Showing titles in Americas

James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Vital reading for Americans and people anywhere who seek to understand what is happening ‘after the fall’ of the global system created by the United States” (New York Journal of Books), from the former White House aide, close confidant to President Barack...

Gene Kranz was present at the creation of America's manned space program and was a key player in it for three decades. As a flight director in NASA's Mission Control, Kranz witnessed firsthand the making of history. He participated in the space program from the early days of the Mercury program to the last Apollo mission, and beyond. He endured the disastrous first years when rockets blew up and the United States seemed to fall further behind the Soviet Union in the space race.

The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades—and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths.

In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen brings history alive in all its complexity and ambiguity. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen offers an eye-opening critique of existing textbooks, and a wonderful retelling of American history as it should - and could - be taught to American students.

Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844) was one of the most successful and controversial religious leaders of nineteenth-century America, publishing the Book of Mormon and starting what would become the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He built temples, founded a city-state in Illinois, ran for president, and married more than thirty women. This self-made prophet thrilled his followers with his grand vision of peace and unity, but his increasingly grandiose plans tested and sometimes shattered their faith.

An instant New York Times bestseller! “Informative, endlessly entertaining.”—BuzzFeed “Generation X’s definitive chronicler of culture.”—GQ From the author of But What If We’re Wrong comes an insightful, funny reckoning with a pivotal decade It was long ago, but not as long as it...

Drawing on the diaries of one woman in 18th-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier. Between 1785 and 1812, a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine.

For a person seeking a single volume to serve as a captivating introduction and a dependable guide through all the maze of battles and issues of the Civil War, this is an audiobook without parallel. Bruce Catton understood the Civil War - its participants and battles - and he unfolds it with skill and simplicity.

A shocking, darkly hilarious exploration of how Canada, a country once admired for its stability and moderation, became a global cautionary tale. Drawing from real headlines, deep research, and extensive interviews, acclaimed journalist Tristin Hopper uncovers the bizarre missteps and policy experiments that have helped Canada set new global standards for disfunction.

William Strauss and Neil Howe posit the history of America as a succession of generational biographies, beginning in 1584 and encompassing every one through the children of today. Their bold theory is that each generation belongs to one of four types and that these types repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern. The vision of Generations allows us to plot a recurring cycle in American history - a cycle of spiritual awakenings and secular crises - from the founding colonists through the present day and well into this millennium.

From the authors of The Big Shift and Empty Planet, a timely and provocative exploration of the seismic forces reshaping Canada’s political, cultural, and economic landscape. Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson’s explosive new polemic, arrives in the midst of the greatest political crisis...

Five hundred years of colonization have taken an incalculable toll on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas: substance-use disorders and shockingly high rates of depression, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions brought on by genocide and colonial control. With passionate logic and chillingly clear prose, author and educator Suzanne Methot uses history, human development, and her own and others’ stories to trace the roots of Indigenous cultural dislocation and community breakdown in an original and provocative examination of the long-term effects of colonization.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The Look is a stunning journey through Michelle Obama’s style evolution, in her own words for the first time. In this celebration of style, from the moment she entered the public eye during her husband’s U.S. Senate campaign through her time as the first...

At age 13, Ralph "Little Britches" Moody moves with his mother, Mary Emma, and five siblings to Massachusetts. Money and prospects are few, but not faith and resourcefulness, as they struggle to keep a small business alive.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his...

It is said that the right man in the right place at the right time can mean the difference between victory and defeat. This is the dramatic story of 68 soldiers in the US Army's Second Ranger Battalion, Company D - "Dog Company" - who made that difference, time and again. America had many heroes in World War II; however, few can say that, but for them, the course of the war would have been very different. The right men, the right place, the right time - Dog Company.

There have been many Marines. There have been many marksmen. But there has been only one Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, a legend of Marine lore. He stalked the Viet Cong behind enemy lines. His record has never been matched: 93 confirmed kills. This is his story. Powerful, chilling, and all true.

From true-crime legend T. J. English, the epic, behind-the-scenes saga of “Los Muchachos,” one of the most successful cocaine trafficking organizations in American history—a story of glitz, glamour, and organized crime set against 1980’s Miami. Despite what Scarface might lead one to...

From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans. America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our...