American Birth

For many Americans, the birth certificate is a mundane piece of paper, unearthed from deep storage when applying for a driver's license, verifying information for employers, or claiming state and federal benefits. Yet as Donald Trump and his fellow "birthers" reminded us when they claimed that Barack Obama wasn't an American citizen, it plays a central role in determining identity and citizenship. The Birth Certificate: An American History traces the document's two-hundred-year history to explain when, how, and why birth certificates came to matter so much in the United States.

From bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States. To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were a fatal threat to republican virtues. They had suffered...

The story behind ESPN's founding — an electrifying, high-stakes journey that embodies the spirit of innovation, one that will inspire, entertain, and teach you lessons about entrepreneurship, perseverance, and thinking big. Bill Rasmussen, whose perspective is as close to the heartbeat of...

The momentous story of how George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams navigated the crises of the 1790s and in the process bound the states into a unified nation Today the United States is the dominant power in world affairs, and that status seems assured. Yet in the decade following...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dale Maharidge has spent his career documenting the downward spiral of the American working class, and his new book explores the limits of the American dream in the 2020s. Poverty is both reality and destiny for increasing numbers of people in the 2020s and, as Maharidge discovers spray-painted inside an abandoned gas station in the California desert, it is a fate often handed down from birth.

Daniel Ames is an associate at Reed, Briggs, Portland's most prestigious law firm, earning more money than he ever imagined possible. When a charismatic civil litigator sues the firm's biggest client for manufacturing a drug that he claims causes unspeakable birth defects, Daniel is certain the...

It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air...

New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? We have long needed a history of the founding that fully includes Black Americans in the Revolutionary protests, the war, and the debates over slavery and freedom that followed. We now have that history in Edward J. Larson's insightful synthesis of the founding.

Experience the raw, unflinching drama of America's most pivotal moments, from the brutal formation of its colonies to the explosive battles of the Civil War. Dive into the lives of people who shaped history: resilient pioneers conquering untamed prairies, enslaved individuals fighting for freedom, daring immigrants chasing the American Dream, and fearless gunslingers redefining law and order in the Wild West.

Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo investigates the notorious 1922 double murder of a high-society minister and his secret mistress, a Jazz Age mega-crime that propelled tabloid news in the 20th century. On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found beneath a...

ONE OF GLAMOUR'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ""This masterful novel combines readable, lyrical prose with a compelling plot and complex characters. . . . Wisdom weaves these tangled threads with overarching themes of how the patriarchy controls women’s minds and bodies."" —Booklist (Starred...

Book Two in the USA Today bestselling Sunset Cove series. “Second chances, old flames, and startling new revelations combine to form a story filled with faith, trial, forgiveness, and redemption. Crack the cover and step in, but beware—Mermaid Moon is harboring secrets that will keep you...

In this novel authorized by the Little House estate, Sarah Miller vividly recreates the beauty, hardship, and joys of the frontier in a dazzling work of historical fiction, a captivating story that illuminates one courageous, resilient, and loving pioneer woman as never before—Caroline Ingalls...

"Like all my favorite books, The Mothers is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and it leaves you with a lot to think about after you turn the final page. I sobbed my way through this wonderful book." -Sally Hepworth, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Sister What if you gave birth...

The 1828 presidential election, which pitted Major General Andrew Jackson against incumbent John Quincy Adams, has long been hailed as a watershed moment in American political history. It was the contest in which an unlettered, hot-tempered southwestern frontiersman, trumpeted by his supporters as a genuine man of the people, soundly defeated a New England "aristocrat" whose education and political resume were as impressive as any ever seen in American public life.

Daniel Ames is an associate at Reed, Briggs, Portland's most prestigious law firm, earning more money than he ever imagined possible. When a charismatic civil litigator sues the firm's biggest client for manufacturing a drug that he claims causes unspeakable birth defects, Daniel is certain the...

A New York Times Bestseller "A moving petition to America that it not look away from the catastrophes at Columbine, Newtown, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, and, yes, Parkland. It succeeds as an in-depth report about the “generational campaign” in the aftermath of the Parkland tragedy, a...

"The House of Forster is built on bubbles; watching each wealth-addled generation try not to blow the family fortune and/or disgrace its name provides not only excellent Southern Gothic fun but a panoramic tour of the American Century."— Jonathan Dee, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The...

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE A magisterial new work that rewrites the story of America's founding The American Revolution is often portrayed as an orderly, restrained rebellion, with brave patriots defending their noble ideals against an oppressive empire. It’s a stirring...

From the National Book Award-winning author of Slaves in the Family, a riveting true life/true crime narrative of the partnership between the murderer who invented the movies and the robber baron who built the railroads. One hundred and thirty years ago Eadweard Muybridge invented stop-motion...