History

Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement

by Judith B. Tankard – Timber Press (November 27, 2018)

“The ever-alluring Arts and Crafts garden…is profoundly relevant to our 21st-century needs.” —Sam Watters, author of Gardens for a Beautiful America

In Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement, landscape...

Music Wars

by John C. Hajduk – Lexington Books (November 15, 2018)

In the mid-twentieth century, certain elements of the American popular music industry (publishers, recording companies, and broadcasters) began to redefine their product as something more than mere entertainment....

A New History of Kentucky

by James C. Klotter & Craig Thompson Friend – The University Press of Kentucky (October 22, 2018)

When originally published, A New History of Kentucky provided a comprehensive study of the Commonwealth, bringing it to life by revealing the many faces, deep traditions, and historical milestones of the state....

Different Germans, Many Germanies

by Konrad H. Jarausch, Harald Wenzel & Karin Goihl – Berghahn Books (December 01, 2016)

As much as any other nation, Germany has long been understood in terms of totalizing narratives. For Anglo-American observers in particular, the legacies of two world wars still powerfully define twentieth-century...

A Global History of Gold Rushes

by Benjamin Mountford & Stephen Tuffnell – University of California Press (October 16, 2018)

Nothing set the world in motion like gold. Between the discovery of California placer gold in 1848 and the nostalgic rush to Alaska, fifty years later, the search for the precious yellow metal accelerated global...

Boko Haram

by Brandon Kendhammer & Carmen McCain – Ohio University Press (October 08, 2018)

From its small-time origins in the early 2000s to its transformation into one of the world’s most-recognized terrorist groups, this remarkable short book tells the story of Boko Haram’s bloody, decade-long...

Screened Encounters

by Caroline Moine – Berghahn Books (September 01, 2018)

Established in 1955, the Leipzig Film Festival’s location in the German Democratic Republic deeply implicated it in cultural and political competition between East and West Germany, opening a political and...

What is Work?

by Raffaella Sarti, Anna Bellavitis & Manuela Martini – Berghahn Books (September 01, 2018)

Every society throughout history has defined what counts as work and what doesn't. And more often than not, those lines of demarcation are inextricable from considerations of gender. What Is Work? offers a...

The Road to Resegregation

by Alex Schafran – University of California Press (October 09, 2018)

How could Northern California, the wealthiest and most politically progressive region in the United States, become one of the earliest epicenters of the foreclosure crisis? How could this region continuously...

Astoria

by Washington Irving – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Astoria by Washington Irving examines the history of the Rocky Mountain Fur trade with a look at John Jacob Astor's American Fur Trade company.

A Yankee in Canada

by Henry David Thoreau – Standard Ebooks (February 16, 2018)

In the fall of 1850, Henry David Thoreau briefly visited Quebec with Ellery Channing. In this book, Thoreau describes the cities and homes, people and customs, and rivers and plants of that part of Canada.

He...

On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition

by Charles Darwin – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, in which he writes of his theories of evolution by natural selection, is one of the most important works of scientific study ever published.

Common Sense

by Thomas Paine – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Enormously popular and widely read pamphlet, first published in January of 1776, clearly and persuasively argues for American separation from Great Britain and paves the way for the Declaration of Independence....

Life On The Mississippi

by Mark Twain – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain detailing his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before and after the American Civil War. The book begins with a brief history of the river....

King John

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

King John of England is pitted against the united powers of France, Brittany, Austria and the papacy. Will England be destroyed by his fatal indecision? As alliances are made, broken and remade, the paranoid...

Richard II

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred...

Henry IV, Part 1

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

David Scott Kastan lucidly explores the remarkable richness and the ambitious design of King Henry IV Part 1 and shows how these complicate any easy sense of what kind of play it is. Conventionally regarded...

Henry VIII

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth is a history play by William Shakespeare, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents,...

Henry VI, Part 2

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth, or Henry VI, Part 2, is a history play by William Shakespeare believed written in approximately 1590-91. It is the second part of the trilogy on Henry VI, and often grouped...

Henry VI, Part 3

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Henry the Sixth, Part 3, is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed written in approximately 1590, and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. It prepares the ground for one of his best-known...

Henry IV, Part 2

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Powerful rebels are mustering their forces to topple the aging King Henry IV from his throne. Their success seems assured because the dying king cannot depend upon his son and heir Prince Hal. Instead, King...

Titus Andronicus

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Titus Andronicus may be Shakespeare's earliest tragedy; it is believed to have been written sometime between 1584 and the early 1590s. It depicts a Roman general who is engaged in a cycle of revenge with his...

Henry VI, Part 1

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

The First Part of King Henry the Sixth is history play by William Shakespeare, believed written in approximately 1588–1590. It is the first in the cycle of four plays often referred to as "The First Tetralogy"....

Richard III

by William Shakespeare – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. The play is an unflattering depiction of the short reign of Richard III of England. While generally...

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

by Adam Smith – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith....

The Federalist Papers

by Publius – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York...

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African

by Olaudah Equiano – Olaudah Equiano (March 25, 2018)

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself was the first work that influenced the nineteenth-century genre of slave narrative autobiographies....

Twelve Years a Slave

by Solomon Northup – Derby and Miller, Auburn, New York (March 25, 2018)

Twelve Years a Slave, sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana, is a memoir...

Utilitarianism

by John Stuart Mill – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

John Stuart Mill's book Utilitarianism is a philosophical defense of utilitarianism in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser's Magazine in 1861; the articles were...

Punishing the Criminal Corpse, 1700-1840: Aggravated Forms of the Death Penalty in England

by Peter King – Open BookShelf (January 30, 2018)

This book analyses the different types of post-execution punishments and other aggravated execution practices, the reasons why they were advocated, and the decision, enshrined in the Murder Act of 1752, to make...

Continued Violence and Troublesome Pasts

by Ville Kivimäki (editor) – Open BookShelf (January 30, 2018)

In most European countries, the horrific legacy of 1939–45 has made it quite difficult to remember the war with much glory. Despite the Anglo-American memory narrative of saving democracy from totalitarianism...

Myth and Mentality

by Anna-Leena Siikala – Open BookShelf (January 30, 2018)

The recent fascination in Finnish folklore studies with popular thought and the values and emotions encoded in oral tradition began with the realisation that the vast collections of the Finnish folklore archives...

The Jewish Unions in America: Pages of History and Memories

by Bernard Weinstein – Open Book Publishers (February 09, 2018)

Newly arrived in New York in 1882 from Tsarist Russia, the sixteen-year-old Bernard Weinstein discovered an America in which unionism, socialism, and anarchism were very much in the air. He found a home in the...

Anti-Vivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain: A Social History

by A.W.H. Bates – Open BookShelf (January 30, 2018)

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This book explores the social history of the anti-vivisection movement in Britain from its nineteenth-century beginnings until the 1960s. It discusses the ethical...

Platonic Occasions - Dialogues on Literature, Art and Culture

by Richard Begam – Open BookShelf (January 30, 2018)

In Platonic Occasions, Richard Begam and James Soderholm reflect upon a wide range of thinkers, writers and ideas from Plato, Descartes and Nietzsche to Shakespeare, the Romantics and the Moderns — from Evil,...

Capital Punishment and the Criminal Corpse in Scotland, 1740–1834

by Rachel E. Bennett – Palgrave Macmillan (January 30, 2018)

This book provides the most in-depth study of capital punishment in Scotland between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century to date. Based upon an extensive gathering and analysis of previously untapped...

Tracing Manuscripts in Time and Space through Paratexts

by Giovanni Ciotti (editor) – Open BookShelf (January 30, 2018)

As records of the link between a manuscript and the texts it contains, paratexts document many aspects of a manuscript’s life: production, transmission, usage, and reception. Comprehensive studies of paratexts...

Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929

by Michael David-Fox – Open BookShelf (January 30, 2018)

Using archival materials never previously accessible to Western scholars, Michael David-Fox analyzes Bolshevik Party educational and research initiatives in higher learning after 1917. His fresh consideration...

The Story of the Pony Express

by Glenn Danford Bradley – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

An account of the most remarkable mail service ever in existence, and its place in history.

The Pony Express was the first rapid transit and the first fast mail line across the North American continent from the...

The Description of Wales

by Giraldus Cambrensis – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Williams' classic edition of Hoare's classic translation is here augmented with almost 200 new annotations concerning quotations, language, geography, history, and customs alluded to in the text.

Murat

by Alexandre Dumas – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

One of the stories in La Salle d'Armes.

Nisida

by Alexandre Dumas – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

Written by noted French author, Alexandre Dumas, "Nisida" is an essay belonging to his collected title "Celebrated Crimes".

Eminent Victorians

by Lytton Strachey – Standard Ebooks (September 12, 2018)

Eminent Victorians consists of four short biographies by Lytton Strachey of Victorians who were famous in their day: Cardinal Manning, a powerful cleric; Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing; Thomas...

The Art of War

by Sun Tzu – Open BookShelf (March 25, 2018)

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect...

Through the Mill

by Gail Cuthbert Brandt – Baraka Books (October 29, 2018)

Girls and women were essential to industrialization in Canada, particularly in the cotton textile industry, which was concentrated in Quebec. In 1891, for example, more than 2000 girls and women toiled in Quebec’s...

The British in India

by David Gilmour – Farrar, Straus and Giroux (November 13, 2018)

An immersive portrait of the lives of the British in India, from the seventeenth century to Independence

Who of the British went to India, and why? We know about Kipling and Forster, Orwell and Scott, but what...

What Unites Us

by Dan Rather & Elliot Kirschner – Algonquin Books (November 07, 2017)

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“I find myself thinking deeply about what it means to love America, as I surely do.” —Dan Rather

At a moment of crisis over our national identity, venerated journalist...

At Sea in the City

by William Kornblum & Pete Hamill – Algonquin Books (May 29, 2013)

New York is a city of few boundaries, a city of well-known streets and blocks that ramble on and on, into our literature, dreams, and nightmares. We know the city by the byways that split it, streets like Broadway...

Medal of Honor

by Peter Collier & Nick Del Calzo – Artisan (November 11, 2011)

On October 25, 2010, Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta became the first living person since the Vietnam War to receive the United States’ highest military decoration, and both he and Sergeant Leroy Petry (the...

The Wild Garden

by William Robinson & Rick Darke – Timber Press (September 01, 2009)

First published in 1870, The Wild Garden challenged the prevailing garden style of the day and advocated a naturalistic style, in which hardy plants, both native and exotic, are arranged in groupings that mimic...