American History

There is only one New York. It didn't make America, but it made possible the America we've come to know. Here - from American Heritage magazine and such historians as Nathaniel Benchley, David McCullough, and William V. Shannon - is its remarkable story: from Henry Hudson's historic voyage and the sale of Manhattan Island to New York's occupation by British forces during the Revolution and the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, and the Whitney Museum.

No one has ever told America's story with more grace, clarity, and emotional power than Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton. In his books, ranging from the celebrated Civil War trilogies to the account of his boyhood in back-country Michigan, Catton brought the people of the past to such vivid life that he became the nation's best-loved and most widely read historian.

Bruce Catton's friend and associate for many years, Oliver Jensen, has assembled this volume of selections of Catton's works - as a memorial to the man and a tribute to the historian. The excerpts chosen for Bruce Catton's America include portions of A Stillness at Appomattox, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; The American Heritage History of the Civil War, awarded a special Pulitzer Prize Citation; and representative selections from many other books and articles. The book also includes several previously unpublished pieces.

Bruce Catton helped to create American Heritage magazine in 1954 and continued to influence it for the next twenty-four years - first as editor, then as senior editor and a frequent contributor. He spent much of his adult life as a newspaperman in the Midwest and Washington, D.C., and became a historian "by logical extension." Although best known as the greatest writer on the Civil War, he had wide-ranging interests.

To those who are familiar with Bruce Catton's work, these selections will appear as old friends whose company never fails to provide enjoyment, stimulation, and a deep sense of worth. For those who have not yet read him, Bruce Catton's America will be an introduction to historical writing at its best.

No one has ever told America's story with more grace, clarity, and emotional power than Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton. In his books, ranging from the celebrated Civil War trilogies to the account of his boyhood in back-country Michigan, Catton brought the people of the past to such vivid life that he became the nation's best-loved and most widely read historian.

Bruce Catton's friend and associate for many years, Oliver Jensen, has assembled this volume of selections of Catton's works - as a memorial to the man and a tribute to the historian. The excerpts chosen for Bruce Catton's America include portions of A Stillness at Appomattox, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; The American Heritage History of the Civil War, awarded a special Pulitzer Prize Citation; and representative selections from many other books and articles. The book also includes several previously unpublished pieces.

Bruce Catton helped to create American Heritage magazine in 1954 and continued to influence it for the next twenty-four years - first as editor, then as senior editor and a frequent contributor. He spent much of his adult life as a newspaperman in the Midwest and Washington, D.C., and became a historian "by logical extension." Although best known as the greatest writer on the Civil War, he had wide-ranging interests.

To those who are familiar with Bruce Catton's work, these selections will appear as old friends whose company never fails to provide enjoyment, stimulation, and a deep sense of worth. For those who have not yet read him, Bruce Catton's America will be an introduction to historical writing at its best.

The best way to examine the presidency now, writes the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bruce Catton, "is to examine the lives and personalities of the men who have held it, because the presidency today is in many ways the sum of large and small contributions made by the different presidents." Here, in the first volume of American Heritage's history of presidents are the dramatic stories of the first eight men to hold the office: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren.

Here in this remarkable collection from American Heritage, such noted authors as Tom Brokaw, Wallace Stegner, John Lukacs, and others bring to life many of the most famous men and women of the Old West - from Lewis and Clark to Charles Frémont, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Chief Joseph, Frederick Remington, the defenders of the Alamo, the Texas Rangers, and the riders of the Pony Express. It also shines a light on topics such as the origins of scalping, the famous Lincoln County War, the grim medical reality of Western gunfights, cowboy jargon, and the first rodeo.

Here, from American Heritage, is the dramatic story of the violent conflicts between Native Americans and white settlers that lasted more than 300 years, the effects of which still resonate today. Acclaimed historians Robert M. Utley and Wilcomb E. Washburn examine both small battles and major wars - from the Native rebellion of 1492 to Crazy Horse and the Sioux War to the massacre at Wounded Knee. Robert M. Utley is a former chief historian of the National Park Service and the author of many books and articles on western history, including biographies of General Custer and Sitting Bull.

From award-winning journalist Henry Moscow, here is the story of one of America's greatest presidents. Jefferson wrote America's Declaration of Independence, but he also was an anthropologist, architect, astronomer, botanist, diplomat, farmer, inventor, lawyer, mathematician, and musician. He spoke French, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish. He founded the University of Virginia and today's Democratic Party. During his eight years in office, he doubled the country's size.

On May 14, 1804, a party of explorers dispatched by President Thomas Jefferson set off up the Missouri River into America's newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the men of the Corps of Discovery would cross the continent and into history. Here, from award-winning historian Ralph K. Andrist, is the dramatic story of their epic journey.

Andrew Jackson - war hero and spokesman for the frontier, the first president from west of the Alleghenies, the first born in a log cabin - fought his way to the White House. Once there, he stood for the rights of common citizens, founded the Democratic Party, expanded the powers of the presidency, paid off the national debt, and postponed civil war by prevailing against the advocates of states’ rights.

In this rich and inspiring book, acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley takes us on the incredible journey of the United States - a nation formed from a vast countryside on whose fringes thirteen small British colonies fought for their freedom, then established a democratic nation that spanned the continent, and went on to become a world power. This book will be treasured by anyone interested in the story of America.

Reviews

"Douglas Brinkley and American Heritage have done a grand job. This is a first-rate book: fair, clear, and enormously welcome." -- David McCullough

Here, from American Heritage, is the story of our presidents. From George Washington's reluctant oath-taking through George W. Bush's leadership challenges after September 11, 2001, we view ambitious and fallible men through the new lens of the twenty-first century. Where did they succeed? Where did they fail? And what do we know now that we could not have known at the time?

The American Heritage History of the American Revolution is the complete chronicle of the Revolutionary War told in full detail. Lancaster starts his story with an examination of Colonial society and the origins of the quarrel with England. He details the ensuing battles and military campaigns from Lexington and Concord to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, as well as the tense political and social situation of the new nation.

Reviews

"A magnificent book. . . . Bruce Lancaster's text is terse, rapid, lucid, and dramatic . . . filled with the color and excitement of a grim and bloody war." – The New York Times

Here, from New York Times bestselling historian Francis Russell is the vivid story of America's confident years - those days of exuberant growth in population, industry, and world prestige beginning with the end of the Civil War and ending with the outbreak of World War I. Here are the stories of political power struggles, Reconstruction, Western expansion, Ellis Island, the rise of American tycoons and labor unions, and the entry into World War I.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the United States through two of the most critical periods in our history - the Great Depression and World War II. And in those twelve years, he did more than any president except Abraham Lincoln to change America.

Here, some of the country's greatest historians - James MacGregor Burns, Thomas Fleming, John Kenneth Galbraith, Richard Ketchum, John Lukacs, Allan Nevins, Joe Persico, William vanden Heuvel, and Geoffrey Ward - bring FDR vividly to life, assessing his place in history and exploring his marriage to Eleanor, his struggle with polio, his love of Hyde Park, his relationships with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, and his complicated final days.

Noted historian Francis Russell tells the compelling story of the Adams dynasty in this comprehensive and very readable book.

John and Abigail Adams and their descendants profoundly influenced life in the United States for more than two centuries. From the great political and philosophical contributions of Founding Father and President John Adams, the roster of Adams luminaries is unprecedented: diplomat and sixth president, John Quincy Adams; pre-Civil War "Voice of Honor," Charles Francis Adams; and authors Henry and Brook Adams.

Young America is a star-spangled account of the perilous, exuberant, dissension-filled first six decades of the United States.
The book opens with George Washington's triumphant journey to New York City for his inauguration as first president of the United
States. It ends with Abraham Lincoln's solemn farewell to Springfield as he takes a train to Washington to become the sixteenth - and
almost the last - president of a country torn by the secession of seven of its states.
In between, historian Francis Russell vividly details the events that first molded the American way of life and gave the young nation the
will and ability to survive.

At Yorktown, Virginia, after six and a half years of fighting, General George Washington and his troops and their French allies brought the
American Revolution to a victorious end. Here, from New York Times bestselling author Thomas Fleming is the vivid account of the
stunning reversal of British fortunes that led to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and the birth of the American nation.

One-third of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not of English stock. Eight were first-generation immigrants. It
was in recognition of the mixed European background of so many Americans that John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson
proposed that the seal of the United States bear the national emblems of France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Scotland, and England, thus
"pointing out the countries from which these States have been peopled."
Many came, as Thomas Paine stated, in search of asylum. But they also came with an intent to preserve and refresh aspects of life in their
homelands.
In 1776, Europe boasted a rich civilization, alive with dynamic ideas, flourishing arts, and promising concepts in science. The foundations
of industry and business were established, and social reforms were being undertaken, which Europeans took with them as they colonized
and traded. They had come in contact with Eastern civilizations, above all, China. Here, from award-winning historian Marshall B.
Davidson, is the story of the world of 1776.

No other enterprise in America's history ever approached whaling for adventure. Here, award-winning historian Edouard A. Stackpole describes the early Colonial days, when boat crews attacked whales near shore, through the development of deep-sea whaling by the hardy Quaker whalemen of Nantucket, and on into the adventure-packed century when Yankee whalemen made the world their domain.

In this rich and inspiring book, acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley takes us on the incredible journey of the United States - a nation
formed from a vast countryside on whose fringes thirteen small British colonies fought for their freedom, then established a democratic
nation that spanned the continent, and went on to become a world power. This book will be treasured by anyone interested in the story
of America.

Here, from the legendary author John Dos Passos and American Heritage, are portraits of three men critical to the early history of the
United States:
Aaron Burr, whose political skills carried him to the threshold of the White House but was ultimately indicted for treason;
Lafayette, a hero of the American Revolution who could not apply his ideals to a France sliding into terror; and
Robert Morris, whose skills as a financier aided the new nation but led to his own ruin.

From award-winning journalist Henry Moscow, here is the story of one of America's greatest presidents. Jefferson wrote America's
Declaration of Independence, but he also was an anthropologist, architect, astronomer, botanist, diplomat, farmer, inventor, lawyer,
mathematician, and musician. He spoke French, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish. He founded the University of Virginia and today's
Democratic Party. During his eight years in office, he doubled the country's size.

f the origin of the colonial period was accidental, the ending was not. The representatives of the thirteen colonies who approved the
Declaration of Independence in 1776 charted a collision course, aware of the obstacles in their path and the risks they were taking.
The events that led to their decision took place over a period of nearly 300 years. Looking back, the wonder is that it culminated so
quickly. For a century after its discovery, the New World was little more than a lode to be mined by adventurers seeking profits. It wasn't
until the end of the sixteenth century that serious efforts were made to establish permanent colonies. Even then, the perils of the journey
and threats of starvation inhibited settlement.
But settlers gradually came, spurred, in part, by the fear of religious persecution, but above all, drawn by the hope of owning land. They
were a mixed lot: English Separatists from Leiden, French Huguenots, Dutch burghers, Mennonite peasants from the Rhine Valley, and a
few gentleman Anglicans. But they shared a quality of toughness.
Here is their story from award-winning historian Louis B. Wright, the longtime director of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Here, from the eminent historian Bernard A. Weisberger, are the dramatic stories of the giants of the Gilded Age, the men who made
America the mightiest nation on Earth - Philip D. Armour, Andrew Carnegie, James B. Duke, Henry Ford, Meyer Guggenheim, James J. Hill,
Cyrus H. McCormick, J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

No decade in American history has roared as loudly as the 1920s. For two centuries, the United States had lived in happy isolation from
international issues. Then it was drawn into World War I.
Although America was still fundamentally a provincial society, by the end of the war and the opening of the new decade, most Americans
understood that a new era lay before the country.
Despite Prohibition, it was an intoxicating decade, populated with characters as varied as Clarence Darrow, Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Charles Lindbergh, Woodrow Wilson - and flappers. It was a time when ideas about love, public decorum, dress, and speech were
changing. It was a time of cultivation of the new, shocking, and sometimes, according to the standards of the previous decade, vulgar: the
stocking rolled below the knee, four-letter words in the mouths of debutantes, and speakeasies. All of these details, along with the
economic collapse that ended the decade and sparked the Great Depression, are captured in this vivid chronicle by noted historian
Edmund O. Stillman.

Here, from American Heritage, is the story of our presidents. From George Washington's reluctant oath-taking through George W. Bush's
leadership challenges after September 11, 2001, we view ambitious and fallible men through the new lens of the twenty-first century.
Where did they succeed? Where did they fail? And what do we know now that we could not have known at the time?

America's story is made up of many elements, but through it have coursed two main streams that have nourished and carried a people
forward to a destiny that was beyond all imagining when the story began.
One of these is an idea that goes back to the rim of recorded time. It was first a dim, gnawing hope that the future lay in a magic land off
to the west. Once that land was found, it drew people to it like a magnet.
It is easy to say that it was gold or precious stones or land that led them on, for it was all of these. Yet, it was more - and here was the
second great stream of American history. There was something that literally drove people westward, goading them across the endless
mountains, through steep passes, across searing plains and desert into the face of terrors known and those unguessed. It was vision. It
was courage. It was, at times, the sheer joy of overcoming fantastic obstacles.
And it was also the conviction that what they were doing was different from anything that had happened before, that nothing would ever
be quite the same again, and that the world would be a better place for what they had accomplished. "Eastward I go only by force," Henry
David Thoreau said, "but westward I go free." The sleep of 100 centuries was stirred up in that surge toward the sunset, for out of it
emerged not only a new people and a new nation but a force that changed the globe.

J.P. Morgan, like a "one-man Federal Reserve," calmed bankers and depositors and helped ease the Panic of 1907. Here, in this short-form
book from historian John A. Garraty, is the story.

To most people, thanks to Mark Twain, "Mississippi" suggests riverboat. Here, from award-winning historian Ralph K. Andrist, is the dramatic story of the world through which the great, Mississippi paddle-wheelers moved - a world these revolutionary ships and their captains, crews, and creators were largely responsible for bringing into being.

On May 14, 1804, a party of explorers dispatched by President Thomas Jefferson set off up the Missouri River into America's newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the men of the Corps of Discovery would cross the continent and into history. Here, from award-winning historian Ralph K. Andrist, is the dramatic story of their epic journey.