Showing titles in Americas

In I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes vividly recalls the most dramatic and intimate moments of his life in the turbulent 1930s. His wanderlust leads him to Cuba, Haiti, Russia, Soviet Central Asia, Japan, Spain (during its Civil War), through dictatorships, wars, revolutions. He meets and...

A New York Times bestseller The author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with the next chapter of her life in books—a passionate and deeply moving hymn to America Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her multimillion-copy...

Brought to you by Penguin. The wonderful new book from Britain's best-loved travel writer. In February 2025, Michael Palin travelled to Venezuela to get a sense of what life is like in one of South America's most culturally rich, vibrant but also troubled nations. In the journal he kept during...

Acclaimed presidential historian Tevi Troy takes listeners on a riveting journey through the biggest battles between CEOs and the nation’s commander in chief. He unearths the untold stories—both political and personal—that have shaped America. The Power and the Money shows how some of the nation’s most important CEOs forged (and fumbled) relationships with the president, revealing an intricate web of power, where CEOs need presidents, and presidents need CEOs. Troy shows how each must step carefully—or risk unpredictable costs and collateral damage.

**One of AudioFile Magazine's Best Audiobooks of 2019** "The winning combination of George Newbern's engaging narration and Rick Atkinson's vivid new work of history--the first in a planned trilogy about the American Revolution--brings to life what could have been a dry account of Revolutionary...

December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln's government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country's law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American.

In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris’ ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois’ work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative Black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible.

Witness powerful stories about the effects and realities of living in a prejudiced society in this audio bundle of classic Black narratives. These selections are both fictional and nonfictional stories of living in a society that devalues and dehumanizes the lives of Black people. Though all four of these books were written more than a hundred years ago, the realities within are still important for modern audiences to understand.

The Gunmen of the American Wild West Collection brings to life the history of the frontier west of the Mississippi in the latter parts of the 19th century. The gunmen ranged from lawmen to cowboys, ranchers, and outlaws. Most of the outlaws in the Old West preyed on banks, trains, and stagecoaches. Although spread thin, the law was present, usually on the level of deputy US marshal, county sheriff, and the town marshal or constable.

In this epic 1885 work, General Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States and staunch supporter of the Union cause, set the record straight on his storied life and career. At its heart is Grant, victor and eyewitness to the defining moments of the Civil War, including the Battles of Shiloh, Chattanooga, and the Wilderness; the Siege of Vicksburg; and the Appomattox campaign, which concluded with the surrender of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

The extraordinary life of James Monroe: soldier, senator, diplomat, and the last Founding Father to hold the presidency, a man who helped transform thirteen colonies into a vibrant and mighty republic. “A first-rate account of a remarkable life.” —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author...

This is an audio recording of Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment, issued by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and the Majority Staff of the House Committee on the Judiciary on December 7, 2019.

In Writing the Big Book, William H. Schaberg presents an exciting, research-driven narrative of the history of the book, Alcoholic Anonymous, and the formative years of A.A. Granted extensive access to the group's archives along with several other sources, the author reveals the early Fellowship's conflicts and personalities, successes and failures, and dispels many of the myths found in such canonical texts as Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, and A Brief History of the Big Book.

In 10 Big Questions of the American Civil War, join noted author and Civil War historian Dr. Caroline E. Janney, a professor at the University of Virginia, for a pointed examination of some of the most intriguing, provocative, and enduring questions about the Civil War era. The aim of these 10 eye-opening lectures is to separate myth from memory.

In this brilliant biography T. J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a much more complicated and significant figure.

If you were asked when America became polarized, your answer would likely depend on your age: You might say during Barack Obama’s presidency, or with the post-9/11 war on terror, or the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, or the “Reagan Revolution” and the the rise of the New Right. How did the US become so divided? Fault Lines offers a richly told, wide-angle history view toward an answer.

To continue doing business in Germany, Hollywood studios agreed not to make films attacking Nazis or condemning persecution of Jews. Ben Urwand reveals this collaboration and the cast of characters it drew in, ranging from Goebbels to Louis B. Mayer. At the center was Hitler himself - obsessed with movies and their power to shape public opinion.

Long before Hank Crawford arrived in the waters of Ketchikan, his partners and compatriots were already in love with its shores. Following the final, crushing moments of World War II, Japanese officer Kiyoshi Tsurifune, Sergeant Jones Henry, and Resistance fighter Swede Scorden struggle to regain normalcy and any contact with the shimmering, fish-filled sea. Lost honor, fallen friends, their cultural identities gone in the wake of a nuclear blast - these fishermen-turned-soldiers have a long way to go till they regain the waters in which they feel most at home.

Cathy Wilkerson, who famously escaped the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, here wrestles with the legacy of the movement, at times finding contradictions that many others have avoided: the absence of women’s voices then, and in the retelling; the incompetence and the egos; the hundreds of bombs detonated in protest which caused little loss of life but which were also ineffective in fomenting revolution.

Approximately four million Americans claim to be Buddhist. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of Americans of various faiths read about Buddhism, are interested in its philosophical tenets, or fashionably view themselves as Buddhists. They’re part of what’s been described as the fastest growing religious movement in America: a large group of people dissatisfied with traditional religious offerings and thirsty for an approach to spirituality grounded in logic and consistent with scientific knowledge.