United States History

In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States - by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey, Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Carl Van Doren incorporates materials from Franklin's letters, manuscripts, journals, and published works to give the most accurate and comprehensive portrait ever written of this great American.

In their own words, recorded in the famous journals of Lewis and Clark, the members of the Corps of Discovery tell their story with an immediacy and power missing from secondhand accounts. All of their triumphs and terrors are here: the thrill of seeing the vast herds of bison, the fear the captains felt when Sacagawea fell ill, the ordeal of crossing the Continental Divide, the misery of cold and hunger, and the kidnapping and rescue of Lewis' dog, Seaman.

Donald Trump v. The United States tells the dramatic story of those who felt compelled to confront and try to contain the most powerful man in the world as he shredded norms and sought to expand his power. Michael S. Schmidt takes listeners inside the defining events of the presidency, chronicles them up close, and records the clash between an increasingly emboldened president and those around him, who find themselves trying to thwart the president they had pledged to serve, unsure whether he is acting in the interest of the country, his ego, his family business, or Russia.

Steven Rinella (The MeatEater Podcast) brings to life the legendary wilderness exploits of men such as Jim Bridger, Jedidiah Smith, and Hugh Glass, who headed out to the Rocky Mountains to trap beavers in the decades following the Louisiana Purchase. Living off the land and dodging grizzly bears, these colorful characters carved out an existence defined by their relationships with Native people, their capacity to endure the most trying conditions, and their intimate knowledge of the western landscape.

Today, in the midst of a new economic crisis and severe political discord, the nature of capitalism in United States is at a crossroads. Since the market crash and Great Recession of 2008, historian Jonathan Levy has been teaching a course to help his students understand everything that had happened to reach that disaster and the current state of the economy, but in doing so he discovered something more fundamental about American history. Now, in an ambitious single-volume history of the United States, he reveals how capitalism in America has evolved through four distinct ages.

This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early 16th to the early 21st century. Pekka Hämäläinen explores the Lakotas' roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and reveals how they reinvented themselves twice: first as a river people who dominated the Missouri Valley, America's great commercial artery, and then - in what was America's first sweeping westward expansion - as a horse people who ruled supreme on the vast high plains.

Steven Rinella (The MeatEater Podcast) and Clay Newcomb (MeatEater's Bear Grease podcast) gather listeners for a new round of stories, this time drawing from the lives of the rugged Long Hunters, who include such figures as Daniel Boone, Henry Skaggs, and Kasper Mansker. These were the commercial hunters and trappers who explored and exploited the First Far West, the land across the Appalachian Mountains, in the era between the Seven Years War and the American Revolution—one of the most fabled periods of American history.

In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the US, the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the US government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism.

Alan Blinder, one of the world's most influential economists and one of the field's best writers, draws on his deep firsthand experience to provide an authoritative account of sixty years of monetary and fiscal policy in the United States. Spanning twelve presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden, and eight Federal Reserve chairs, from William McChesney Martin to Jerome Powell, this is an insider's story of macroeconomic policy that hasn't been told before—one that is a pleasure to listen to, and as interesting as it is important.

Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage. Almost single-handedly responsible for transforming Singapore into a Western-style economic success, he offers a unique perspective on the geopolitics of East and West. American presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have welcomed him to the White House.

Author Carol F. Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in 17th-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society and attempts to answer the question why some women were vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft and possession.

Learn the stories and the struggles each president dealt with as we take a walk through the nation's development. Follow along as we discuss how the United States came into power, the leaders who shaped its development, and the wars that were fought to protect it. This book gives a detailed account of the United States through a look at its presidents. Each chapter takes an educational look at the life of each president, how they came to power, and what the country was like during their time in office. Never before has so much information been packed into one easy-to-listen book.

The Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana in 1876 has become known as the quintessential clash of cultures between the Lakota Sioux and whites. The men who led the battle, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Colonel George A. Custer, have become the stuff of legends.

Lies Across America is a reality check for anyone who has ever sought to learn about America through the nation's public sites and markers. Entertaining and enlightening, it is destined to change the way American listeners see their country.

For thousands of years, we have set out sailing for all kinds of reasons - for battle, for infinite wealth, for the excitement of exploring the unknown, and for escape from the mundane. We have always had a primal relationship with the sea - even those who have never been to sea remain fascinated by the seafaring life and tales of salty adventure. Now in a brand–new series collection, The Best Sailing Stories Ever Told brings together such diverse authors as Charles Dickens, Jack London, John Masefield, Stephen Crane, Herman Melville, and dozens more.

There is a missing chapter in the narrative of Canada’s Indigenous peoples - the story of the Métis Nation, a new Indigenous people descended from both First Nations and Europeans. Their story begins in the last decade of the 18th century in the Canadian North-West. Within 20 years the Métis proclaimed themselves a nation and won their first battle. Within 40 years they were famous throughout North America for their military skills, their nomadic life and their buffalo hunts.

Based on a viral article, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act is the essential guide to understanding the legal document and its repercussion on generations of Indigenous peoples, written by a leading cultural sensitivity trainer. The Indian Act, after 141 years, continues to shape, control, and constrain the lives and opportunities of Indigenous peoples, and is at the root of many lasting stereotypes.

The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing audiobook makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men historian Andrew O'Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve victory.

Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).