English Civil

The American Civil War is finally over, but the turmoil of a nation embroiled in a passionate struggle for civil rights has only just begun. Oaklayne Plantation is in ruins, a stark reflection of the condition of a once prosperous country and her families who have been torn apart by war. Was anything gained by the deaths of so many Americans? Is all hope for restoration gone? The Reconstruction Era is an often overlooked, but politically charged time in American history. Oaklayne, The Reconstruction presents an engaging mix of heart-rending tragedy, sabotage, murder, corruption, and ...

The battles of Trenton and Princeton have been the subject of several recent books, but this story complements them by expanding the story to include the many experiences of the people of Princeton in the wider Revolution and their contributions to it. This story combines social history with the better known military and political history of the Revolution. It does not just deal with amorphous groups and institutions, but rather with individuals working with and affected by various groups on both sides of the conflict.

In the concluding novel of his epic Civil War tetralogy, Jeff Shaara tells the dramatic story of the final eight months of battle from multiple perspectives: the commanders in their tents making plans for total victory, as well as the ordinary foot soldiers and cavalrymen who carried out their orders until the last alarm sounded. The Civil War did not end quietly. It climaxed in a storm of fury that lay waste to everything in its path. The Fateful Lightning brings to life those final brutal, bloody months of fighting with you-are-there immediacy.

In The Accident of Color, Daniel Brook journeys to 19th-century New Orleans and Charleston and introduces us to cosmopolitan residents who elude the racial categories the rest of America takes for granted. Before the Civil War, these free, openly mixed-race urbanites enjoyed some rights of citizenship and the privileges of wealth and social status. But after Emancipation, as former slaves move to assert their rights, the black-white binary that rules the rest of the nation begins to intrude.

In 1970, C. T. Vivian, a close colleague of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a member of his executive staff, sat down to take stock of the civil rights movement and the progress it had made. His assessment was that it failed, and that the blame lay in the existence of myths about America. As prophetic today as it was fifty years ago, Vivian's voice rings out as a critique and a call to action for a society in deep need of justice and peace. The Black struggle for independence is more of an uphill climb than ever.

In 1964, Nina Simone sat at a piano in New York's Carnegie Hall to play what she called a "show tune". Simone, and her song, became icons of the civil rights movement. But her confrontational style was not the only path taken by black women entertainers. In How It Feels to Be Free, Ruth Feldstein examines celebrated black women performers, illuminating the risks they took, their roles at home and abroad, and the ways that they raised the issue of gender amid their demands for black liberation.

Both 11-year-old Summer and her older brother Roscoe have a "silent thunder" roaring through their souls. Summer yearns to learn letters, so she can read. Roscoe wants to join the Union forces and fight in the Civil War. But they are slaves in Virginia, and their wishes are forbidden. Their friend Thea says that silent thunder is something slaves have to keep private, but Summer and Roscoe can't resist their feelings.

Civil War veteran Clint Turner is a happy man working as a blacksmith in Macon, Texas. He loves to see his neighbors use the metals forged from his hands until all that changes dramatically when an outlaw gang kills his brother-in-law and his sister. From then on, he has only one thing on his mind – a mixture of justice and vengeance. To accomplish his mission, Clint campaigns to become sheriff of Macon County. The law enforcement job for Clint would see him put to good use his six shooter, his wits, and his sense of justice.

The greatest of all Civil War campaigns, Gettysburg was the turning point of the turning point in our nation’s history. Volumes have been written about this momentous three-day battle, but recent histories have tended to focus on the particulars rather than the big picture: on the generals or on single days of battle—even on single charges—or on the daily lives of the soldiers. In Gettysburg Sears tells the whole story in a single volume.

By May 1864, General Robert E. Lee had been transformed from a young soldier into a gray-haired patriarch of the Confederate cause. As Lee struggled to keep his ragged soldiers alive, he faced pressure from two fronts. Grant’s Union Army not only had superior numbers, but a steadfast infrastructure of railroads and industrialized supply routes. Lee’s Last Campaign is a triumph of historic research and elegant writing. In this essential analysis of General Lee’s military strategy, Dowdey follows the triumphs and tragedies of the Army of Northern Virginia as it breathed its last gasps at the end of the Civil War.

The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara's classic Civil War novel about the men who led the fight at the Battle of Gettysburg, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning best seller. Now in Gods and Generals, Jeff Shaara carries forward his father's vision in an epic story that traces the lives, passions, and careers of these great military leaders from the first gathering clouds of the Civil War.

The only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor. A battlefield surgeon. A women’s rights advocate. A rebel who redefined what it meant to be a patriot. This is the extraordinary true story of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. In the midst of the American Civil War, Dr. Mary E. Walker shattered barriers as the first female surgeon contracted by the U.S. Army. She operated on wounded soldiers near the front lines, crossed enemy territory to aid civilians, and endured months as a Confederate prisoner of war. For her bravery, she was awarded the Medal of Honor—making her the only woman in American ...

Hallie has a secret. She's in love. He's perfect for her in every way, but he's seriously out of bounds. And her friends aren't going to help her, because what they do know is that Hallie doesn't have long to live. Time is running out. Flo has a dilemma. She really likes Zander. But his scary sister won't be even faintly amused if she thinks Zander and Flo are becoming friends - let alone anything more.

In Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, best-selling author Naomi Wolf illustrates the breathtaking changes that can take place when ordinary citizens engage in the democratic system the way the founders intended and tells you how to use that system, right now, to change your life, your community, and ultimately the nation.

This fictional recreation of the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 is a stunning work of imaginative history, from Shelby Foote, beloved historian of the Civil War. Shiloh conveys not only the bloody choreography of Union and Confederate troops through the woods near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, but the inner movements of the combatants' hearts and minds.

Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhood to his service in the US Army, every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who ever lived, and that the Confederates were underdogs who lost the Civil War with honor. Now, as a retired brigadier general and Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, his view has radically changed. From a soldier, a scholar, and a southerner, Ty Seidule believes that American history demands a reckoning.

When Vicksburg fell to Union forces under General Grant in July 1863, the balance turned against the Confederacy in the trans-Appalachian theater. The Federal success along the river opened the way for advances into central and eastern Tennessee, which culminated in the bloody battle of Chickamauga and then a struggle for Chattanooga. Chickamauga is usually counted as a Confederate victory, albeit a costly one.

Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end.

Jeff Shaara, America's premier Civil War novelist, gives a remarkable guided tour of the 10 Civil War battlefields every American should visit: Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg/Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, New Market, Chickamauga, the Wilderness/Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg/Appomattox. Shaara explores the history, the people, and the places that capture the true meaning and magnitude of the conflict.

At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with this eloquent manifesto. The Fire Next Time stands as one of the essential works of our literature.