White America

Shortly after the first Europeans arrived in seventeenth-century New England, they began to import Africans and capture the area's indigenous peoples as slaves. By the eve of the American Revolution, enslaved people comprised only about 4 percent of the population, but slavery had become instrumental to the region's economy and had shaped its cultural traditions. This story of slavery in New England has been little told. In this concise yet comprehensive history, Jared Ross Hardesty focuses on the individual stories of enslaved people, bringing their experiences to life.

In White Identity Politics, Ashley Jardina offers a landmark analysis of emerging patterns of white identity and collective political behavior, drawing on sweeping data. Where past research on whites' racial attitudes emphasized out-group hostility, Jardina brings into focus the significance of in-group identity and favoritism. Jardina shows that disaffected whites are not just found among the working class; they make up a broad proportion of the American public - with profound implications for political behavior and the future of racial conflict in America.

When a decades-long court battle resulted in her family's freedom in 1855, seven-year-old Mary Mildred Williams unexpectedly became the face of American slavery. Famous abolitionists Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry David Thoreau, and John Albion Andrew would help Mary and her family in freedom, but Senator Charles Sumner saw a monumental political opportunity. Due to generations of sexual violence, Mary's skin was so light that she "passed" as White, and this fact would make her the key to his White audience's sympathy.

Nancy Grace wasn't always the iconic legal commentator we know today. One moment changed her entire future forever: her fiancé Keith was murdered just before their wedding. Driven to deliver justice for other crime victims, Nancy became a felony prosecutor and for a decade, put the "bad guys" behind bars in inner-city Atlanta. Now, with a new and potentially life-saving book, Nancy puts her crime-fighting expertise to work to empower you stay safe in the face of daily dangers.

In the first of the three volumes of his projected comprehensive narrative history of the role of law in America from the colonial years through the twentieth century, G. Edward White takes up the central themes of American legal history from the earliest European settlements through the Civil War.

In this compelling new book, relying on original reporting from the most dangerous corners of Rio to the halls of power in Washington, DC, Dave Zirin examines how sports and politics are colliding in remarkable fashion in Brazil, opening up an international conversation on the culture, economics, and politics of sports.

Joe Mitchell was born in North Idaho in 1963 and lived on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation for 18 years. The humor in the stories may make you willing to learn a little history, and think about life on the rez in a new way.

A Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings’ family explores America’s racial reckoning through the prism of her ancestors - both the enslaver and the enslaved.

The American President: The most powerful leader in the world, or a confused man trying to ride a tiger? This book contains over 280 quotes on the presidency by the American Presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama. Examples: Well, I have one consolation, No candidate was ever elected ex-president by such a large majority. William Howard Taft Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great. Harry S. Truman Well, there doesn't seem anything else for an ex-president to do but to go into the country and raise big pumpkins. ...

If we are a people who value justice, freedom, liberty, and the United States Constitution, we must call the adherents of communism, an evil philosophy, by name and remove them from our power structure. If we fail, this great experiment in human freedom that is America will be lost.

The size and stability of the American middle class were once the envy of the world. But changes unleashed in the 1960s pitted Americans against one another politically in new and destructive ways. These battles continued to rage from that day to now, while everyone has fallen behind economically except the wealthy. Right-wing culture warriors blamed the decline on the moral shortcomings of "other" Americans - black people, feminists, gays, immigrants, union members - to court a fearful white working- and middle-class base with ever more bitter "us vs. them" politics.

In this riveting new book, John Rhodehamel argues that Booth’s primary motivation for his heinous crime was a growing commitment to white supremacy. In alternating chapters, America’s Original Sin shows how, as Lincoln’s commitment to emancipation grew, so too did Booth’s rage and hatred for Lincoln, whom he referred to as “King Abraham Africanus the First.”

From the early 1800s, American presidents and their families have called the White House home. But as secret service agent Keneesha explains, the White House is more than just a place to live; it's also the president's office and one of the country's greatest symbols of leadership.

During a dark time in United States history, thousands of freedom seekers traveled the Underground Railroad through Ohio. The Buckeye State hosted about half of all fugitive slave traffic of the antebellum era. A mix of Northern and Southern settlers in the state added drama to a struggle that led to major benefits for the state and the country. Unfortunately, this epic past was obscured by silence and secrecy and then distorted with misinformation and folklore—until now.

In the spring of 1864, the newly installed Union commander Ulysses S. Grant did something none of his predecessors had done before: He threw his army against the wily, audacious Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia over and over again. At Spotsylvania Court House, the two armies shifted from stalemate in the Wilderness to slugfest in the mud. Most commonly known for the horrific 22-hour hand-to-hand combat in the pouring rain at the Bloody Angle, the battle of Spotsylvania Court House actually stretched from May 8 to 21, 1864 - 14 long days of battle and maneuver.

Fifty years of service at the White House in various capacities, including bodyguard to Abraham Lincoln, William H. Crook's memoir brings an astonishing array of personal details of life in the executive mansion. His sensitive observations of Lincoln are especially moving.

Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally. Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor—a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry—shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans.

This classic collection of essays, edited by Booker T. Washington and with contributions from many of post-Civil War America's other prominent African-American thinkers, sought to redefine the role of Black persons in the new Jim Crow era and beat back white supremacy through racial uplift. Seven essays include Charles Chesnutt's "The Disfranchisement of the Negro", W. E. B. DuBois "The Talented Tenth", and Wilford Horace Smith's "The Negro and the Law" .

Reaching for Glory lets us eavesdrop on LBJ's private, often tortured thoughts during the most crucial year of his presidency - when his dreams of being hailed as the equal of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were destroyed by the war in Vietnam. These original recordings, presented side by side with the stories behind them, offer unprecedented insight into the Johnson presidency.

They surged into Washington by the tens of thousands in the spring of 1971. Fiery radicals, flower children, and militant vets gathered for the most audacious act in a years-long movement to end America’s war in Vietnam: a blockade of the nation’s capital. And the White House, headed by an increasingly paranoid Richard Nixon, was determined to stop it.