History Nation State

Few periods of American history have been more written upon than the decade preceding the Revolution. Nevertheless, there is still room for a brief volume on the subject; all the world knows that the Revolution really began almost fifteen years before its beginning, because of the efforts of the British government to give greater unity and stiffness to its colonial system, both as to government and as to trade with other nations; but the real motives underlying the uneasiness of the colonies still need enlightenment.

Except perhaps the struggle between patriots and tories at the outbreak of the Revolution, no controversy in the history of the United States has aroused such passion and led to such momentous results as that between the advocates and the opponents of slavery … The book has the double purpose of describing the conditions of slavery and the state of mind of those interested in it or against it, and at the same time recording the events which mark the anti-slavery agitation.

Although the separate history of the commonwealths is, for the most part, merged into that of the nation, the national history grows steadily more complex … The special function of this volume in the American Nation series is to describe the foundations of the present American party system and its application to the extremely difficult problems of that time …

That a new history of the United States is needed, extending from the discovery down to the present time hardly needs statement. No such comprehensive work by a competent writer is now in existence. Individual writers have treated only limited chronological fields. Meantime there, is a rapid increase of published sources and of serviceable monographs based on material hitherto unused.

To the period between 1689 and 1740 has been applied the term “The Forgotten Half-Century.” Most of the writers on colonial history in detail give special attention to the seventeenth century, the period of upbuilding; and general historians like Bancroft and Hildreth sweep rather lightly over the epoch between the English Revolution and the forerunners of the American Revolution.

Volume 7 of 27 in The American Nation: A History published by Harper Brothers (1904-1918). Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University.

Having the first volume of this series discussed the events, the national developments, and the institutions which preceded the colonization of America, the next step is to describe the land and the people of America as they were found by the Europeans. This volume, therefore, is intended once and for all to set forth the physical conditions of colonization; for within twenty-five years after the discovery, the Spaniards began to penetrate into the interior of North America and encounter the obstacles of rivers and mountains and the sterner opposition of native tribes.

Drawing on period letters and chronicles, and on the papers of the Virginia Company - which financed the settlement of Jamestown - David Price tells a tale of cowardice and courage, stupidity and brilliance, tragedy and costly triumph. He takes us into the day-to-day existence of the English men and women whose charge was to find gold and a route to the Orient, and who found, instead, hardship and wretched misery. Death, in fact, became the settlers' most faithful companion, and their infighting was ceaseless.

Volume 12 of 27 in The American Nation: A History published by Harper Brothers (1904-1918). Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University

In this dramatic and fully accessible account of these titans of the early republic and their fiercely held ideas, James F. Simon brings to life the early history of the nation and sheds new light on the highly charged battle to balance the powers of the federal government and the rights of the states. A fascinating look at two of the nation's greatest statesmen and shrewdest politicians, What Kind of Nation presents a cogent, unbiased assessment of their lasting impact on American government.

Roy Bean was an American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Texas, who called himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos". He and his three brothers set out from Kentucky in the mid 1840s, heading into the American frontier to find their fortunes. Their lifetimes of triumphs, tragedies, laurels, and scandals will play out on the battlefields of Mexico, in shady dealings in California city halls, inside eccentric saloon courtrooms of Texas, and along the blood-soaked Santa Fe Trail from Missouri to New Mexico. They will kill men, and murder will likewise stalk them.

In August 1862, after decades of broken treaties, increasing hardship, and relentless encroachment on their lands, a group of Dakota warriors convened a council at the tepee of their leader, Little Crow. Knowing the strength and resilience of the young American nation, Little Crow counseled caution, but anger won the day. Forced to either lead his warriors in a war he knew they could not win or leave them to their fates, he declared, "[Little Crow] is not a coward: he will die with you."

Dr. John Dee and his polymath protégé Sir Francis Bacon were the most influential men in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, part of an elite group with invisible control throughout Europe. And, as Steven Sora reveals, not only were they key members of the Rosicrucians, they were the driving force behind England’s colonization of the New World and the eventual establishment of the United States. From Avalon in Newfoundland to New England to Pennsylvania and Virginia, Sora shows how Bacon and Dee’s Rosicrucian impact is felt throughout North America.

When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Vice-President Andrew Johnson became "the Accidental President", it was a dangerous time in America. Devastated by war and resorting to violence, many white Southerners hoped to restore a pre-Civil War society, if without slavery, and the pugnacious Andrew Johnson seemed to share their goals. With profound insights and making use of extensive research, Brenda Wineapple dramatically evokes this pivotal period in American history, when the country was rocked by the first-ever impeachment of a sitting American president.

From the author of the acclaimed The Brother Gardeners, a fascinating look at the founding fathers from the unique and intimate perspective of their lives as gardeners, plantsmen, and farmers. For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. These stories reveal a guiding but previously overlooked ideology of the American Revolution.

One Nation Under God: A Factual History of America's Religious Heritage

Perhaps no other single day in United States history was as threatening to the survival of the nation as August 24, 1814, when British forces captured Washington, DC. This unique moment might have significantly altered the nation's path forward, but the event and the reasons why it happened are little remembered by most Americans.

To truly grasp the roots of America’s political polarization, economic inequality, public health crises, and democratic collapse, we must examine the country’s longstanding regional divides. In Nations Apart, Colin Woodard—an expert on North American regionalism and European ethnonationalism —delves into how centuries-old settlement patterns and the cultural geography they created have shaped today’s most contentious policy debates and brought American democracy to the brink.

The year is 1830. Native Americans of the American South and the Old Northwest live on the land they cultivated. Despite struggles and hardships, they’ve held on to what rightfully belongs to them. The land is a part of them. It is their lifeblood and their salvation. It is theirs’ until broken treaties and broken promises rip it from their clutches.

In American Gospel (literally meaning the "good news about America"), New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham sets the record straight on the history of religion in American public life. As Meacham shows, faith, meaning a belief in a higher power, and the sense that we are God's chosen, has always been at the heart of our national experience, from Jamestown to the Constitutional Convention to the Civil Rights Movement to September 11th.