American & Canadian History

"Choi's true-crime biography adds much-needed detail and perspective to Noguchi's unusual and compelling story." -Booklist L.A. Coroner is a gripping true crime biography of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the controversial "Coroner to the Stars," who performed the autopsies of Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Natalie Wood, and hundreds of other notable personalities. Choi, an award-winning historian and professor, deftly blends Los...

For much of American history, an impassable gulf seemed to separate Jews and Christians, keeping their respective peoples and cultures far apart. But in recent decades that has begun to change. The rise of a militant secularism, one equally hostile to Israel and to America's Judeo-Christian values and institutions, has unexpectedly drawn Jews and Christians closer together. In the face...

Contravening conventional wisdom, Zelizer offers a spirited defense of parties and partisanship. - Frances Lee, Princeton University Partisanship is a dirty word in American politics. If there is one issue on which almost everyone in our divided country seems to agree, it's the belief that the intense loyalty within the electorate toward Democrats and Republicans is the source of our...

This book examines national debates on immigration, asylum seekers, and guest worker programmes from 1970 to the present. Over the past 45 years, contemporary immigration has had a profound impact throughout North America, Europe, and Australasia, yet the admission of ethnically diverse immigrants was far from inevitable. In the midst of significant social change, policymakers grappled with fundamental questions: what...

Thousands of books and articles have been written about the murder of JFK, many of which are large in volume and short on facts. Quite often, these works try to reinvent the wheel, attempting to cover every single area of the assassination, as well as many tangential and unessential points. The reader is often left exhausted and confused. The sheer...

A New York Times Best Seller! Richard Belzer and David Wayne are back to set the record straight after Dead Wrong; this time they're going to uncover the truth about the many witness deaths tied to the JFK assassination. For decades, government pundits have dismissed these "coincidental" deaths, even regarding them as "myths" or "urban legends". Like most people, Richard...

The CIA, Dallas, and the Hard Details of the JFK Assassination Coup in Dallas leaves speculation and theory aside to give the hard details of who killed President John F. Kennedy and how the assassination plot was carried out. Through exhaustive research and newly translated documents, author H. P. Albarelli uncovers and explains the historical roots of state-sponsored assassination, finding...

Mr. Lifton and I initially started talking per phone once a month or so around mid-2018, this due to the David Lifton Project, a video interview my students created back in February 2018. The point was to share his all-important research with the next generation of Americans, the youth of our nation; students sharing the importance of Mr. Lifton's work...

This book reflects on the motivations of creative practitioners who have moved out of cities from the mid-1960s onwards to establish creative homesteads. The book focuses on desert exile painter Agnes Martin, radical filmmaker and gardener Derek Jarman, and iconoclastic conceptual artist Chris Burden, detailing their connections to the cities they had left behind (New York, London, Los Angeles). Sarah...

Chewing Gum, by Michael Redclift, is a captivating exploration of the growing popularity of gum in the United States. This engaging narrative is skilfully woven together with a fascinating history of peasant revolution, led by charismatic Indians in the lush jungles of southern Mexico.

Two cowboys—one old, the other young—set off to seek their fortune driving a herd of horses across the West. Before long, they find themselves risking everything to save five kidnapped Chinese girls from a life of prostitution. Thus begins an epic and perilous journey that changes forever the fates of these young girls, their unlikely guardians, and the other characters...

This important book sheds light on more than 1,400 brief life histories of mostly enslaved Black people, with the goal of recovering their individual lives. Harvey Amani Whitfield unearths the stories of men, women, and children who would not otherwise have found their way into written history. The individuals mentioned come from various points of origin, including Africa, the West...

In life, Benjamin Franklin sought to manage debt, organise credit, build capital and promote virtue. After death, he continued this work by leaving a codicil to his last will and testament, bequeathing £2,000 to Boston and Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin and the Invention of Microfinance examines Franklin’s codicil and the financial history of America over the 200 years since his death....

Toronto - the largest and one of the most multicultural cities in Canada - boasts an equally interesting and diverse architectural heritage. Architecture, Design and Craft in Toronto 1900-1940 tells a story of the significant changes in domestic life in the first 40 years of the twentieth century. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach to studies of residential spaces, the author examines...

A People's History Of The American Revolution draws upon diaries, personal letters and other Revolutionary-era treasures, weaving a thrilling, 'you are there' narrative—a tapestry that uses individual experiences to illustrate the larger stories (Los Angeles Times Book Review). In the trademark style of Howard Zinn, Raphael shifts the focus away from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to the slaves they...

Often played down in favour of the larger competition for empire between England and France, the influence of the Spanish in English Carolina and the English in Spanish Florida created a rivalry that shaped the early history of colonial south-east America. This study is the first to tell the full story of this rivalry. Anglo-Spanish Rivalry in Colonial South-East America,...

This book provides a basic outline of the history of the American steel industry, a sector of the economy that has been an important part of the industrial system. An Economic History of the American Steel Industry starts with the 1830s, when the American iron and steel industry resembled the traditional iron producing sector that had existed in the old...

Beginning with the American Revolution and spanning over two hundred years of American journalism, A Narrative History of the American Press provides an overview of the events, institutions, and people who have shaped the press, from the creation of the First Amendment to today. Gregory A. Borchard's introductory text helps readers develop an understanding of the role of the press...

That America was drawn into the Vietnam War by the French has been recognised, but rarely explored. America's Vietnam War and Its French Connection analyses the years from 1945, with the French military reconquest of Vietnam, until 1963, with the execution of the French-endorsed dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem. It demonstrates how the US should not have followed the French into...

Fully revised and expanded, this stirring account reveals how the U.S. government permitted the illegal entry of Nazis into North America in the years following World War II. This extraordinary investigation exposes the secret section of the State Department that began, starting in 1948 and unbeknownst to Congress and the public until recently, to hire members of the puppet wartime...

American Folklore contains over 500 articles ranging over foodways and folksongs, quiltmaking and computer lore, Pecos Bill, Butch Cassidy, and Elvis sightings. More than 500 articles spotlight folk literature, music, and crafts; sports and holidays; tall tales and legendary figures; genres and forms; scholarly approaches and theories; regions and ethnic groups; performers and collectors; writers and scholars; religious beliefs and...

American Exceptionalism Vol 4 by Timothy Roberts and Lindsay DiCuirci explores the enduring philosophy that America is fundamentally distinct from other nations. This idea has influenced economics, politics, religion, and culture for over two centuries. This collection of primary source material aims to shed light on the origins of this belief, its evolution over time, and the reasons for its...

American Exceptionalism Vol 3 explores the philosophy that America is fundamentally distinct from other nations, a concept that has dominated economics, politics, religion, and culture for two centuries. This comprehensive collection of primary source material seeks to understand how this belief began, how it developed, and why it remains popular.

American Documentary Filmmaking in the Digital Age examines the recent challenges to the conventions of realist documentary through the lens of war documentary films by Ken Burns, Michael Moore, and Errol Morris. During the twentieth century, the invention of new technologies of audiovisual representation such as cinema, television, video, and digital media have transformed the modes of historical narration. This...

This ethnographic study explores the status of African Americans during the Reconstruction era, examining the particularities of topics such as race relations, social systems, legal systems, and economic and political status. Rather than dealing with the status of African Americans as an isolated human rights issue, Gao examines the African American role in American society within the broader context of...

Zuni, Hopi, Copan: Early Anthropology at Harvard, 1890–1893 publishes one hundred letters from John Gundy Owens to Deborah Harker Stratton, currently held in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. Owens was one of the first graduate students in anthropology at Harvard; his poignant letters to "Miss Debbie" trace a budding relationship of affection in late Victorian...

A Vietnam veteran explains the composition, capabilities, equipment and missions of the US Army and Marine Corps helicopter and airmobile units in the Vietnam war - and exactly how they carried out their missions. This compact, yet detailed volume centres on the classic airmobile assault mission: how it was planned and prepared; how the troop-carrying “slicks” and their “gunship” escorts...

The poignant saga of Guatemala's adoption industry: an international marketplace for children, built on a foundation of inequality, war, and Indigenous dispossession. In 2014, Dolores Preat went to a small Maya town in Guatemala to find her birth mother. At the address retrieved from her adoption file, she was told that her supposed mother, one Rosario Colop Chim, never gave...

The ink was barely dry on the Constitution when it was almost destroyed by the rise of political parties in the United States. As Bruce Ackerman shows, the Framers had not anticipated the two-party system, and when Republicans battled Federalists for the presidency in 1800, the rules laid down by the Constitution exacerbated the crisis. With Republican militias preparing to...

The 1967 'Summer of Love' brought all sorts of unusual people and events to London but perhaps nothing so extraordinary as the Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation. The congress, organised by the American 'anti-psychiatrist' Joe Berke, with help from Leon Redler, R.D. Laing, David Cooper, and a host of students, ex-students, psychiatric 'patients', and secretaries, took place at the...

A richly illustrated look at the book collections of all 46 American presidents to date—and what we can learn from them about their owners. With a few exceptions, American presidents have been readers. This book surveys an outstanding collection by Susan Jaffe Tane that encompasses books every US president owned and collected as a part of their personal libraries, as...

In this Reacting to the Past game, the classroom is transformed into New York City in 1775, where Patriot and Loyalist forces fight for advantage among a divided populace. Confronted with issues like bribery, the loss of privacy, and collapsing economic opportunity along with ideological concerns like natural rights, the philosophical foundations of government, and differing definitions of tyranny, students...

A fresh look at the global dimensions of US painting from the 1850s to 1898. Painting US Empire is the first book to offer a synthetic account of art and US imperialism around the globe in the nineteenth century. In this work, art historian Maggie M. Cao crafts a nuanced portrait of nineteenth-century US painters' complicity with and resistance to...

A captivating oral history of the iconic music venue the Stone Pony and of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Asbury Park, New Jersey—featuring interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Southside Johnny, members of the E Street Band and Asbury Jukes, the Ramones, the Jonas Brothers, Jack Antonoff, and other legendary musicians. Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen photos from Danny Clinch...

As China’s global influence continues to rise, its capital, Beijing, has become increasingly important—and a popular tourist destination, greeting close to five million international visitors each year. An Armchair Traveller’s History of Beijing presents the capital from its earliest beginnings as a prehistoric campsite for Peking Man through its fluctuating fortunes under a dozen dynasties. Home to capitals of several...

Only in 1995 did the United States government officially reveal the existence of the super-secret Venona Project. For nearly fifty years, American intelligence agents had been decoding thousands of Soviet messages, uncovering an enormous range of espionage activities carried out against the United States during World War II by its own allies. So sensitive was the project in its early...

A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail. The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilisation. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the centre of...

How silver influenced two hundred years of world history, and why it matters today The Story of Silver is the tale of silver's transformation from a soft money in the nineteenth century to a hard asset today. It explores how manipulations of the white metal by American president Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s and by the richest man in...

How silver influenced two hundred years of world history, and why it matters today. This is the story of silver's transformation from soft money during the nineteenth century to hard asset today, and how manipulations of the white metal by American president Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s and by the richest man in the world, Texas oil baron Nelson...

The hidden life of the greatest surviving work of Inca art The most celebrated Andean artwork in the world is a five-hundred-year-old Inca tunic made famous through theories about the meanings of its intricate designs, including attempts to read them as a long-lost writing system. But very little is really known about it. The Royal Inca Tunic reconstructs the history...

This is an ambitious, meticulous examination of how U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s has led to partial or total cover-ups of past domestic criminal acts, including, perhaps, the catastrophe of 9/11. Peter Dale Scott, whose previous books have investigated CIA involvement in southeast Asia, the drug wars, and the Kennedy assassination, here probes how the policies of presidents since...

A richly illustrated celebration of the paintings of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama From the moment of their unveiling at the National Portrait Gallery in early 2018, the portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama have become two of the most beloved artworks of our time. Kehinde Wiley's portrait of President Obama and Amy Sherald's portrait of the...

When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there. Nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. In this seminal two-volume work, The Invention of the White Race, Theodore W. Allen tells the story of how America’s ruling classes created the category of the ‘white race’ as a means of...

The untold story of how America's brightest academic minds revolutionised intelligence analysis at the CIA. In the early days of the Cold War, the United States faced a crisis in intelligence analysis. A series of intelligence failures in 1949 and 1950, including the failure to warn about the North Korean invasion of South Korea, made it clear that gut instinct...

In this richly detailed and eye-opening book, Rick Wartzman chronicles the erosion of the relationship between American companies and their workers. Through the stories of four major employers—General Motors, General Electric, Kodak, and Coca-Cola—he shows how big businesses once took responsibility for providing their workers and retirees with an array of social benefits. At the height of the post-World War...

Offering a broad historical perspective, Selfa shows how the Democratic Party has time and again betrayed the aspirations of ordinary people while pursuing an agenda favourable to Wall Street and U.S. imperial ambitions. He examines the relationship between party leaders and social movements, from the civil rights struggle to the movement to end the Iraq war; reveals the unhappy marriage...

This study critically surveys the changing and highly controversial literature surrounding the American Civil War era, from contemporary interpretations up to the present. The racial question was one of the central causes of the war; there was recognition of the need for America to conform wholly to the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal". This moral dimension...

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Winner of a PROSE Award "Fascinating. Eye-opening. Illuminating. Patterson carefully explores the complexity of the structural machinery behind Jamaica's dazzling successes and dismal failures." - Carrie Gibson, New York Times Book Review "In the ruins of postcolonial Jamaica, Patterson unearths a vibrant popular culture, centred in particular on dancehall music, that can provide...

NAACP Image Award Finalist for Outstanding Debut Author Featuring 117 full-colour photos and eight breathtaking essays on a force that fuels Black life all around the globe, this is Humans of New York meets The Black Book. "A patchwork quilt of visually stunning images, captured moments of triumph, antidotes to trauma narratives and rich, ebullient emotional and verbal spice for...

The shocking and significant story of how the White House and Pentagon scuttled an epic Hollywood production. Soon after atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, MGM set out to make a movie studio chief Louis B. Mayer called "the most important story" he would ever film: a big budget dramatisation of the Manhattan Project and the invention...

“DiGregorio’s storytelling is pitch-perfect; narrative and nursing, she understands, come from the same place and both are concerned with a deep understanding of character and plot....This is a brilliant book, and DiGregorio is a beautiful writer. Taking Care deserves to be on the reading list for nursing and medical schools, and on the bedside table of all politicians." — New...

Drawing on a wide range of sources, this book exposes Andrew Jackson's failure to honour and enforce federal laws and treaties protecting Indian rights, describing how the Indian policies of "Old Hickory" were those of a racist imperialist, in stark contrast to how his followers characterised him, believing him to be a champion of democracy. Early in his career as...

The first comprehensive account to place the Pacific Islands, the Pacific Rim and the Pacific Ocean into the perspective of world history. A distinguished international team of historians provides a multidimensional account of the Pacific, its inhabitants and the lands within and around it over 50,000 years, with special attention to the peoples of Oceania. It provides chronological coverage along...

Extensively expanded and revised, with a new foreword by Thomas Frank In the United States, happiness and wealth are often regarded as synonymous. Consumerism, greed, and the insatiable desire for more are American obsessions. In the native tradition of Twain, Veblen, and Mencken, the editor of Lapham's Quarterly here examines our fascination with the ubiquitous green goddess. Focusing on the...

Robert A. Williams Jr. boldly exposes the ongoing legal force of the racist language directed at Indians in American society. Fueled by well-known negative racial stereotypes of Indian savagery and cultural inferiority, this language, Williams contends, has functioned like a loaded weapon in the Supreme Court's Indian law decisions. Beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall's foundational opinions in the early...

A captivating oral history of the iconic music venue the Stone Pony and of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Asbury Park, New Jersey—featuring interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Southside Johnny, members of the E Street Band and Asbury Jukes, the Ramones, the Jonas Brothers, Jack Antonoff, and other legendary musicians. Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen photos from Danny Clinch...

A "radiantly accomplished" music scholar presents an accessible introduction to the art of listening to jazz (Wall Street Journal) In How to Listen to Jazz, award-winning music scholar Ted Gioia presents a lively introduction to one of America's premier art forms. He explains what to listen for in a performance and includes a guide to today's leading jazz musicians. From...

Beginning in the 1920s, audiences around the globe were seduced not only by Hollywood films but also by lavish movie theatres that were owned and operated by the major American film companies. These theatres aimed to provide a quintessentially "American" experience. Outfitted with American technology and accoutrements, they allowed local audiences to watch American films in an American-owned cinema in...

Give Me Liberty! is beloved by instructors and students alike because it delivers an authoritative, concise, and integrated American history. In the Seventh Edition, Eric Foner welcomes acclaimed scholars Kathleen DuVal and Lisa McGirr as co-authors. Together, they have enhanced coverage of Native American history with an emphasis on how it refines our understanding of freedom—the book's urgent guiding theme....

How the US crusade against prostitution became a tool of empire Between the 1870s and 1930s, American social reformers, working closely with the US government, transformed sexual vice into an international political and humanitarian concern. As these activists worked to eradicate prostitution and trafficking, they promoted sexual self-control for both men and women as a cornerstone of civilization and a...

Based on a wide range of original sources, including folktales, anthropological studies, court statements, poetry and speeches, Destined for a Life of Service sheds new light on the struggle of people of African descent for full and equal citizenship in the post-emancipation British Caribbean. It examines the messages that African-Jamaican women were given about their place and roles from within...

Born in Blood and Fire pioneered an integrative approach to teaching Latin American history. Combining a regional perspective with a chronological framework, it enables students to more clearly see connections and comparisons that span several countries. In the Fifth Edition, John Chasteen expands the examination of Colombia's surging influence in the region and places greater emphasis on Latin America's connections...

Exploring the history of US politics from the first European contact with the ‘New World’ in 1492, up to the 2024 presidential elections, this book is an engaging account of America’s development from colony to world superpower. Using religion as a central theme to navigate through this vast topic, it moves beyond the realm of political parties, leaders, and ideologies...

Nearly 300 entries, from accession to yoke, describe the main gods and symbols of the Aztecs, Olmecs, Zapotecs, Maya, Teotihuacanos, Mixtects, and Toltecs. Introductory essays provide succinct accounts of Mesoamerican history and religion. This authoritative work is a standard reference for students, scholars, and travellers.

'This history will endure; not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues — its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the hey-day of their empire thought and felt about their country's past.' The...

The unlikely story of how Americans canonized Adam Smith as the patron saint of free markets Originally published in 1776, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was lauded by America's founders as a landmark work of Enlightenment thinking about national wealth, statecraft, and moral virtue. Today, Smith is one of the most influential icons of economic thought in America. Glory...

An engaging and comprehensive study of property-owning women in the colony of Tidewater, VA during the 16th century. It examines the social restrictions on women's behaviour and speech, opportunities and difficulties these women encountered in the legal system, the economic and discretionary authority they enjoyed, the roles they played in the family business, their roles in the later, Trans-Atlantic trading...

An engaging and comprehensive study of property-owning women in the colony of Tidewater, VA during the 16th century. It examines the social restrictions on women's behaviour and speech, opportunities and difficulties these women encountered in the legal system, the economic and discretionary authority they enjoyed, the roles they played in the family business, their roles in the later, Trans-Atlantic trading...

The World of the American West is an innovative collection of original essays that brings the world of the American West to life, and conveys the distinctiveness of this diverse, constantly changing region. Twenty scholars incorporate the freshest research in the field to take the history of the American West out of its timeworn "Cowboys and Indians" stereotype right up...

This book illuminates singular aspects of Southern society and culture, providing justification for thinking about the South as a region unto itself. It also shows that the South in fact consists of many shifting social and cultural sub-regions. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American South offers a unique perspective, encouraging readers to explore the diverse and dynamic characteristics that...

This, the second of two volumes of Liberty and Union, is a comprehensive constitutional history of the United States from the Progressive Era of the early twentieth century to the most recent decisions of the Supreme Court on contemporary constitutional issues. Written in a clear and engaging narrative style, it successfully unites thorough chronological coverage with a thematic approach, offering...

Providing a survey of colonial American history both regionally broad and Atlantic in coverage, Converging Worlds presents the most recent research in an accessible manner for undergraduate students. With chapters written by top-notch scholars, Converging Worlds is unique in providing not only a comprehensive chronological approach to colonial history with attention to thematic details, but a window into the relevant...

In light of accumulating significant debts, Arthur Shelby, a farmer from Kentucky, finds himself on the verge of losing his entire estate. Despite his and his wife's compassionate treatment of their slaves, Shelby is compelled to sell two of them to Mr. Haley, a rugged slave trader, to raise the necessary funds. Uncle Tom's Cabin is a timeless masterpiece that...

Penguin Modern Hardbacks — a new series of iconic works from the Modern Classics list with bold, mid-century-inspired cover designs. Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the...

A dramatic new interpretation of the encounter between Europe and the Americas reveals the crucial role of animals in the shaping of the modern world. When the first European colonisers arrived in the Americas, they were utterly dependent on the dogs and horses who assisted them in military campaigns, as well as the livestock who provided them with food and...

As Spanish conquistadors swept through the New World, the Crown envisioned that a rigidly hierarchical aristocratic order would flourish in their wake. At first, this vision seemed to be within reach: the great conquistadors ruled as noblemen over millions. Yet contrary to all expectations, the Spanish empire in the New World quickly became a hotbed of radical efforts to overturn...

Mexico matters. It is one of the most important emerging market economies in the world and arguably the most important country in the everyday lives of Americans. Yet what do we really know about it? By revealing the unwritten rules of behaviour that drive Mexico's politics, economy, and foreign policy, leading political scientist Pamela K. Starr explores the competing forces...

In 2017, a small crew gathered in a windowless Pentagon room to put AI at the heart of how America makes war. Led by Drew Cukor, an unyielding Marine Corps colonel driven by the deaths of US troops and the prospect of war with an AI-equipped China, the Project Maven team raced to send AI into combat, igniting controversy and...

Only Native Americans have held the political identity of being citizens of nations within a nation. After the American Revolution, they had to decide whether gaining United States citizenship would help to preserve their rights and property or be used to take them away—and they found out that either decision could end in loss. To understand the profound consequences of...

The compelling story of a little-known figure in the American Revolution, now available in paperback for the first time, with a new foreword by Iris de Rode. In 1776, the playwright and inventor Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–99) conceived an audacious plan to send aid to the American rebels. What's more, he convinced King Louis XVI to bankroll the project...