Showing titles in United States

With its thunderous assault on the Mariana Islands in June 1944, the United States crossed the threshold of total war. In this tour de force of dramatic storytelling, distilled from extensive research in newly discovered primary sources, James D. Hornfischer brings to life the campaign that was the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender—and that forever changed the art of modern war.

A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire.

This book is an invitation, a heartfelt one, to step away from the noise and actually engage in meaningful conversations about America, our America, in ways that feel increasingly rare these days. In our current climate, it often feels like we talk just to reply, rather than truly listen. Politics and money dominate every discussion, steering us away from the core of what this nation stands for. But to uphold the principles of Liberty, Freedom, and those inalienable rights we all cherish, we must relearn how to engage meaningfully. That’s the very heart and soul of American Pie.

Jimmy Carter defied every expectation. Dismissed as a failed one-term president, he transformed defeat into a remarkable second act that spanned nearly half a century. When he left the White House at 56, few could have predicted that this farmer from Plains, Georgia, would become America’s most impactful as well as longest-lived ex-president.

Luck o' the Draw is a rollicking tale of Irish gunfighters who roamed the remote vastness of 19th century Nevada. In a labor of love, Karen Wilkes takes us into her personal search to uncover the hidden history of the notorious desperadoes who populated her hometown of Pioche—many of whom ended up in the legendary Boot Hill graveyard she could see from her living room window.

A ground-breaking and essential work of history – the first of its kind to closely examine the British Royal Family's connection with the transatlantic slave trade The Crown's Silence is the untold story of the British royal family's relationship to slavery from the reign of Elizabeth I to the present. It will be the first history of the British monarchy told through the lens of its intimate, centuries-long relationship with African slave trading, slavery, and racial injustice.

How international oil companies navigated the local, segregated landscape of north Louisiana in the first decades of the twentieth century.

It is an explosive true story of survival, betrayal, and the moment America lost its grip on the Middle East. On November 4, 1979, 52 Americans were taken hostage inside the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, an act that stunned the world and sparked a 444-day standoff that shattered U.S. diplomacy and changed global politics forever. In this pulse-pounding narrative, acclaimed historian Davis Truman pulls back the curtain on the backroom deals, psychological torment, and international missteps that defined one of the longest hostage crises in modern history.

As John Freeman writes in California Rewritten, "Literature of so many kinds and so many genres from so many different types of people—at the highest level—has been coming out of California and from Californians for decades now." Freeman, one of the sharpest editors working today, has followed the evolution of California's literary life since his teenage years in Sacramento. In over fifty essays inspired by his hosting of Alta Journal's popular California Book Club, he offers an essential road map to California literature now.

Embark on one of the most legendary adventures in American history with The Great Journey of Lewis and Clark. Rupert S. Holland’s vivid retelling captures the awe, peril, and triumph of the Corps of Discovery as they traverse uncharted wilderness, encounter diverse Native tribes, and chart a path to the Pacific Ocean.

The Grapes of Conquest unearths the working-class, multiracial roots of the California wine industry, challenging its contemporary identity as the purview of elite populations.

Power. Politics. Personality. All in one seat. 'The Presidents' is a no-holds-barred, wildly entertaining journey through every U.S. president—from George Washington to Donald Trump. Written in a sharp, modern voice with respect where it’s due and honesty where it’s earned, this isn’t the history book you grew up with. Whether you’re a political junkie, a trivia nerd, or just someone who loves a good story, 'The Presidents' delivers bite-sized chapters full of iconic moments, epic fails, and the human mess behind the myth of leadership. Each president gets their chapter.

They taught you the dream. They left out the fire. King, Uncut strips away the safe, polished image and brings you the man they didn’t want you to meet. This is not a tribute. This is a reckoning. The speeches they don’t quote. The truths they don’t teach. And the revolution that never stopped.

Based largely on documents declassified in only the last few years, One Man Against the World paints a devastating portrait of a tortured yet brilliant man who led the country largely according to a deep-seated insecurity and distrust of not only his cabinet and Congress but the American population at large. In riveting, tick-tock prose, Weiner illuminates how the Vietnam War and the Watergate controversy that brought about Nixon's demise were inextricably linked.

George S. Patton was a general who achieved greatness in his field by contradicting his own nature. A cavalryman steeped in romantic military tradition, he nevertheless pulled a reluctant American military into the most advanced realms of highly mobile armored warfare. An autocratic snob, Patton created unparalleled rapport and loyalty with the lowliest private in his command.

Ranging from the age of slavery to contemporary injustices, this groundbreaking history of race, gender and class inequality by the radical political activist Angela Davis offers an alternative view of female struggles for liberation. Tracing the intertwined histories of the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements, Davis examines the racism and class prejudice inherent in so much of white feminism, and in doing so brings to light new pioneering heroines, from field slaves to mill workers, who fought back and refused to accept the lives into which they were born.

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. Here, in a biography that finally gives this outsize character his due, Jerry Enzler takes this frontiersman's full measure for the first time—and tells a story that would do Jim Bridger proud.

In the dark winter of 1917, as World War I was deadlocked, Britain knew that Europe could be saved only if the United States joined the war. But President Wilson remained unshakable in his neutrality. Then, with a single stroke, the tool to propel America into the war came into a quiet British office. One of countless messages intercepted by the crack team of British decoders, the Zimmermann telegram was a top-secret message from Berlin inviting Mexico to join Japan in an invasion of the United States.

From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this is one of the great untold stories of American history: the migration of Black citizens who fled the south and went north in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, an exodus of almost six million people would change the face of America. With stunning historical detail, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson gives us this definitive, vividly dramatic account of how these journeys unfolded.

George Stephanopoulos, the legendary political news host and former advisor to President Clinton, recounts the history-making crises from the place where twelve presidents made their highest-pressure decisions: the White House Situation Room.