Resources By Department: New Books: History

The Age of Reconstruction by Don H. Doyle
The 1860s proved to be a crucial decade in the history of democracy. While most readers are familiar with Reconstruction as a deeply contested domestic struggle, Doyle explains how the Union victory helped drive European imperialism from the Americas, bring slavery to an end in Latin America, and spark a wave of democratic reforms in Europe. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, Doyle argues, the United States had forsaken the main achievements of Reconstruction. The United States, once a model of democratic reform, became a model for mass segregation, racialized disenfranchisement, and immigration restriction.
American Dark Age by Keidrick Roy
Though the United States has been heralded as a beacon of democracy, many nineteenth-century Americans viewed their nation through the prism of the Old World. What they saw was a racially stratified country that reflected not the ideals of a modern republic but rather the remnants of feudalism. American Dark Age reveals how a group of Black thinkers, including Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Hosea Easton, and Harriet Jacobs, challenged the medievalism in their midst--what Frederick Douglass called an 'aristocracy of the skin'--and transformed the nation's founding liberal tradition.
In the Shadow of Liberty by Ana Raquel Minian
In 2017, many Americans watched in horror as children were torn from their parents at the US-Mexico border under Trump's "family separation" policy. But as historian Ana Raquel Minian reveals in In the Shadow of Liberty, this was only the latest chapter in a saga tracing back to the 1800s; one in which immigrants to the United States have been held without recourse to their constitutional rights. In the Shadow of Liberty gives this history a human face through the dramatic and vivid stories of four migrants: a Central American asylum seeker, a Cuban exile, a European war bride, and a Chinese refugee.
Ours Was the Shining Future by David Leonhardt
Two decades into the twenty-first century, the stagnation of living standards has become the defining trend of American life. What happened to the "American dream"--the promise of a happier, more prosperous future? This book examines the past century of American history, from the Great Depression to today's Great Stagnation, in search of an answer. To make sense of the rise and subsequent fall of the American dream, Leonhardt tells the story of the modern American economy as an ongoing battle between two competing forms of capitalism: one that envisions prosperity for most, and one that serves the individual and favors the wealthy.
We Refuse by Kellie Carter Jackson
Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary, between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolence and Malcolm X's 'by any means necessary.' In 'We Refuse', historian Kellie Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women. But violence is only one tool among many. Carter Jackson examines other, no less vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away.

America, América by Greg Grandin
In this reinterpretation of the New World, America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest through the eighteenth-century wars for independence, the Monroe Doctrine, the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century, and beyond. Grandin shows, among other things, how royalist Spanish America, by sending troops and supplies, helped save the republican American Revolution; how in response to U.S. interventions, Latin Americans remade the rules, leading directly to the founding of the United Nations; and how the Good Neighbor Policy allowed FDR to assume the moral authority to lead the fight against world fascism.
China by John King Fairbank; Merle Goldman
A broad history of China, covering the period from the earliest archaeological records to the present. Updated by Merle Goldman from the original 1992 edition in order to include the reforms in the post-Mao period through the early years of the twenty-first century, including the leadership of Hu Jintao. She also provides an epilogue discussing the changes in contemporary China that will shape the nation in the years to come.
King of Kings by Scott Anderson
On New Year's Eve, 1977, on a state visit to Iran, President Jimmy Carter toasted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, praising Iran as "an island of stability." Iran had the world's fifth largest army and was awash in billions of dollars in oil revenues. Fourteen months later the Shah fled Iran into exile, forced from the throne by a volcanic religious revolution led by a fiery cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini. The ensuing hostage crisis forever damaged America's standing in the world. The spellbinding story Scott Anderson weaves is one of a dictator blind to the disdain of his subjects and a superpower blindly blundering into disaster.
Reagan by Max Boot
Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president's aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Max Boot illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Contextualizing Reagan's life against American history, Boot re-creates the world in which Reagan transitioned from local Iowa sportscaster to budding screen actor. Reagan's 1980 presidential election augured a shift that continues into this century. Boot writes not as a partisan but as a historian seeking to set the story straight.
When the Sea Came Alive by Garrett M. Graff
D-Day is one of history's greatest and most unbelievable military and human triumphs. Though the full campaign lasted just over a month, the surprise landing of over 150,000 Allied troops on the morning of June 6, 1944, is understood to be the moment that turned the tide for the Allied forces and ultimately led to the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II. Now, Graff explores the full impact of this world-changing event--from the secret creation of landing plans by top government and military officials and organization of troops, to the moment the boat doors opened to reveal the beach where men fought for their lives and the future of the free world.

New Books: History

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