According to his kin, John Wompas was "no sachem", although he claimed that status to achieve his economic and political ends. He drew on the legal and political practices of both Indians and the English – even visiting and securing the support of Ki...

From the minute it opened – on Christmas Day in 1865 – it was Chicago's must-see tourist attraction, drawing more than half a million visitors each year. Families, visiting dignitaries, even school groups all made trips to the South Side to tour the...

For the Makahs, a tribal nation at the most northwestern point of the contiguous United States, a deep relationship with the sea is the locus of personal and group identity. Unlike most other indigenous tribes whose lives are tied to lands, the Makah...

This groundbreaking history explores the many unrecognized, enduring linkages between the state of California and the country of Chile. The book begins in 1786, when a French expedition brought the potato from Chile to California, and it concludes wi...

What should serve as money, who should control its creation and circulation, and according to what rules? For more than two hundred years, the "money question" shaped American social thought, becoming a central subject of political debate and class c...

The bustling river city of St. Louis occupies a special place in the long history of African American advocacy for civil rights and equal justice. The city was home to a small but thriving population of free blacks even before the Civil War. It was t...

"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife", wrote John Dewey in his classic work "The School and Society". In "School, Society, and State", Tracy Steffes places that idea at the center of her exploration of the con...

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...

Alex Rossino's Six Days in September is a gripping, fast-paced account of Robert E. Lee's 1862 campaign to win Southern independence by carrying the war north into Maryland. The thrust across the Potomac River triggered a determined Federal response...

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...