State & Local

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The most famous true crime novel of all time "chills the blood and exercises the intelligence" (The New York Review of Books)—and haunted its author long after he finished writing it. On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the...

The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place....

From the creators of the New York Times bestselling audio series Campfire Stories and MeatEater's American History comes a new audiobook original that immerses listeners into the brutal and unforgiving world of the professional buffalo hunters who drove America's most iconic wildlife species to...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the author of Ghost Soldiers comes an eye-opening history of the American conquest of the West—"a story full of authority and color, truth and prophecy" (The New York Times Book Review). In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route...

In riveting prose, These Truths tells the story of America, beginning in 1492, to ask whether the course of events has proven the nation's founding truths or belied them....

The Chelsea Hotel, since its founding by a visionary French architect in 1884, has been an icon of American invention: a cultural dynamo and haven for the counterculture....

Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash....

Why is it so much easier for the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote than to build and maintain a majority in Congress? Why can Democrats sweep statewide offices in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan yet fail to take control of the same states' legislatures? Find out....

The National Book Award–winning biography that tells the story of how young Teddy Roosevelt transformed himself from a sickly boy into the vigorous man who would become a war hero and ultimately president of the United States, told by master historian David McCullough. Mornings on Horseback is...

Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. Fremont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of....

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat and Facing the Mountain comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier “An ideal pairing of talent and material.… Engrossing.… A deft and ambitious storyteller.” — Mary Roach, New York Times...

Deborah Feldman, author of the explosive New York Times–bestselling memoir Unorthodox, returns with an extraordinary follow-up that traces her new life as an independent young woman and single mother, and her search for an authentic and personal Jewish identity...

A bold and searing investigation into the role of white women in the American slave economy....

Winner of the Civil War Round Table of New York’s Fletcher Pratt Literary Award Winner of the Austin Civil War Round Table’s Daniel M. & Marilyn W. Laney Book Prize Winner of an Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award “A superb account” (The Wall Street Journal) of the...

No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together". To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it". To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history....

In January 1863, in a remote Appalachian valley of North Carolina called Shelton Laurel, thirteen prisoners ranging in age from thirteen to fifty-nine were shot to death.

The history of the Quill and Dagger secret society at Cornell University is a narrative of prestige, hidden influence, and the evolution of the American collegiate elite. Founded in the late nineteenth century, the society has occupied a unique position in the social hierarchy of Ithaca, New York, acting as both a guarded sanctuary for the university's most influential student leaders and a visible pillar of campus tradition.

In the humid, moss-draped corridor of North-Central Florida, power is not merely inherited; it is engineered. For over a century, the University of Florida has served as the primary incubator for the state’s political, legal, and economic elite, but the true architect of this influence is not found in a faculty lounge or an administrative office. Instead, it resides within a storied, once-shadowy organization known as Florida Blue Key (FBK).

Most travelers think they know Florida - sunshine, sand, and roller coasters. But Exploring Florida: A Journey Through History and Must-See Destinations reveals a side of the Sunshine State that few ever see: one filled with ancient cultures, Spanish fortresses, rocket launches, and resilient communities shaped by centuries of change. From the shell mounds of the Calusa to the pastel streets of Key West, author Brian Armstrong takes listeners on a journey that bridges history and modern adventure.

A Brief History of Columbus traces the city’s remarkable journey from ancient Indigenous homelands to one of America’s fastest growing metropolitan centers. In ten vivid chapters, Derek Monaghan explores how Columbus evolved through frontier settlement, industrial expansion, immigration, suburban growth, cultural revival, and twenty first century innovation. Richly written and accessible, this concise history offers newcomers and lifelong residents a compelling look at the people, forces, and ideas that shaped Ohio’s capital; and the possibilities that lie ahead.

When Brooklyn and Manhattan embarked on the ambitious project to span the East River in 1869, they set in motion not just an engineering triumph but a financial catastrophe that would reshape the future of both cities. "Towers of Hubris" reveals the untold story behind the Brooklyn Bridge's staggering cost overruns, political machinations, and the crushing debt that ultimately forced Brooklyn to surrender its independence and join Greater New York.

Every empire has its capital. Ours happens to be built on a swamp. In Swamp, Suits, and Shenanigans, cultural essayist Jordan Blake Carter digs through two centuries of ambition, hypocrisy, and hope to reveal the real Washington, D.C. From its mosquito-ridden origins to its modern brunch-and-barricade reality, this is the capital as you have never seen it: brilliant, broken, and always under renovation.

California is the land of impossible dreams and inevitable disasters. Gold built it, earthquakes shook it, fires torched it, Hollywood sold it, and Silicon Valley convinced us all to scroll through it. Behind the sunshine and palm trees lies a history of robber barons, cult leaders, political circus acts, and enough contradictions to power the state grid.

Today’s battles over Christianity in U.S. public schools have deep roots. In the nineteenth century it was an intramural struggle between Protestants and later-arriving Catholics. But at Christmastime in 1905, when Frank Harding, the Presbyterian principal of a Brooklyn elementary school, urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus, the Jewish community entered the fray in a big way. It was just the trigger Orthodox Jewish activist Albert Lucas had been waiting for.

Game Warden Art Teed vanished on a smoke-choked August day in 1934, last seen pursuing wildlife thieves in the backwoods of Idaho. What followed was the largest manhunt in the state’s history–more than a thousand men scouring mountains, forests, and rivers for answers that never came. His wife and two sons lived out their lives haunted by a single question: Did he die in the line of duty, or did he choose to disappear? Nearly ninety years later, one unexpected phone call shattered the silence–and reopened a mystery everyone thought was buried–Idaho’s oldest cold murder case.

A collection of five short stories about the amazing, forgotten history of Southwest Ohio and Cincinnati, plus a bonus Mystery Tour of 10 Places to Discover Cincinnati History. Read about the Wilmington man who survived a duel in Goldrush California, named a city and a state and tamed Bleeding Kansas; the first serial killer in Cincinnati who became the first woman executed in the electric chair; the son of US President William Henry Harrison whose body was robbed from his grave on the night he was buried, and more.

The history of secret societies is often a tapestry of myth, conjecture, and fragmented records, but few organizations carry the weight of mystery associated with the Sphinx Society. Founded on the principle that ancient architectural wonders were not merely monuments but repositories of pre-diluvian knowledge, the Society has operated in the shadows of academia and theology for centuries. To understand the Sphinx Society, one must first understand the symbol from which it takes its name.

In the autumn of 1890, the wind sweeping across the gorges of Ithaca, New York, carried with it the whispers of a new era. Cornell University, then a young but rapidly ascending institution founded on the principles of egalitarianism and practical education, was becoming a fertile ground for a different kind of tradition. While the university’s founder, Ezra Cornell, had famously declared an intent to found an institution where "any person can find instruction in any study," a group of ambitious seniors sought to create a more exclusive echelon within that democratic framework.

A controversial character largely known (as depicted in the movie Glory) as a Union colonel who led Black soldiers in the Civil War, James Montgomery (1814–71) waged a far more personal and radical war against slavery than popular history suggests. It is the true story of this militant abolitionist that Todd Mildfelt and David D. Schafer tell in Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind, summoning a life fiercely lived in struggle against the expansion of slavery into the West and during the Civil War.

More mounds were built by ancient Native Americans in Wisconsin than in any other region of North America—between 15,000 and 20,000, at least 4,000 of which remain today. Most impressive are the effigy mounds, huge earthworks sculpted in the shapes of thunderbirds, water panthers, and other forms, not found anywhere else in the world in such concentrations. This second edition of Indian Mounds of Wisconsin is updated throughout, incorporating exciting new research and satellite imagery. Written for general listeners, it offers a comprehensive overview of these intriguing earthworks.

The history of the Anak Society at the Georgia Institute of Technology is a narrative woven into the very red clay of Atlanta. To understand this organization, one must first understand the environment of the early twentieth century American South, a time when collegiate identity was being forged through a mixture of Victorian fraternal ideals and a burgeoning sense of industrial progress. Founded in 1908, the Anak Society was not merely a social club; it was designed as a vanguard of student leadership, intended to guide the campus through its formative decades.

Step behind the heavy iron doors of America’s most exclusive collegiate orders. For nearly two centuries, the "Ancient Eight" senior societies of Yale University have operated as a shadow government within the Ivy League, cultivating the future leaders of industry, law, and politics. This comprehensive volume offers an unprecedented look into the windowless tombs of New Haven, providing a meticulous examination of the rituals and legacies that define these institutions.

Experience Sacramento blends immersive storytelling with practical travel insights, taking listeners beyond the Capitol dome and into the neighborhoods, parks, river-fronts, and dining experiences that make this city truly one-of-a-kind.

Delaware: the First State, the Forgotten State, and the strangest little powerhouse you never paid attention to. This is not your high school history textbook. From Lenape fishing villages to Dutch and Swedish turf wars, from Caesar Rodney’s wheezing midnight ride to the explosive rise of DuPont, Delaware has been shaping America while pretending to be invisible. Along the way it perfected the art of being indispensable without being noticed: chickens, chemicals, corporations, and boardwalks all rolled into one.

Step into the dust, danger, and drama of America’s most legendary frontier town. In A Brief History of Dodge City, Derek Monaghan delivers a vivid, cinematic journey through the rise, reign, and reinvention of the Queen of the Cowtowns. Spanning ten immersive chapters and 15,000 words, this book brings to life the people, conflicts, and cultural forces that shaped one of the most iconic places in the American West.