Recommended Resources
Economics
The books, articles, films, and websites in this section will enhance the materials included on our website for this era of American history. Many of the books are by the historians whose essays and lectures you have read and listened to here and offer in-depth studies of the topics that have caught your interest. The websites and other resources open new ways to explore American history and take advantage of new interpretations and new technologies to enhance classroom or at-home learning.
Lange, Karen. 1607: A New Look at Jamestown. Washington, DC: National Geographic Children’s Books, 2007.
Newitt, Malyn. A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400–1668. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Murphy, Jim. A Young Patriot: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy. New York: Clarion Books, 1996.
McPherson, James M. Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Guelzo, Allen C. Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999.
McLeese, Don. Alexander Hamilton. Vero Beach, FL: Rourke Publishing, 2004.
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. First published 2001 by Viking Putnam.
Halliwell, Martin. American Culture in the 1950s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
O’Neill, William L. American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945–1960. New York: Free Press, 1986.
Cherny, Robert W. American Politics in the Gilded Age, 1868–1900. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1997.
Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2009. First printed 1913 by The Macmillan Company.
Tompkins, E. Berkeley. Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890–1920. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970.
Dew, Charles B. Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.
Koistinen, Paul A. C. Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1940–1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Butler, Jon. Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Cook, Noble David. Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Haskins, James, and Kathleen Benson. Bound for America: The Forced Migration of Africans to the New World. New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1999.
Haskins, James, and Kathleen Benson. Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America. Illus. James Ransome. New York: Amistad, 2001.
Kessner, Thomas. Capital City: New York City and the Men behind America’s Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860–1900. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003.
Mulhall, Jill K. Causes of the Revolution, Primary Source Readers. Huntington Beach, CA: Teacher Created Materials, 2008.
Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Anderson, Virginia DeJohn. Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Lash, Joseph P. Dealers and Dreamers: A New Look at the New Deal. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
Ehrman, John, and Michael W. Flamm. Debating the Reagan Presidency. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009.
Goldberg, David J. Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Kannan, Narasimhan P., Kathy K. Rebibo, and Donna L. Ellis. Downsizing Detroit: The Future of the U.S. Automobile Industry. New York: Praeger, 1982.
Lockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil, Cambridge Latin American Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Mitchell, Mairin. Elcano: The First Circumnavigator. London: Herder Publications, 1958.
Green, Constance M. Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technology. New York: Longman, 1997.
Bain, David Haward. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Viking Press, 1999.
Hawke, David F. Everyday Life in Early America. HarperCollins Publishing, 1988.
Maestro, Betsy C. Exploration and Conquest: The Americas after Columbus, 1500–1620. With illustrations by Giulio Maestro. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994.
Cannavale, Vincent C. Voices from Colonial America: Florida, 1513–1821. Washington DC: National Geographic Children’s Books, 2006.
Hooks, Gregory. Forging the Military-Industrial Complex: World War II’s Battle of the Potomac. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Robinet, Harriet Gillem. Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1998.
Diffie, Bailey W., and George D. Winius. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977.
Cummins, John G. Francis Drake: The Lives of a Hero. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Leuchtenburg, William Edward. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Whitney, Gordon Graham. From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain: A History of Environmental Change in Temperate North America, 1500 to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Freedman, Russell. Give Me Liberty: The Story of the Declaration of Independence. New York: Holiday House, 2000.
Phelan, Craig. Grand Master Workman: Terence Powderly and the Knights of Labor. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.
Levine, Bruce. Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War. Rev. ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005; orig. 1992.
Roediger, David R., and Franklin Rosemont. Haymarket Scrapbook. Chicago: Charles H Kerr, 1986.
Winkler, Allan M. Home Front U.S.A.: America during World War II. Arlington Heights, IL: H. Davidson, 1986.
Frum, David. How We Got Here: The 70’s, the Decade That Brought You Modern Life (for Better or Worse). New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Mintz, Steven. Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Karnow, Stanley. In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. New York: Ballantine Books, 1990.
Ayers, Edward L. In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859–1863. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003.
Zeiger, Susan. In Uncle Sam’s Service: Women Workers with the American Expeditionary Force, 1917–1919. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Goode, Bill. Infighting in the UAW: The 1946 Election and the Ascendancy of Walter Reuther. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994.
Appleby, Joyce. Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.
Wills, Garry. Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1978.
Embree, Edwin R., and Julia Waxman. Investment in People: The Story of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949.
Cady, Edwin Harrison. John Woolman. New York: Washington Square Press, 1965.
Berkin, Carol. Jonathan Sewall: Odyssey of an American Loyalist. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.
Moogk, Peter N. La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada—A Cultural History. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000.
Atleson, James B. Labor and the Wartime State: Labor Relations and Law during World War II. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Kersten, Andrew Edmund. Labor’s Home Front: The American Federation of Labor during World War II. New York: New York University Press, 2006.
O’Connor, Sandra Day. Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest. New York: Random House, 2002.
Brinkley, Alan. Liberalism and Its Discontents. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Hooker, Clarence. Life in the Shadows of the Crystal Palace, 1910–1927: Ford Workers in the Model T Era. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997.
Salerno, Roger A. Louis Wirth: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.
Diner, Hasia R. Lower East Side Memories: A Jewish Place in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Fink, Leon, ed. Major Problems in the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era: Documents and Essays. 2nd ed. Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Rubenstein, James M. Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Stephanson, Anders. Manifest Destiny: American Expansionism and the Empire of Right. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
Bolden, Tonya. Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl. New York: Henry N. Abrams, 2005.
Gropman, Alan L. Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II: Myth and Reality. Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1996.
Breen, T.H., and Stephen Innes. Myne Owne Ground: Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676. 25th Anniversary ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Axtell, James. Natives and Newcomers: The Cultural Origins of North America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Calloway, Colin G. New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Foner, Eric. Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984.
Mink, Gwendolyn. Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875–1920. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931.
Harness, Cheryl. Our Colonial Year. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005.
Bergreen, Laurence. Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. New York: William Morrow, 2003.
Bell, Christopher Richard Vincent. Portugal and the Quest for the Indies. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1974.
Sandweiss, Martha A. Print the Legend: Photography and the American West. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
Rosenberg, Norman L. Protecting the Best Men: An Interpretive History of the Law of Libel. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Greene, Julie. Pure and Simple Politics: The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 1881–1917. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Greene, Jack P. Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
May, Elaine Tyler. Pushing the Limits: American Women, 1940–1961. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Coben, Stanley. Rebellion against Victorianism: The Impetus for Cultural Change in 1920s America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.
Genovese, Eugene D. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Vintage, 1976.
May, Lary. Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Quigley, David. Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the Making of American Democracy. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004.
Sugden, John. Sir Francis Drake. New York: Henry Holt, 1991.
Oakes, James. Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
Patterson, Marie. Slavery in America: Expanding and Preserving the Union, Primary Source Readers. Huntington Beach, CA: Teacher Created Resources, 1991.
Berkowitz, Edward D. Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
McAlister, Lyle N. Spain and Portugal in the New World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
Gibson, Charles. Spain in America. New York: Harper and Row, 1966.
Rosenberg, Emily S. Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982.
Young, William H. The 1950s. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004.
Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Hanhimaki, Jussi M. and Odd Arne Westad, eds. The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Crosby, Alfred. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 1972.
Sinha, Manisha. The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Gage, Beverly. The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Maynard, Micheline. The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market. New York: Currency/Doubleday, 2003.
Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Stampp, Kenneth M. The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The European Discovery of America. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971 and 1974.
Leuchtenburg, William Edward. The FDR Years: On Roosevelt and His Legacy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
Super, John C., ed. The Fifties in America. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2005.
Stiles, T. J. The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
Cachey, Theodore J., ed. The First Voyage around the World (1519–1522): An Account of Magellan’s Expedition by Antonio Pigafetta. New York: Marsilio Publishers, 1995.
Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.
Benedict, Michael Les. The Fruits of Victory: Alternatives in Restoring the Union, 1865–1877. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 1975.
Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Lamb, Ursula, ed. The Globe Encircled and the World Revealed. Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1995.
Rauchway, Eric. The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Glenn, Robert W. The Haymarket Affair: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Avrich, Paul. The Haymarket Tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Watkins, T. H. The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1999.
Limerick, Patricia Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1987.
Riesman, David, et al. The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950.
Labbe, Dolores Egger. The Louisiana Purchase and Its Aftermath. Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1998.
The Mariners’ Museum, “The Mariners’ Museum.” http://www.marinersmuseum.org.
Sellers, Charles. The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor. New York: Basic Books, 1995.
Maestro, Betsy. The New Americans: Colonial Times: 1620-1689. New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Books, 1998.
Badger, Anthony J. The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933–40. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002.
Whyte, William H. The Organization Man. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956.
Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Huston, James L. The Panic of 1857 and the Coming of the Civil War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
Clinton, Catherine. The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.
Boorstin, Daniel J. The Portuguese Discoverers. Lisbon: National Board for the Celebration of Portuguese Discoveries, 1987.
Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Papke, David Ray. The Pullman Case: The Clash of Labor and Capital in Industrial America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999.
Schneirov, Richard, Shelton Stromquist, and Nick Salvatore, ed. The Pullman Strike and the Crisis of the 1890s: Essays on Labor and Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Lindsey, Almont. The Pullman Strike: The Story of a Unique Experiment and of a Great Labor Upheaval. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942.
Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Oakes, James. The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders. New York: Vintage, 1983.
Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Freidel, Frank. The Splendid Little War. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1958.
Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.
Trask, David F. The War with Spain in 1898. New York: Macmillan, 1981.
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
Bender, Thomas. Toward an Urban Vision: Ideas and Institutions in Nineteenth-Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.
Montoya, Maria E. Translating Property: The Maxwell Land Grant and the Conflict over Land in the American West, 1840 to 1920. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002.
Beisner, Robert L. Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898–1900. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1992.
Bonomi, Patricia U. Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.
Ayers, Edward L. What Caused the Civil War? Reflections on the South and Southern History. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.
Brookhiser, Richard. What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions, Their Answers. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
Clements, Kendrick A. William Jennings Bryan: Missionary Isolationist. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982.
White, Richard. “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Badger, Anthony. “Whatever Happened to Roosevelt’s New Generation of Southerners?” In The Roosevelt Years: New Perspectives on American History, 1933–1945. Edited by Robert A. Garson and Stuart Kidd. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.