Geography America

Globetrotting travel writer Lori Erickson has long searched for the sacred in locations and cultures far from home as well as in her beloved Iowa. But when the pandemic put both air travel and in-person worship off-limits, Lori and her husband hit the road with a camper in tow to discover spiritual sites and experiences in their own home country.

Carrie has been a kitchen slave in Sam Fraunces’ tavern in New York City for as long as she can remember. But after she narrowly escapes a kidnapper, Carrie becomes more curious about her mysterious past. After all, she doesn’t even know her own last name. When her friend Dan Arabus comes to town, he talks about his dream of buying his mother’s freedom with the Continental notes his father left him. Deciding to help Dan discover how much the notes are worth, Carrie finds herself eavesdropping on Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and President Washington himself.

Imperial San Francisco is the epic saga of how all great cities parasitize their hinterlands for the sake of those elites who own and run them by using the mass media at their command to shape the thought of those who unwittingly serve their interests. Using San Francisco as an example of how cities employ remote control technology to exploit water, energy, natural resources, and labor from an expansive imperium, it takes the listener from ancient Rome to the University of California’s role in the creation of nuclear weaponry and its first use.

A Different Mirror for Young People brings ethnic history alive through the words of people, including teenagers, who recorded their experiences in letters, diaries, and poems. Like Howard Zinn's A People's History, Takaki's A Different Mirror offers a rich and rewarding "people's view" perspective on the American story.

Journey without End chronicles the years-long journey of "extracontinentales"—African and South Asian migrants moving through Latin America, toward the United States. Based on five years of collaborative research between a journalist and an anthropologist, this book makes a narrative-driven critique of how state-level immigration policy fails extracontinental migrants.

In the early 1500s, Ponce de Leon was one of the most important Spanish military figures in the Caribbean. He made his first voyage across the Atlantic with Christopher Columbus and then, after years of battle with the native Taino, became the first governor of Puerto Rico. Although the story of his search for the Fountain of Youth is entirely fictional, his noteworthy expedition to—and naming of—Florida is one of his greatest legacies.

In a climate of culture wars and tremendous economic uncertainty, America is often reduced to a simplistic schism between red states and blue states. In response to that oversimplification, journalist Dante Chinni teamed up with political geographer James Gimpel to launch the Patchwork Nation project, using on-the-ground reporting and statistical analysis to get past generalizations and probe American communities in depth.

Netting the Sun offers a carefully crafted diversity of natural and human stories from a landscape seemingly empty and forlorn to passing casual travelers. This surprising interpretation of south central Oregon's botany, geology, wildlife, ethnography, and history reveals what a truly special place the high desert is.

The fifth book in the Making of America series examines the life of America’s 32nd president: his birth into one of America’s elite families, his domineering mother, his marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt, his struggle with polio, and his political career. A Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) won a record four presidential elections and is the longest-serving US president. During his time in office, he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II. He helped to redefine the role of the US government with the New Deal.

Born in a cabin deep in the backwoods of Kentucky and growing up in a family considered the poorest of the poor, Abraham Lincoln rose to become the 16th president of the United States. As president, he guided the United States through the Civil War, helped end slavery in America, and strengthened the federal government. This third installment in the Making of America series continues the story of the first 100 years of America's constitutional history, a story that began with Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson.

After rising to national fame as the general who defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson ran for president as a political outsider, championing the interest of common farmers and frontiersmen. Determined to take down the wealthy, well-educated East Coast elites, he pledged to destroy the national bank, which he believed was an engine of corruption serving the interest of bankers and industrialists. A staunch nationalist, he sought to secure and expand the nation's borders.

Fifteen thousand years before Europeans stepped foot in the Americas, people had already spread from tip to tip and coast to coast. Like all humans, these Native Americans sought to understand their place in the universe, the nature of their relationship with the divine, and the origin of the world into which their ancestors had emerged. The answers lay in their sacred stories. This collection of those stories - from nations and cultures across two continents, what the Aztecs called the Sea-Ringed World, from the edge of Argentina all the way up to Alaska - is a treasure.

The epic conclusion to the acclaimed Shadowshaper Cypher trilogy! A masterful conclusion to the evocative and captivating Shadowshaper Cypher series in a finale of searing rebellion, the power of fate, and a magic unlike anything you've ever imagined.

Merilee leads a Very Ordered Existence: V.O.E. for short. She does not have time for Biswick O'Connor. She does not have time for Miss Veraleen Holliday. He with his annoying factoids and runny nose; she with her shining white shoes as big as sailboats. Both of them strangers who, like the hot desert wind that brings only bad news, blow into town and change everything.

1776. The early days of the Revolutionary War. It supposedly began with Thomas Hickey, a private in the Continental Army, and New York governor William Tryon. In an astonishing power grab, they plotted to kill Hickey's boss: a man by the name of George Washington. In the end, Hickey was caught, brought to trial, and found guilty. It would seem he became the first person in the new nation to be executed for treason.

From Gold Star father and beloved Democratic National Convention speaker Khizr Khan comes a book for young people about the Constitution - what it says and why it matters for everyone. Our Founding Fathers created the US Constitution and Bill of Rights as a blueprint for American government and the rights of American citizens. This document is not merely a piece of parchment but a living, breathing promise of our deepest democratic values.

Fourteen-year-old Clara Luna's name means "clear moon" in Spanish. But lately, her life has felt anything but clear. A letter has arrived from her grandparents in Mexico inviting her to stay with them for the summer. But Clara has never met her father's parents. All she knows is that he snuck over the border from Mexico as a teenager. When she arrives, she's stunned by how different her grandparents' life is from her own in the United States. They live in simple shacks in the mountains of southern Mexico, where most people speak not only Spanish, but an indigenous language, Mixteco.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Ibtihaj Muhammad smashed barriers as the first American to compete wearing hijab, and made history as the first Muslim American woman to medal. Her inspiring journey from a young outsider to an Olympic hero is a relatable, memorable, and uniquely American tale of hard work, determination, and self-reliance.

Ken Ilgunas, lifelong traveler, hitchhiker, and roamer, takes listeners back to the 19th century, when Americans were allowed to journey undisturbed across the country. Inspired by the United States' history of roaming, and taking guidance from present-day Europe, Ilgunas calls into question our entrenched understanding of private property and provocatively proposes something unheard of: opening up American private property for public recreation. He imagines a future in which folks everywhere will have the right to walk safely, explore freely, and roam boldly.

She was little and quick and pretty. Her mother nicknamed her Colibri, Spanish for "Hummingbird". At age four she was kidnapped, torn from her parents on a crowded bus in Guatemala City. Since then she's traveled with "Uncle", the ex-soldier and wandering beggar who has renamed her Rosa. Uncle has always told Rosa that he searched for her parents but had no success. There's almost no chance Rosa will ever find them, but Rosa still remembers and longs for them.