United Nations History

That a new history of the United States is needed, extending from the discovery down to the present time hardly needs a statement. No such comprehensive work by a competent writer is now in existence. Individual writers have treated only limited chronological fields. Meantime there, is a rapid increase of published sources and of serviceable monographs based on material hitherto unused. On the one side, there is a necessity for an intelligent summarizing of the present knowledge of American history by trained specialists; on the other hand, there is a need for a complete work.

How did people in our country, North and South, East and West, come to share a remarkably durable and consistent common vision of what it meant to be an American in the first 50 years after the Revolution? How did the nation respond to the problem of slavery in a republic?

A number one New York Times best-selling author, Harvard Law School professor, and tireless defender of civil liberties unearths a little-known letter by his hero, Thomas Jefferson, and shares its secrets. The letter illuminates Jefferson’s views on freedom of speech in a way that has important implications for the country today, particularly in the struggle against terrorism. This book is about the remarkable letter Alan Dershowitz found, how he found it, and why it matters not only to him, but to us today.

"I am in Birmingham because injustice is here," declared Martin Luther King, Jr. He had come to that city of racist terror convinced that massive protest could topple Jim Crow. But the insurgency faltered. To revive it, King made a sacrificial act on Good Friday, April 12, 1963: he was arrested. Alone in his cell, reading a newspaper, he found a statement from eight "moderate" clergymen who branded the protests extremist and "untimely." King drafted a furious rebuttal that emerged as the "Letter from Birmingham Jail".

In literature and film, the spy chief is an all-knowing, all-powerful figure who masterfully moves spies into action like pieces on a chessboard. How close to reality is that depiction, and what does it really take to be an effective leader in the world of intelligence? This first volume of Spy Chiefs broadens and deepens our understanding of the role of intelligence leaders in foreign affairs and national security in the US and UK from the early 1940s to the present.

From the #1 national bestselling author of 'Indian' in the Cabinet and True Reconciliation, a truly unique history of our land—powerful, devastating, remarkable—as told through the voices of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

That a new history of the United States is needed, extending from the discovery down to the present time hardly needs statement. No such comprehensive work by a competent writer is now in existence. Individual writers have treated only limited chronological fields. Meantime there, is a rapid increase of published sources and of serviceable monographs based on material hitherto unused.

In the two decades before the Civil War, free Americans engaged in history wars every bit as ferocious as those waged today over the proposed National History Standards or the commemoration at the Smithsonian Institution of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In One Nation Divided by Slavery, author Michael F. Conlin investigates the different ways antebellum Americans celebrated civic holidays, read the Declaration of Independence, and commemorated Revolutionary War battles.

This audiobook begins with a look at the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans - as well as medieval feudalism and Calvin's Geneva, in laying the moral foundations for both feudal Virginia and Puritan New England. It looks at some early spiritual wanderings...and a great awakening that brought American back on course - in time to fend off a British effort to end America's spirit of independence. It covers the creation of the new republic, the growing divide over slavery, and the civil war that followed.

Perhaps no other single day in United States history was as threatening to the survival of the nation as August 24, 1814, when British forces captured Washington, DC. This unique moment might have significantly altered the nation's path forward, but the event and the reasons why it happened are little remembered by most Americans.

A creature of myth and magic emerging from the mist-shrouded forests of the Northwest, Coyote appears as a creator, messenger, hero, trickster, fool, or shapeshifter. Always on the lookout for fun, mischief, or the opportunity to help humans, Coyote’s encounters with gods, demons and the supernatural bring to life the rich cultural traditions of the Northwest peoples.

For nearly 20 years, Aaron David Miller has played a central role in U.S. efforts to broker Arab-Israeli peace. His position as an advisor to presidents, secretaries of state, and national security advisors has given him a unique perspective on a problem that American leaders have wrestled with for more than half a century: Why has the world's greatest superpower failed to find a solution for peace in the Middle East?

The Friendship That Shaped Jewish History is the story of one Jewish man, Eddie Jacobson, who influenced his lifelong friend, Harry S. Truman, who had become President of the United States, to recognize David Ben-Gurion’s provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel. It is not widely known, but if it were not for Jacobson’s connection to Truman, the opposition might have been able to block the Jewish country’s rebirth. Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins encapsulates the history of these two men, and how each accepted their responsibilities in the roles for which ...

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a landmark document in the history of human rights, and Eleanor Roosevelt played a significant role in its development. The UDHR was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, in Paris. It was drafted by representatives from different legal and cultural backgrounds, including Eleanor Roosevelt, who chaired the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Using previously unpublished documents, Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, exposes how the deeply ingrained hatred that has provoked the new terrorism has its roots in Saudi Arabia's dominant religious creed, a radical Islamic offshoot known as Wahhabism.

Among the pressing concerns of Americans in the first century of nationhood were day-to-day survival, political harmony, exploration of the continent, foreign policy, and - fixed deeply in the collective consciousness - hell and eternal damnation. The fear of fire and brimstone and the worm that never dies exerted a profound and lasting influence on Americans' ideas about themselves, their neighbors, and the rest of the world.

In Long Road to Hard Truth: The 100 Year Mission to Create the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Robert L. Wilkins tells the story of how his curiosity about why there wasn't a national museum dedicated to African American history and culture became an obsession - eventually leading him to quit his job as an attorney when his wife was seven months pregnant with their second child, and make it his mission to help the museum become a reality.

At a time when surveys reveal that Americans know less and less about our past, Tony Williams provides entertaining and informative descriptions of 50 of the most important and dramatic events from the colonial and Revolutionary period - some known and some forgotten - from the Mayflower Compact to the Annapolis Convention.

Lone Star Nation is the gripping story of Texas' precarious journey to statehood, from its early colonization in the 1820s to the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad by the Mexican army, from its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches to its day of liberation as an upstart republic.

Unsettling Canada, a Canadian best seller, is built on a unique collaboration between two First Nations leaders, Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ron Derrickson.Both men have served as chiefs of their bands in the B.C. interior and both have gone on to establish important national and international reputations. But the differences between them are in many ways even more interesting. Arthur Manuel is one of the most forceful advocates for Aboriginal title and rights in Canada and comes from the activist wing of the movement.