The economic crisis of 2008 led to an unprecedented focus on the world of high finance – and revealed it to be far more arcane and influential than most people could ever have imagined. Any hope of avoiding future crises, it's clear, rest on understa...

William Brown's autobiography is a unique historical document, since he is the only memoirist to have come to light from the ranks of the 45th (1st Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot for the period of the Peninsula War – a regiment that was one of Wel...

In 1743, sitting quietly with pen in hand, Sarah Osborn pondered how to tell the story of her life, how to make sense of both her spiritual awakening and the sudden destitution of her family. Remarkably, the memoir Sarah created that year survives to...

From a distinguished historian, a detailed and compelling examination of how the early Republic struggled with the idea that "all men are created equal". How did Americans in the generations following the Declaration of Independence translate its lo...

Art historians have long looked to letters to secure biographical details; clarify relationships between artists and patrons; and present artists as modern, self-aware individuals. This book takes a novel approach: focusing on Albrecht Durer, Shira B...

A century after his presidency, Woodrow Wilson remains one of the most compelling and complicated figures ever to occupy the Oval Office. A political outsider, Wilson brought to the presidency a distinctive, strongly held worldview, built on powerful...

Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, and Roger Ebert were three of America's most revered and widely read film critics, more famous than many of the movies they wrote about. But their remarkable contributions to the burgeoning American film criticism of the...

Alexis de Tocqueville was among the first to draw attention to Americans' propensity to form voluntary associations – and to join them with a fervor and frequency unmatched anywhere in the world. For nearly two centuries, we have sought to understand...

Our traditional image of Chicago – as a gritty metropolis carved into ethnically defined enclaves where the game of machine politics overshadows its ends – is such a powerful shaper of the city's identity that many of its closest observers fail to no...

One of the most influential institutions of higher learning in the world, the University of Chicago has a powerful and distinct identity, and its name is synonymous with intellectual rigor. With nearly 170,000 alumni living and working in more than 1...