Lincoln's death, like his life, was an event of epic proportions. When the president was struck down at his moment of triumph, writes Merrill Peterson, "sorrow--indescribable sorrow" swept the nation. After lying in state in Washington, Lincoln's body...

James McPherson has emerged as one of America's finest historians. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times Book Review, called "history writing of the...

From the bestselling author of Washington's Immortals and The Unknowns, an important new chronicle of the American Revolution heralding the heroism of the men from Marblehead, Massachusetts On the stormy night of August 29, 1776, the Continental Army...

From Victorian anxieties about syphilis to the current hysteria over herpes and AIDS, the history of venereal disease in America forces us to examine social attitudes as well as purely medical concerns. In No Magic Bullet, Allan M. Brandt recounts the...

Examines how American thought influenced the development of the English language in the nineteenth century

In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, a critical abortion rights case, a bitterly divided Supreme Court produced no less than six different opinions. Writing for the plurality, Chief Justice Rehnquist attacked the trimester framework established in...

Religion in America is up for sale. The products range from a plethora of merchandise in questionable taste--such as Bible-based diet books (More of Jesus. Less of Me), Rapture T-shirts (one features a basketball game with half its players disappearing...

The civil rights era conjures up a wide range of dramatic images--sit-ins at segregated diners, burning churches, the massive march on Washington, police dogs and firehoses turned on protesters, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., lying dead from an...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • The riveting story of the conflict over same-sex marriage in the United States—the most significant civil rights breakthrough of the new millennium"Full of intimate details, battling personalities, heated court...

“An engrossing and impossibly wide-ranging project . . . In The Free World, every seat is a good one.” —Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post“The Free World sparkles. Fully original, beautifully written . . . One hopes Menand has a sequel in mind. The bar...

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and...

Discover the astonishing, inspirational, and largely unknown true story of the eighteen African American athletes who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, defying the racism of both Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South.Set against the turbulent...

Chronicles the development of the new left from 1962 to 1968

Recreates and reassesses the key events, developments, cultural and political dilemmas, and various movements and achievements of a turbulent decade

An oral history of Vietnam's conscientious objectors presents interviews with forty conscientious objectors, covering such issues as family, faith, the struggle to prove sincere opposition to the war, and other topics.

The village of Glencoe has a proud history of early African American settlement. In recent years, however, this once thriving African American community has begun to disperse. Robert Sideman, a thirty-year Glencoe resident, relates this North Shore...

“Important . . . [a] landmark presidential biography . . . Bird is able to build a persuasive case that the Carter presidency deserves this new look.”—The New York Times Book ReviewAn essential re-evaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy...

A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious...

The author profiles the storied Great Plains of the American Midwest, relating the history, the lore, and the stories of the current inhabitants of the area

Say "the Sixties" and the images start coming, images of a time when all authority was defied and millions of young Americans thought they could change the world--either through music, drugs, and universal love or by "putting their bodies on the line"...