The first global history of the epic early days of the iron railway Railways, in simple wooden or stone form, have existed since prehistory. But from the 1750s onward the introduction of iron rails led to a dramatic technological evolution--one that...

T. J. Jackson Lears draws on a wealth of primary sources — sermons, diaries, letters — as well as novels, poems, and essays to explore the origins of turn-of-the-century American antimodernism. He examines the retreat to the exotic, the pursuit of...

When a naked, mentally ill white man with an AR-15 killed four young adults of color at a Waffle House, Nashville-based physician and gun policy scholar Dr. Jonathan M. Metzl once again advocated for commonsense gun reform. But as he peeled back evidence...

“Insightful.” —The Wall Street Journal * “Noteworthy…readers will come away better informed about antebellum history and how it mirrors current events.” —Booklist The fascinating story of how a new law in 1854—the Kansas-Nebraska Act—unexpectedly became...

'.....Through an exhaustive investigation of black songs, folk tales, proverbs, aphorisms, verbal games and the long narrative oral poems known as 'toasts, ' Levine argues that the value system of Afro-Americans can only be understood through an analysis...

A timely, “solidly researched [and] gracefully written” (The Wall Street Journal) biography of President Andrew Jackson that offers a fresh reexamination of this charismatic figure in the context of American populism—connecting the complex man and the...

Dive into this "truly compelling" (Good Morning America) New York Times bestseller that explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war--from the creator and host of the podcast Revisionist History. In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm...

Essays, speeches, and letters on constitution ratification, pardoning powers, the Bank of the U.S., and foreign policy illuminate not only Hamilton’s legacy but his compelling engagement with Madison, Jefferson, and Adams, and his legendary conflict with...

"Thoroughly researched and beautifully written history."--New York Times Book Review "Absorbing . . . a David-and-Goliath tale of the industrial age."--Wall Street Journal A propulsive human drama that chronicles the mass exodus of Jews from Eastern...

“American history as if from a barstool, not a lecture podium. Giddy, rollicking, and bold.” —Ilyon Woo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Master Slave Husband Wife"Accessible and impassioned entry to anyone interested in understanding the nation's...

A new interpretation of the American Revolution as a transformative monetary contestAmerican money and American democracy have always been in tension, pitting political equality against economic inequality. In Money and the Making of the American...

From the award-winning historian and filmmakers of The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The Roosevelts, and others: a richly illustrated, human-centered history of America’s founding struggle—expanding on the landmark, six-part PBS series to be aired in...

In this fully updated second edition of their masterful history, leading historians and best-selling authors Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer uncover the origins of our current moment, answering the question: When--and how--did America become so...

At the beginning of 1776, virtually no one in the colonies was advocating independence: Americans based their grievances against Parliament on their rights as British subjects. By the end of 1776, independence was on every patriot's lips. The many...

A writer and historian describes his journey from 1930s Hungary to the United States, intellectual life in New York City, and his settling in Philadelphia, examining, along the way, fascism, communism, democracy, anti-Semitism, and Christian realism