United Nations

From “The Star-Spangled Banner” to “Born in the USA”, Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw take listeners on a moving and insightful journey through eras in American history and the songs and performers that inspired us. Meacham chronicles our history, exploring the stories behind the songs, and Tim McGraw reflects on them as an artist and performer. Their perspectives combine to create a unique view of the role music has played in uniting and shaping a nation.

In American Rule, Jared Yates Sexton upends those convenient fictions by laying bare the foundational myths at the heart of our collective American imagination. From the very origins of this nation, Americans in power have abused and subjugated others; enabling that corruption are the many myths of American exceptionalism and steadfast values, which are fed to the public and repeated across generations.

In life and in death, slaves were commodities, their monetary value assigned based on their age, gender, health, and the demands of the market. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives—including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death—in the early American domestic slave trade.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to have dinner at the executive mansion with the First Family. The next morning, news that the president had dined with a Black man-and former slave-sent shock waves through the nation. Although African Americans had helped build the White House and had worked for most of the presidents, not a single one had ever been invited to dine there. Fueled by inflammatory newspaper articles, political cartoons, and even vulgar songs, the scandal escalated.

Former Marin County community organizer and promoter of “systems thinking” shares her first-person voice following on insights gathered over five years of local experience. This book is full of specific datapoints, examples, and suggestions for making the world a better place, beginning with Marin County residents learning more about the very real challenges within their own community.

Author Harry Nelson has been on the front lines of behavioral health and medical advocacy for two decades. He is the leading healthcare legal expert in the country addressing the worsening problems in how we treat pain and addiction. His insights have earned the attention of lead policymakers and regulators at every federal agency touching the opioid crisis. He has been one of the few voices in the room with direct experience of where we are going wrong.

How George Washington Fleeced the Nation reveals the often hilarious, sometimes shocking, and always highly informative foibles of the great and the good. Einstein, the most brilliant man who lived, regularly forgot his shoes and never learned to drive. Hitler possibly has a Jewish ancestor. Picasso avoided paying restaurant bills by doodling on their napkins instead. Prepared to be shocked, amused, and outraged at what they didn’t teach you in high school.

I guess during the time I was struggling with middle school peers and worried about what other girls thought of my clothes, something nasty happened approximately 6,500 miles away, which is only an eight-hour flight from where I used to live. Who would have thought that even in the 90s, such atrocities would be committed? The movie Hotel Rwanda has depicted some sad displays of human cruelty, although the brutality of it has mostly been censored for the sake of wider audiences.

Almost two years since the Uprising, the world has drastically changed. Sophia has taken up the mantle of the world's champion superhero, Freedom. However due to her cryptic message to the United Nations the world is divided in regards to her role in it. To some, she is a beacon of hope, while others see her as a new global threat they must find a way to deal with. The aftermath of Peace's attempted takeover of the planet has given rise to superhuman boosting and genetic hate groups.

In 2014, Flint, Michigan, was a cash-strapped city that had been built up, then abandoned by General Motors. As part of a plan to save money, government officials decided that Flint would temporarily switch its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Within months, many residents broke out in rashes.

This official tie-in to the highly acclaimed film The Birth of a Nation surveys the history and legacy of Nat Turner, the leader of one of the most renowned slave rebellions on American soil, while also exploring Turner's relevance to contemporary dialogues on race relations. More than just a tie-in, this book seeks to educate the listener as to Nat Turner's legacy and influence. By bringing together an array of artists and intellectuals, this book speaks directly to Turner's importance throughout history.

Honey bees - and the qualities associated with them - have quietly influenced American values for four centuries. During every major period in the country's history, bees and beekeepers have represented order and stability in a country without a national religion, political party, or language. Bees in America is an enlightening cultural history of bees and beekeeping in the United States. Tammy Horn, herself a beekeeper, offers a varied social and technological history from the colonial period, when the British first introduced bees to the New World, to the present, when bees are being used by the American military to detect bombs.

Americans have traditionally placed great value on self-reliance and fortitude. Recent decades, however, have seen the rise of a therapeutic ethic that views Americans as emotionally underdeveloped, requiring the ministrations of mental-health professionals to cope with life's vicissitudes. Today, having a book for every ailment, a counselor for every crisis, a lawsuit for every grievance, and a TV show for every problem degrades one's native ability to cope with life's challenges.

In January of 1950, Mary Church Terrell, an 86-year-old charter member of the NAACP, headed into Thompson’s Restaurant, just a few blocks from the White House, and requested to be served. She and her companions were informed by the manager that they could not eat in his establishment, because they were “colored.” Terrell, a former suffragette and one of the country’s first college-educated African-American women, took the matter to court. Three years later, the Supreme Court vindicated her outrage: District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc. was decided in 1953.

In 1789, as the French Revolution shook Europe to the core, the new United States was struggling for survival in the face of financial insolvency and bitter political and regional divisions. When the United States Spoke French explores the republic's formative years from the viewpoint of a distinguished circle of five Frenchmen taking refuge in America. When the French Revolution broke out, these men had been among its leaders.

The Supplement to Volume VII expands the story of the Virginia Colony and discusses the important contributions of its founders, from the arrival of the British at Jamestown in 1607, through the economic expansion, and turbulence of the 18th century. Included are discussions of the investors and explorers who were members of the Virginia Company, such as John Smith, George Percy, and many others. The lives and teachings of Virginia's early religious leaders, and the movement from the government-backed Anglican religion to other Protestant faiths are also discussed.

Is America ruled by the ‘shadowy government’ which famed journalist Ferdinand Lundberg described in 1934? Is the nation ruled by what President Carter called “an Oligarchy instead of a Democracy”?

Letters of a Nation is a unique and timeless collection of extraordinary letters spanning more than 350 years of American history, from the arrival of the Pilgrims to the present day. Many of the more than 200 letters are published here for the first time, and the correspondents are the celebrated and obscure, the powerful and powerless, including presidents, slaves, soldiers, prisoners, explorers, writers, revolutionaries, Native Americans, artists, religious and civil rights leaders, and people from all walks of life.

In this highly original approach to the history of the US, James Moore focuses on the extraordinary role that prayer has played in every area of American life, from the time of the first settlers to the present day and beyond.

At the heart of the nation's spiritual history are audacious and often violent scenes. But the Puritans and the shining city on the hill give us just one way to understand the United States. Rather than recite American history from a Christian vantage point, Peter Manseau proves that what really happened is worth a close, fresh look.