United States History

A stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States.

With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today. In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents.

A spellbinding storyteller, historian David O. Stewart traces the canny and charismatic Aaron Burr from the threshold of the presidency in 1800 to his duel with Alexander Hamilton. Stewart recounts Burr’s efforts to carve out an empire, taking listeners across the American West as the renegade vice president schemes with foreign ambassadors, the U.S. general-in-chief, and future presidents.

Democracy has been the American religion since before the Revolution - from New England town halls to the multicultural democracy of Atlantic pirate ships. But can our current political system, one that seems responsive only to the wealthiest among us and leaves most Americans feeling disengaged, voiceless, and disenfranchised, really be called democratic? And if the tools of our democracy are not working to solve the rising crises we face, how can we - average citizens - make change happen? David Graeber, one of the most influential scholars and activists of his generation, takes listeners on a journey through the idea of democracy.

Americans seldom deify their Founding Fathers any longer, but they do still tend to venerate the Constitution and the republican government that the founders created. Strikingly, the founders themselves were far less confident in what they had wrought, particularly by the end of their lives. In fact, most of them - including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson - came to deem America's constitutional experiment an utter failure that was unlikely to last beyond their own generation.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.

Throughout Lewis and Clark for Dummies, you find out about Jefferson's western exploration from his earliest efforts to see the Corps assembled through the aftermath for the explorers, the tribes, and the United States. But the focus of Lewis & Clark for Dummies is on the period between Jefferson's confidential letter to Congress requesting dollars to mount a western exploration (January 18,1803) and the expedition's triumphant (and improbable) return to St. Louis (September 23, 1806): 42 months that changed the world.

“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).

Best-selling military historian H. W. Crocker III turns his guns on the epic story of America's involvement in the First World War with TheYanks Are Coming!. The year 2014 marks the centenary of the beginning of the Great War, and in Crocker's sweeping, American-focused account, listeners will learn: How George S. Patton, Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall, "Wild Bill" Donovan, Harry S. Truman, and many other American heroes earned their military spurs in during World War I.

Do you dream of a life of riches, prosperity, and purpose? Well, stop dreaming - the answers are not in some fantasy or far-off place. They are directly under your nose. Minister and Temple University founder Russell H. Conwell became famous for his motivational and self-improvement lecture "Acres of Diamonds", which he delivered around the nation more than 5,152 times before his death in 1925.

The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.

Yellowstone is America's premier national park. Today Yellowstone is often a byword for conservation, natural beauty, and a way for everyone to enjoy the great outdoors. But it was not always this way. Wonderlandscape presents a new perspective on Yellowstone, the emotions that various natural wonders and attractions evoke, and how this explains the park's relationship to America as a whole.

At the conclusion of the American Revolution, half the modern United States was part of the vast Spanish Empire. The year after Columbus' great voyage of discovery, in 1492, he claimed Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for Spain. For the next 300 years, thousands of proud Spanish conquistadors and their largely forgotten Mexican allies went in search of glory and riches from Florida to California. Many died; few triumphed. Some were cruel; some were curious; some were kind. Missionaries and priests yearned to harvest Indian souls for God through baptism and Christian teaching.

The word ‘Independence’ is, quite frankly, a very common word today – celebrated, venerated, and metaphorically worn as a badge by every citizen of a democracy, such as the United States. And it has a deep association with the word ‘Freedom.’ For any American today, these two form the basis of their fundamental rights – you were born with them, and you will die with them. But have you ever thought about the weight that these two words carry? Or the toll they left in their wake within the bloodied pages of the history of the United States?

A provocative, lively deep dive into the meaning of America's first Black president and first Black presidency, from "one of the most graceful and lucid intellectuals writing on race and politics today" (

Vanity Fair).

Travel across the US with David Reynolds as he explores Route 50, one of the few remaining two-lane highways running from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Driving as slowly as safety permits, stopping frequently and often going backwards to have a second look at something glimpsed in passing, Reynolds talks to people on the streets, in bars and cafes, motels and gas stations. They talk about everything from slavery and the traditional Indian sundance, to cannabis in Colorado and tornadoes in Kansas, and about everyone from George Washington and Aaron Burr to Marilyn Monroe and the Eagles.

Le présent ouvrage raconte comment la «rencontre des deux mondes» entre les nations autochtones et les empires européens a provoqué un immense choc des cultures. Il analyse les mécanismes qui ont mené, au nom de la civilisation, à l’écrasement et à l’expropriation des peuples de l’Amérique septentrionale. Par des exemples concrets, il dévoile ce que les auteurs appellent «le piège de la modernité», la liberté promise par les Occidentaux, servant en définitive à opprimer et à refouler les populations amérindiennes.

With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail.

Rich history, important figures, and massive events that rocked the entire continent; each of the 50 states comprising the United States has been the scene of enormous moments in history that are the subject of study all over the world. Knowing such facts and being able to recognize the details of culture, folklore, and sports (among many other pieces of trivia) are gifts that very few have, even those that can boast living in certain states all of their lives.

Seattle, 2019. After a severe injury, ace mecha designer and pilot Reiko Morikawa is recruited to a secret organization plotting a revolt against the corrupt governor (and Nazi sympathizer) of the United States of Japan. When their plan to save the USJ from itself goes awry, the mission is only saved from failure because the governor is killed by an assassin known as Bloody Mary. But the assassin isn't satisfied with just the governor.