Video: Book Breaks Chad Williams - "The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War" Literature Chad Williams is the Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University. Order The Wounded World at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from...
Video: Book Breaks Craig L. Symonds - "Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay" Government and Civics Craig L. Symonds is a professor emeritus at the US Naval Academy. Order Nimitz at War at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our...
Essay The Origins of Slavery Ira Berlin Geography, World History 5, 6, 7, 8 African American life in the United States has been framed by migrations, forced and free. A forced migration from Africa—the transatlantic slave trade—carried black people to the Americas. A second forced migration—the internal slave...
Video: Book Breaks Richard J. M. Blackett - "Samuel Ringgold Ward: A Life of Struggle" Literature, Religion and Philosophy, World History Richard J. M. Blackett is Andrew Jackson Professor of History, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University. Order Samuel Ringgold Ward at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Video: Book Breaks Richard J. M. Blackett - "The Captive's Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery" Richard J. M. Blackett is Andrew Jackson Professor of History, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University. Order The Captive's Quest for Freedom at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through...
Video: Book Breaks Chloe Melas - "The Luck of the Draw: My Story of the Air War in Europe" World History Chloe Melas, the author of a new introduction for this edition of her grandfather’s work, is a journalist with CNN. Order Luck of the Draw at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through...
History Now Essay Harlem’s Rattlers: African American Regiment of the New York National Guard in World War I Jeffrey Sammons Jeffrey Sammons is Professor of History at New York University. He is the author of Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society (1988) and the co-author, with John H. Morrow, Jr., of Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War:... Appears in: 57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020 46 | African American Soldiers Fall 2016
History Now Essay Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy Jeremi Suri World History 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial figures to emerge from the Cold War. He participated as a soldier, scholar, and statesman in many of the most significant policy debates of the period. He acted as an intellectual,... Appears in: 27 | The Cold War Spring 2011
History Now Essay Robert Johnson and the Rise of the Blues Elijah Wald In November of 1936, a young man named Robert Johnson traveled from Mississippi to San Antonio, Texas, for his first recording session with the American Record Corporation. He was twenty-five years old and had already hoboed and... Appears in: 48 | Jazz, the Blues, and American Identity Summer 2017
Video: Book Breaks Beverly Gage - "G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century" Government and Civics Beverly Gage is a professor of twentieth-century American history at Yale and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Order G-Man at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
Video: Book Breaks Clayton Butler - "True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction" Geography, Government and Civics Clayton Butler earned his PhD in History from the University of Virginia in 2020 and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Nau Center for Civil War History. Order True Blue at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an...
History Now Essay From the Editor Carol Berkin Teachers responsible for a class in early American history often find themselves asking: When does American history begin? What does "America" include? Is this a story only of the English colonies, or is it the story of the settlement... Appears in: 25 | Three Worlds Meet Fall 2010
History Now Essay "No Event Could Have Filled Me with Greater Anxieties": George Washington and the First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789 Phillip Hamilton Government and Civics George Washington’s fame rests not upon his words but upon his deeds. Therefore, his First Inaugural Address is sometimes overlooked. This is unfortunate because the words he delivered on Thursday, April 30, 1789, not only launched... Appears in: 36 | Great Inaugural Addresses Summer 2013
History Now Essay From the Editor Carol Berkin Everything that American children of my generation knew—or thought they knew—about Indians, or Native Americans, came from Saturday afternoon cowboy and Indian movies. We knew that they talked funny; they all lived in teepees; they... Appears in: 28 | American Indians Summer 2011
History Now Essay The Riddles of "Confederate Emancipation" Bruce Levine Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In July 1861, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, was exulting over the victory of his troops at the first Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) and calling it a sign of eventual triumph in the war as a... Appears in: 26 | New Interpretations of the Civil War Winter 2010
History Now Essay From the Editor Carol Berkin In 1763 Americans toasted their King and their Mother Country. Twenty years later, they celebrated their independence from both. The story of the birth of our nation is a fascinating one—complex, surprising, triumphant and tragic. It... Appears in: 21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009
Video: Book Breaks Derek LeeBaert - "Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made" Geography, Government and Civics, World History Derek LeeBaert is the Truman Book Award winner and co-founder of the National Museum of the United States Army. Order Unlikely Heroes at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the...
Video: Book Breaks Jeremi Suri - "Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy" Geography, Government and Civics Jeremi Suri is the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Order Civil War by Other Means...
Essay History Times: A Nation of Immigrants Gilder Lehrman Institute Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Coming to the Land of Opportunity Throughout American history, millions of people around the world have left their homelands for a chance to start a new life in this country—and they continue to come here to this day. People who come...
Video: Book Breaks Emily Bingham - "My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song" Art Emily Bingham serves as an Honors Faculty Fellow at Bellarmine University. Order My Old Kentucky Home at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
Video: Book Breaks Jacqueline Jones - "No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era" Economics, Geography, Religion and Philosophy, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Jacqueline Jones is the Ellen C. Temple Professor of Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin and a past president of the American Historical Association. Order No Right to an Honest Living at the Gilder Lehrman...
Video: Book Breaks Elliott West - "Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion" Economics, Foreign Languages, Geography, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Elliott West is Alumni Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Arkansas. Order Continental Reckoning at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
History Now Essay The Material Culture of Slave Resistance Douglas R. Egerton 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Artifacts tell stories. Sometimes the tales are unclear or even contradictory, and sometimes artifacts—not unlike a dishonest diarist—can even lead the unwary historian astray. But the material culture of enslaved Americans, from... Appears in: 2 | Primary Sources on Slavery Winter 2004
Video: Book Breaks Beth Bailey - "An Army Afire: How the U.S. Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era" World History Beth Bailey is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at The University of Kansas and the founding director of the Center for Military, War, and Society Studies. Order An Army Afire at the Gilder Lehrman...
History Now Essay From the Editor Carol Berkin In this issue of History Now , we continue our mission of ensuring that the stories of Americans of all races and ethnicities appear in our national history. “Hispanic Heroes in American History” introduces readers to the... Appears in: 66 | Hispanic Heroes in American History Spring 2023
History Now Essay Arturo Alfonso Schomburg: Archivist, Institution Builder, and Advocate of Global Black History Vanessa K. Valdés “The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future.” So begins one of the most well-known essays of the Harlem Renaissance, “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” written by Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. Published in the March... Appears in: 66 | Hispanic Heroes in American History Spring 2023
Video: Book Breaks David P. Cline - "Twice Forgotten: African Americans and the Korean War" World History David P. Cline is a professor of history and director of the Center for Public and Oral History at San Diego State University. Order Twice Forgotten at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every...
Video: Book Breaks Ken Burns - "Our America: A Photographic History" Art, Economics, Foreign Languages, Geography, Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History Ken Burns, the producer and director of numerous film series, including The Roosevelts: An Intimate History and Country Music , founded his own documentary film company, Florentine Films, in 1976. His landmark film, The Civil War ,...