American & Canadian History

Before they were destroyed, Beaver Lake was the largest lake in Indiana, and the Kankakee Marsh was nearly half a million acres of wetland. This was one of the major inland marshes in the country before landowners drained it for farmland. Changing Landscapes of Northwest Indiana examines the massive ecological devastation caused by the destruction of Beaver Lake, the channelization...

In 1828 Bridget Miranda Evoy escaped famine-stricken Ireland with her children for a better life in America. But the relief she desperately sought was elusive. Within two years, she was a widow and was left raising her five children after the untimely death of her husband. Finding herself in dire straits in “The Gateway to the West”, Bridget's Gambit tells...

Blood Vessels: Vigilante Violence in the American West reveals the web of human movement, exchange, and collision that bound together these seemingly unrelated incidents of extralegal violent action. Exposing the direct human connections linking these episodes, Patrick T. Hoehne reframes the prevailing understanding of both the individual incidents of violent action and the larger history of vigilante violence in the...

A deep look at the impact of Christian scripture on Bartolomé de las Casas, one of the first and strongest critics against Spanish colonialism of the New World and for Indigenous rights. Theologian, activist, reformer, political philosopher, historian and anthropologist Bartolomé de las Casas, OP (1484-1566) was a polarising figure in his own time and continues to provoke debate today....

Armed Frontier is a deeply researched and yet accessible history of border skirmishes from mid-colonial times to the first Texas secession. The history of warfare and armed organisation during the colonial period and early nineteenth century in southern Texas and northeastern Mexico remains largely untold. Previous studies either cover the influence of warfare tangentially or ignore its importance. This study...

While originating in the author’s experience as a German and American citizen (double citizenship), the book is not an autobiography. It combines narrative accounts, scholarly literary and art historical commentary, as well as critical political opinions. At its core, it is focused on readings of German and American literature, art, film, and popular culture in the context of the radically...

Written shortly before her death in 1938, Rachel Caroline Eaton's A History of the Cherokee Nation is the celebrated Cherokee historian's magnum opus - and a work whose grounding in Cherokee tradition and perspective makes it unique in the annals of American history. The book spans the years from pre-contact to what Eaton feared would be the Cherokee Nation's demise...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “It is one of the best narrative histories I’ve read.” —The Wall Street Journal A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 • One of Barack Obama's Favourite Books of 2025 • Named a BEST BOOK OF 2025 by The Washington Post, TIME, The Economist, Air Mail, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Katie Couric Media, and History....

For the first time, and with surprising and revealing insights, former Vice President Kamala Harris tells the story of one of the wildest and most consequential presidential campaigns in American history. Your Secret Service code name is Pioneer.You are the first woman in history to be elected vice president of the United States.On July 21, 2024, your running mate, Joe...

Between 1850 and 1950, experts and entrepreneurs in Britain and the United States forged new connections between the nutrition sciences and the commercial realm through their enthusiasm for new edible consumables. The resulting food products promised wondrous solutions for what seemed both individual and social ills. By examining products like Gail Borden's meat biscuit, Benger's Food, Kellogg's health foods, Fleischmann's...

**LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE**A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK AND BARACK OBAMA SUMMER READING 2021 SELECTION'A fine, lyrical novel, impressive in its complex interweaving of the grand and the intimate, of the personal and political' ObserverLandry and Prentiss are two brothers born into slavery, finally freed as the American Civil War draws to its bitter...

The Dispossessed is a detailed, novelistic account of one family’s search for safety that lays bare US—in concert with other western nations—gutting of asylum protections. The narrative takes the reader through the inhumane debacle of family separation and the growing global refugee crisis at large. Adding historical, literary, and current political context to the immigration and refugee crises of today,...

An examination of how America can strengthen its approach to China by building on its existing advantages “This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how the United States can renew its advantages in its competition with China.”—Ambassador Susan E. Rice, former U.S. National Security Advisor “Ryan Hass has provided an indispensable and timely contribution to understanding our...

The surprising story of the movement to create a truly democratic foreign policy by engaging ordinary Americans in world affairs. No major arena of US governance is more elitist than foreign policy. International relations barely surface in election campaigns, and policymakers take little input from Congress. However, not all Americans set out to build a cloistered foreign policy "establishment." For...

An analysis of ancient Greek and Roman works alongside contemporary literature, exploring how these classics shape our understanding of the politics of time in America. Ancient Greek and Roman cultures have been privileged as authoritatively timeless throughout American history. American leaders capitalize on this privilege when, during periods of crisis, they allude to these cultures to offer relief, to reestablish...

Democracy in Our America by Paul W. Kahn is an insightful examination by one of America’s most distinguished political theorists on what happens when national politics enters a small New England town. After the election of 2016, many citizens began questioning the economic and cultural divisions causing deep disruptions in American politics, asking, “What is happening to us?” Paul W....

The untold story of Chicago’s pivotal role as a country and folk music capital. Chicago is revered as a musical breeding ground, having launched major figures like blues legend Muddy Waters, gospel soul icon Mavis Staples, hip-hop firebrand Kanye West, and the jazz-rock band that shares its name with the city. Far less known, however, is the vital role Chicago...

The fascinating history of American bookishness as told through the sale of Charles Lamb’s library in 1848 Charles Lamb’s library—a heap of sixty scruffy old books singed with smoke, soaked with gin, sprinkled with crumbs, stripped of illustrations, and bescribbled by the essayist and his literary friends—caused a sensation when it was sold in New York in 1848. The transatlantic...

'A transcendent travelogue that guides readers through the history, places, and people of several of the many witch hunts and how their legacy continues to impact us today.' - Pam Grossman, author of Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and PowerTraveling through cities and sites across Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Kristen J....

An exploration of the captivating work and mystical outlook of the modern artist Remedios Varo, focusing on her years in Mexico City This publication offers a definitive look at the artistic practice of Remedios Varo (1908–1963) following her emigration from Spain to Mexico City in 1941. Her work from 1955 to 1963 made a lasting contribution to modern art and...

Conceived in the Gilded Age, the Ferry Building opened in 1898 as San Francisco's portal to the world—the terminus of the transcontinental railway and a showcase of civic ambition. In silent films and World's Fair postcards, nothing said "San Francisco" more than its soaring clocktower. But as acclaimed architectural critic John King recounts in Portal, the rise of the automobile...

A new history of Asian peace since 1979 that considers America’s paradoxical role After more than a century of recurring conflict, the countries of the Asia-Pacific region have managed something remarkable: avoiding war among nations. Since 1979, Asia has endured threats, near-miss crises, and nuclear proliferation but no interstate war. How fragile is this “Asian peace,” and what is America's...

Our American Israel is masterful and deserves a larger audience." -Ta-Nehisi Coates An essential account of America's most controversial alliance, and how that strong and divisive partnership plays out in our own time. In 1945, it was not inevitable that a global superpower emerging victorious from World War II would come to identify with a small state for Jewish refugees,...

The surprising story of how Cold War foes found common cause in transforming China's economy into a source of cheap labour, creating the economic interdependence that characterises our world today. For centuries, the vastness of the Chinese market tempted foreign companies in search of customers. But in the 1970s, when the United States and China ended two decades of Cold...

First published in 1963, James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time stabbed at the heart of America's so-called "Negro problem." As remarkable for its masterful prose as for its frank and personal account of the black experience in the United States, it is considered one of the most passionate and influential explorations of 1960s race relations, weaving thematic threads of love,...

Winston S. Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his "mastery of historical and biographical description." Nowhere is that mastery more evident than in Great Contemporaries, first published in 1937. Written in the decade before Churchill became prime minister, these portraits of notable figures of his age offer wisdom for our own. With keen observations and telling anecdotes, Churchill...

The pandemic lockdown of 2020 launched an unprecedented urban experiment. Traffic disappeared from the streets. Times Square fell silent. And half a million residents fled the most crowded city in America. In this innovative and thrilling book, author and social critic Jeremiah Moss, hailed as "New York City's career elegist" (New York Times), explores a city emptied of the dominant...

Why do Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and much of the far Right so explicitly admire the murderous and incompetent Russian dictator Vladimir Putin? Why is Ron DeSantis drawing from Victor Orbán's illiberal politics for his own policies as governor of Florida—a single American state that has more than twice the population of Orbán's entire nation, Hungary? In America Last, Jacob...

At the start of the Ford Motor Company in 1903, the Dodge Brothers supplied nearly every car part needed by the up-and-coming auto giant. After fifteen years of operating a successful automotive supplier company, John and Horace Dodge again changed the face of the automotive market in 1914 by introducing their own car. The Dodge Brothers automobile carried on their...

"One of the best books ever about Japanese society...[A] thoughtful, nuanced study of the Japanese character." -U.S. News & World Report "A classic of Japanese cultural studies... debunks the stereotype of the Japanese as hopelessly rigid and incapable of change." -The New York Times First published in 1946, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is renowned for its insights into Japanese...

Secrets, betrayal, and hidden histories: the untold story of the Knights of the Golden Circle and the men who tried to shape the Civil War from the shadows. An exposé on the influential members of the Knights of the Golden Circle (K.G.C.), the secretive and treasonous society that fueled the American Civil War. A follow-up to the highly acclaimed The...

With this explosive analysis, Ira Katznelson fundamentally recasts our understanding of twentieth-century American history, demonstrating that the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal eras were not, as we are so often told, fundamentally equitable or impartial, but discriminatory in the way they deliberately excluded African Americans from benefits. In fact, Katznelson writes, the gap between black...

When C.L.R. James's Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History opened in London featuring Paul Robeson in 1936, it was the first time black actors starred on a British stage in a play written by a black playwright. But after this extraordinary play ended its run, the script was lost for almost 70 years. Then...

First published in 1932, Thoughts and Adventures is Churchill’s most philosophical book. It conveys the extraordinary variety and depth of the statesman’s mature thoughts on questions facing modern men and women. Written during what biographers have called Churchill’s “wilderness years,” this wide-ranging volume of essays touches on subjects such as cartoons, hobbies, spies, flying, elections, economics, and modern science. Reading...

The unknown story of the election that set the tone for today's fractured politics A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2023: Politics "The book is a delightful demolition of the many political myths that continue to muddy our understanding of that election year. . . . Nichter's book stands out for its clear, direct prose and the scrupulous research...

ONE OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2024 How inflation and deflation fears shape American democracy. Many foundational moments in American economic history—the establishment of paper money, wartime price controls, the rise of the modern Federal Reserve—occurred during financial panics as prices either inflated or deflated sharply. The government's decisions in these moments, intended to control price...

A stunning musical biography of Stevie Nicks that paints a portrait of an artist, not a caricature of a superstar. Diva, heroine, icon, and—to the most devoted—a goddess. Stevie Nicks resonates across generations, singing of spellcasters and dreamsmiths, stars of the silver screen, Joan of Arc, her grandmother Alice and Alice in Wonderland. This biography from distinguished music historian Simon...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A fast-paced debut...Espionage buffs will savour this vibrant account." — Publishers Weekly A U.S. naval counterintelligence officer working to safeguard Pearl Harbor; a Japanese spy ordered to Hawaii to gather information on the American fleet. On December 7, 1941, their hidden stories are exposed by a morning of bloodshed that would change the world forever. Scrutinising...

In the presidential elections of 1980, 1984, and 1988, the three Democratic nominees won an average of about 10 per cent of the Electoral College vote—a smaller share than any party in any three consecutive presidential elections in US history. In the next seven elections, Democrats won the popular vote in all but one (2004), a feat not achieved by...

The story of an influential Black Panther member who has lived in exile in Africa for 55 years Florida Book Awards, Silver Medal for General Nonfiction In the tumultuous year after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, 29-year-old Pete O’Neal became inspired by reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and founded the Kansas City branch of the Black Panther Party (BPP)....

Winner of the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction - Winner of the 2024 Kirkus Nonfiction Prize - Shortlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction - A New York Times Notable Book of 2024 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - "Stunning...A heart-pounding thriller...Challenger is a remarkable book." --The Atlantic - "Devastating...A universal story that transcends...

What does it mean to trust in a world shaped by violence and inequality? This book investigates the fraught pursuit of democratic policing in Brazil, where trust is both a necessity and a precarious gamble. Marta-Laura Haynes follows police officers and favela residents through patrols, crime scenes, fishing trips, drumming circles, and neighbourhood gatherings to reveal how trust is not...

How white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which feature symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters...

How a generation of pioneers and their historians knowingly hid the violent history of Indigenous dispossession in the Pacific Northwest The small, mostly forgotten wars of the 1850s in the American Pacific Northwest were part of a broader genocidal war—The War on Illahee—to seize Native land for Euro‑Americans. Illahee (a term for "homeland" in Chinook) was transformed into the states...

Astonishing, unconstrained, and often unsettling—the presidential pardon is one of the most powerful tools in American government, and this indispensable book is your guide to how it defines the presidency, justice, and politics. The Constitution's Pardon Clause grants the president a power unmatched in scope and consequence. In The Presidential Pardon, legal scholar Saikrishna Prakash explores how this brief clause...

All aboard for the first comprehensive history of the hard-working and wildly influential Northeast Corridor. Traversed by thousands of trains and millions of riders, the Northeast Corridor might be America's most famous railway, but its influence goes far beyond the right-of-way. David Alff welcomes readers aboard to see how nineteenth-century train tracks did more than connect Boston to Washington, DC....

The most extraordinary family you've never heard of. Born to Chinese immigrant parents, the Moy siblings grew up in an America that questioned their citizenship and denied their equality. Sophisticated and self-consciously modern, they challenged limitations and stereotypes in the United States and sought new opportunities in China's tumultuous republic. Sometimes the risks they took paid off, but their occasional...

An imaginative history of the Kankakee River, told in reverse chronological order, that examines the ecological losses caused as people transformed the river and its wetlands The Kankakee River, whose waters gathered west of present-day South Bend, Indiana, and meandered through the loose sediment left by Pleistocene glaciers, used to drain one of the largest wetlands in North America. In...

Between 1934 and 1939 a wave of violent strikes and riots swept across the Caribbean. Roger Seifert explores how British political parties, trade unions and pressure groups of the labour movement responded to these colonial struggles. Using diverse primary sources Seifert shows similarities between these disputes and solidarity (or otherwise) with Caribbean workers. The book explores deep ideological divisions on...

An urgent call to action, a manifesto for justice, and a blueprint for a more equitable America... It's time we confront our history head-on, and Radical Reparations provides the necessary tools.” —Congresswoman Barbara Lee A timely groundbreaking book in the vein of Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well, one of the country's foremost voices on reparations, offers...

A Pulitzer Prize finalist in History, this eye-opening rethinking of nineteenth-century American history reveals the interdependence of the Northern industrial economy and Southern slave labour. The industrialising North and the agricultural South—that's how we have been taught to think about the United States in the early nineteenth century. But in doing so, we overlook the economic ties that held the...

In On the Record: Music That Changed America, Anna Harwell Celenza uncovers the sometimes-surprising influence of music on American politics and culture. From "The Star-Spangled Banner" and Billie Holiday's haunting "Strange Fruit" to Paul Simon's Graceland and Lin-Manuel Miranda's groundbreaking Hamilton, Celenza explores moments where music wound its way through the halls of Congress, influencing decisions and reshaping culture. Each...

Conservatives have disagreed about many things, but they have long been united by the belief that the mainstream—or "liberal"—media is biased against them. Why did conflict with the press become so central to conservative identity, and how has antipathy toward the media shaped the modern conservative movement? A. J. Bauer traces how decades of right-wing criticism of the "liberal media"...

The consequences of U.S. border policies through the experiences of Honduran migrants. Hondurans have been at the heart of some of the most visible migration phenomena in the last few years, as well as the direct target of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy. In Leave If You Can, Amelia Frank-Vitale offers a detailed portrait of the Honduran exodus and what it...

A nuanced and personal look at the Latino art world in New York from the 1970s to the new millennium In this deft interweaving of autobiography with the story of Latino art's place in the flourishing New York art scene, Edward J. Sullivan calls attention to the prominent influence of Latin American artists from the 1970s until today. Recounting his...

American history is, in part, a history of immigration – of waves of people from other lands making their way to America's shores. Immigration: How the Past Shapes the Present argues that the past is critical in understanding current immigration; that a new historical perspective offers important insights into what is happening today. Foner examines both the facts of immigration...

In the 1960s, a musical revolution took place in the industrial landscapes of Cleveland and Detroit. Disenchanted with the strictures of bebop, musicians forged a new style-free jazz-that took inspiration from a vast range of sources, including figures such as Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and John Coltrane; African and Middle Eastern music; avant-garde modernism; and the politics and aesthetics of...

We are divided over the history of the United States, and one of the central dividing lines is the frontier. Was it a site of heroism? Or was it where the full force of an all-powerful empire was brought to bear on Native peoples? In this startlingly original work, historian Robert Parkinson presents a new account of ever-shifting encounters between...

Throughout 1905, an amateur photographer dedicated himself to capturing Broadway, from the bottom of Manhattan to the top. In sun, rain, and snow, at dawn and late at night, C. G. Hine depicted buildings that were threatened by rapid development: outmoded stores, hotels, and theatres, as well as workshops and shanties. His survey also foregrounded the street’s other holdouts against...

A behind-the-scenes look into why U.S. efforts to contain North Korea's nuclear capabilities have not worked For almost four decades, the United States has tried to stop North Korea's attempts to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Joel S. Wit, a former State Department official, takes readers to the front lines of nuclear negotiations and to fierce...

A searing reflection on the last day of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the end of foreign reporting in the nation's daily newspapers. Done in a Day turns on a single event: the April 30, 1975, departure of the last helicopter evacuating civilians from the rooftop of the US embassy in Saigon. Elisa Tamarkin's interest in that helicopter...

As the United States marks its semiquincentennial in 2026, renowned historian Marc Stein looks back at the politics of another landmark celebration during a time of striking similarities and surprising differences: the US bicentennial in 1976. In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, the bicentennial sparked an extraordinary national conversation about the country's past, present, and future. As patriots, planners,...

Discover (or rediscover!) America’s history and how it’s shaped the United States today On July 4, 2026, the United States is going to celebrate its semi-quincentennial—the 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. There are going to be fireworks, parties, celebrations, commemorations of extraordinary parts of American history, reflections on what it means to be American today,...

The United States's superpower status is often associated with its industrial, financial, and military might. Yet its global power after the Second World War hinged in part on something often seen as backward: agriculture. In contrast to Britain, the predominant global power of the nineteenth century, which depended on its current and former colonies for food and raw materials, the...

It is newly estimated that 750,000 soldiers died in the American Civil War. But less well-known than the war's death toll are the roughly 400,000 Union and Confederate troops who were captured and imprisoned. Many POWs died from starvation, dysentery, and exposure, and at the worst of the prison pens, more than 30,000 soldiers were caged in the equivalent of...

The rediscovery of the first film to depict African American affection revises the history of American cinema. In 1898, vaudeville actors Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown joyously embraced in a short silent film titled Something Good—Negro Kiss. The first known film to portray African American affection, it was lost for over a century until its rediscovery inspired contemporary audiences with...

A 300-year history of influential artist training academies in more than a dozen countries This ambitious volume delves into the institutional history of art academies. These academies provided practical training for artists as well as spaces for theoretical discussions and debates as they emerged across Europe and the Americas around 1600 and through their proliferation in the eighteenth and nineteenth...

The extraordinary story of Kathleen Harriman, daughter of the US ambassador to the USSR, told through her wartime letters Kathleen Harriman was the daughter of American businessman W. Averell Harriman. A journalist by background, she accompanied her father on his wartime postings to London and Moscow, where he served as FDR's envoy and later as US ambassador to the Soviet...

First used as a drug capable of treating mental illnesses, then as a 'truth serum' by the CIA, Tripped reveals how the fortuitous discovery of LSD in April 1943 led to a mass exploitation of this promising hallucinogen.Using archival material, Norman Ohler brings to light the often misguided interaction between scientific research, state authorities and hedonistic drug culture that shaped...

From one of the world's most prominent thinkers comes an urgent warning of the threat that US power poses to humanity's future The land of the free. The home of the brave. But what has America achieved in the aim of 'spreading democracy' - except wreak havoc across the globe and establish a reckless foreign policy that serves the interest...

The forgotten story of a decades-long international quest for a rare and coveted orchid, chronicling the botanists, plant hunters, and collectors who relentlessly pursued it at great human and environmental cost. In 1818, a curious root arrived in a small English village, tucked-seemingly by accident-in a packing case mailed from Brazil. The amateur botanist who cultivated it soon realized that...

An essential, surprising journey through the history, rituals, and landscapes of the American South - and a revelatory argument for why you must understand the South in order to understand America Many of us think we know the American South. We can rattle off a list of signifiers- the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations,...

A remarkable account of the terrible climax of the Second World War in Asia In the closing months of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Japanese, mostly civilians, died in a final outburst of violence from the air. American planes were beginning to run low on plausible targets when it was decided to use two atomic weapons in...

From award-winning writer and theorist Tao Leigh Goffe, an urgent investigation into the intertwined history of colonialism and the climate crisis - and the lessons we can learn to fight for a better world. Our planet is on the precipice of dramatic ecological breakdown and climate despair is at an all-time high. But there are many communities who have survived...

“Definitive...Not just for Talking Heads fans—it’s a masterful dive into downtown New York in the 70s, and the changing face of rock music.” —Town & Country “Riveting” —New York Post “A masterful achievement.” —Booklist (starred review) On the 50th anniversary of Talking Heads, acclaimed music biographer Jonathan Gould presents the long-overdue, definitive story of this singular band, capturing the gritty...

The bestselling historian on the nation that rules the world, and how it came to do so. The global powerhouse that is the United States of America is younger even than the British Museum, Guinness and the flushing toilet. In 2026, it will celebrate its 250th birthday. How did this vast land, long inhabited by diverse indigenous cultures, come to...

Haiti is a nation near-collapse: criminal gangs have overrun the country, nearly all government officials have fled after the 2021 assassination of President Moise, refugees desperately set out on boats to reach the United States and Latin America, and the economy reels from the cascading after-effects of natural disasters that destroyed much of Haiti's infrastructure. How did this happen? How...

A stunning, imaginative work of history that transforms our understanding of slavery and resistance. Women warriors planned and led slave revolts on slave ships during the passage across the Atlantic. They fought their enslavers throughout the Americas. And then they were erased from history. In Wake, Rebecca Hall, a historian, a granddaughter of slaves, and a woman haunted by the...

How the U.S. policy of competition with China is detrimental to democracy, peace, and prosperity—and how a saner approach is possible For close to a decade, the U.S. government has been preoccupied with the threat of China, fearing that the country will "eat our lunch," in the words of Joe Biden. The United States has crafted its foreign and domestic...

The Jerusalem Files is a non-fiction Da Vinci Code for the 21st century. This thrilling treasure hunt traces the voyage of the legendary Jewish Menorah from the Jerusalem of the Knights Templar through France, Portugal, and North America, providing mind-blowing history and mystery for fans of The Curse of Oak Island. The Jewish Menorah is one of the world's most...