Local History

In Pilgrims and Puritans, the authors begin in the year 1620 in England and end in New England in the year 1676. The book recounts the religious, political, and social history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and its influence on our lives today. The narrative follows various groups of settlers from their departure from England through arrival in the New World and their often violent conflicts with the native peoples of the Americas. The authors examine a number of issues that arose in the new society that was founded and the rise and fall of the "city on a hill."

Discover Michigan like never before — where rich history meets unforgettable adventures. From the bustling streets of Detroit to the serene shores of Lake Superior, Exploring Michigan: A Journey Through History & Must See Destinations takes you on an inspiring journey through the Great Lakes State. Blending captivating storytelling with practical travel insight, this book offers listeners both a window into Michigan’s past and a guide to its most iconic destinations.

Bound Away offers a new understanding of the westward movement. After the Turner thesis which celebrated the frontier as the source of American freedom and democracy, and the iconoclasm of the new western historians who dismissed the idea of the frontier as merely a mask for conquest and exploitation, David Hackett Fischer and James C. Kelly take a third approach to the subject.

Maryland: This exciting book recounts the history of the colony from its founding to the challenges of the colony's early years, the religious and political upheavals, death, disease, and hard labor endured by the colonists, through the wealthy years of the Maryland tobacco plantations, discontent with England, and finally to Maryland's vote for independence in 1776.

The Massachusetts colony would be the first to organize and unite with other colonies, and one of the first to take a stand when troubles developed with England, thereby leading the cause for independence. It was John Hancock of Massachusetts who would propose the Bill of Rights that still protects and guarantees the basic freedoms of Americans.

In the tradition of William Warner's Beautiful Swimmers, veteran journalist Colin Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) traces the history of the rugged fishing communities that dot the coast of Maine and the prized crustacean that has long provided their livelihood.

For the past fifteen years, Ian Frazier has been walking the Bronx. Paradise Bronx reveals the amazingly rich and tumultuous history of this amazingly various piece of our greatest city. From Jonas Bronck, who bought land from the local Native Americans, to the formerly gang-wracked South Bronx that gave birth to hip-hop, Frazier’s loving exploration is a moving tour de force about the polyglot culture that is America today.

After Sir Walter Raleigh failed in his attempt to found a settlement at Roanoke, a colony on the Chesapeake Bay was successfully established. Primary source materials enhance lively text to give students an in-depth look at what led to the formation and success of the colony of Virginia. No other colony - except Massachusetts - was more influential in the formation of America as a nation.

Though today it can seem as if all American culture comes out of New York and Los Angeles, much of what defined the nation as it grew into a superpower was produced in Chicago. Before air travel overtook trains, nearly every coast-to-coast journey included a stop there, and this flow of people and commodities made it America’s central clearinghouse, laboratory, and factory.

Freedom, Land & Community: A History of McLean County Illinois, 1730-1900 tells the story of the diverse peoples and events of this county. Using sources contemporary with the events described, it relates the struggles to build communities and secure freedom - or a freedom as each community defined it. Native peoples, women and men, African Americans, Irish and German immigrants all sought and contested for their freedom. People whose voices have not been heard in previous works about central Illinois are included here.

Eat Like a Local – Seoul by Author Jason Kim offers the inside scoop on food in Seoul. Culinary tourism is an important aspect of any travel experience. Food has the ability to tell you a story of a destination, its landscapes, and culture on a single plate. Most food guides tell you how to eat like a tourist. Although there is nothing wrong with that, as part of the Eat Like a Local series, this book will give you a food guide from someone who has lived at your next culinary destination.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE OCKHAM NZ BOOK AWARD BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF NONFICTION** An illuminating tour through the native sea creatures of Aotearoa, by the bestselling author of The Meaning of Trees Secrets of the Sea is a fascinating introduction to New Zealand's fish and shellfish, weaving...

Did you know that Arizona was the last of the contiguous states to be admitted into the Union? Even being the last, Arizona’s rich history predates its statehood by centuries, and that can be hard to digest in one sitting. What happened in Arizona before it became the forty-eighth state of the United States? Step back in time with us, and witness the legacy of the Native American tribes that once thrived in this desert landscape. Uncover the tales of resilience, ingenuity, and cultural richness that continue to thrive throughout the canyons and mesas of Arizona.

Ambassador C. Donald Johnson's The Wealth of a Nation is an authoritative history of the politics of trade in America from the Revolution to the Trump era.

The Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City offers a new look at over a century of New York’s history of Yiddish popular culture. Henry H. Sapoznik—a five-time Grammy-nominated performer/producer and Peabody Award-winning co-producer of NPR’s Yiddish Radio Project—tells the story in chapters on theater, music, architecture, crime, Blacks and Jews, restaurants, real estate, and journalism.

In Pueblos, Plains, and Province Joseph P. Sánchez offers an in-depth examination of sociopolitical conflict in seventeenth-century New Mexico, detailing the effects of Spanish colonial policies on settlers’, missionaries’, and Indigenous peoples’ struggle for economic and cultural control of the region.

The End of the Golden Gate is a penetrating journey that illuminates both what makes San Francisco so magnetizing and how it has changed vastly over time. With essays chronicling the impact of the tech-industry invasion and the evolution, gentrification, and radical cost of living that has transformed San Francisco's most beloved neighborhoods, these prescient essayists capture the lasting imprint of the 1960s counterculture movement, as well as the fight to preserve the art, music, and other creative movements that make this forever the city of love.

This new South End Press edition makes available the full text of this out-of-print classic - along with a new foreword by Manning Marable, interviews with participants in DRUM, and reflections on political developments over the past three decades by Georgakas and Surkin.

In Ludlow, Kentucky, where Confederate flags once dominated the landscape and call for civil war echoed on Facebook, a circus raised its big top—and never left. On January 20, 2025, as Donald Trump returned to office, the KKK plastered the town with hateful fliers, but the circus, a 250-year-old beacon of diversity and inclusion, stood its ground. This is the true, stranger-than-fiction story of how a creative community defied hate, bureaucracy, and small-town politics to transform Ludlow into Kentucky’s hottest real estate market.

On December 9, 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her Durham, NC home. Her scalp was laced with deep incisions, and her blood was strewn from outside to inside the house. The sinister truth of that night turned her murder into North Carolina's most enigmatic criminal case, capturing media attention across the globe.