivid detail what the servicemen and women of America have experienced and sacrificed on the front lines. Read by an all-star cast, including Joan Allen, Tom Brokaw, Rob Lowe, Noah Wyle, and more.

No American president has enjoyed as intimate a relationship with the soldiers in his army as did the man they called “Father Abraham.” In Lincoln’s Men, historian William C. Davis draws on thousands of unpublished letters and diaries—the voices of the volunteers—to tell the hidden story of how a new and untested president became “Father” throughout both the army and the North as a whole. Lincoln’s Men casts a new light on our most famous president and on America’s revolution—on our country’s father and its rebirth.

The first Chief Justice of the United States, John Jay faced many unique challenges. When the stability and success of the new nation were far from certain, a body of federalized American law had to be created from scratch.

How did people in our country, North and South, East and West, come to share a remarkably durable and consistent common vision of what it meant to be an American in the first 50 years after the Revolution? How did the nation respond to the problem of slavery in a republic?

James Madison is remembered primarily as a systematic political theorist, but this bookish and unassuming man was also a practical politician who strove for balance in an age of revolution. In this biography, Jeff Broadwater focuses on Madison’s role in the battle for religious freedom in Virginia, his contributions to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, his place in the evolution of the party system, his relationship with Dolley Madison, his performance as a wartime commander-in-chief, and his views on slavery.