History

In late 1970, a mild-mannered Haverford College physics professor privately asked a few people this question: "What do you think of burglarizing an FBI office?" In remarkable detail and with astonishing depth of research, Betty Medsger reveals the...

A country warmly hospitable and surprisingly violent, physically beautiful, yet appallingly poor--these are the contrasts Joseph Page explores in The Brazilians, a monumental book on one of the most colorful and paradoxical places on earth.Once one of...

There has always been more to music in Boston than the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Jazz, for example, dates to the early 1900s, but it was in the 1940s and 1950s that it truly sparkled. The Boston Jazz Chronicles: Faces, Places, and Nightlife 1937-1962 is...

In 1994, Rwanda was the scene of the first acts since World War II to be legally defined as genocide. Two years later, Clea Koff, a twenty-three-year-old forensic anthropologist, left the safe confines of a lab in Berkeley, California, to serve as one of...

This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs--many never before seen--as well as revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on America's early...

Large numbers of slaves worked for the Confederate war effort as wagon drivers, munitions factory workers, and officers' body servants. But contrary to popular wisdom, the number that actually bore arms for the Confederacy was negligible.The Black...

The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. "Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work." --Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again "Engaging. . . . In Gates's telling, the Black church shines bright even...

Drawing on a wealth of contemporary source material, a fascinating social history of how commercial sex has been bought and sold in London for more than 1,000 years. The Bankside Brothels, or "stewes," were a celebrated feature of London life since Roman...

The 1903 Group Plan for Cleveland's downtown laid out a vision of Neoclassical splendor, an open civic area filled with grand fountains, graceful sculptures and formal gardens. Like most projects of its kind, it was supposed to take only one generation...

"Narrative, celebratory history at its purest" (Publishers Weekly)--the real story of how the Bill of Rights came to be: a vivid account of political strategy, big egos, and the partisan interests that set the terms of the ongoing contest between the...

David Halberstam's masterpiece, the defining history of the making of the Vietnam tragedy, with a new Foreword by Senator John McCain. A rich, entertaining, and profound reading experience."--The New York Times Using portraits of America's flawed policy...

A stunning and illuminating one-of-a-kind anthology of one of the world's most ancient royal dynasties as told by its own people. Infused with the grandeur, history, artistic accomplishments, and challenges that have arisen over the centuries, The...