1322 results for "American History"

A life with history

Blum, John Morton
The author of such classic works as The Republican Roosevelt, V Was for Victory, and Years of Discord, John Morton Blum is one of a small group of intellectuals who for more than a quarter of a century dominated the writing of American political history. Writing now of his own career, Blum provides a behind-the-scenes look at Ivy League education and political power from the 1940s to the 1980s. Blum insightfully recounts a long and distinguished journey that began at Phillips Academy, where he first realized he could make a career of teaching and writing history. He tells how young men were socialized to the values of the Northeastern establishment in those years before World War II, and how as a non-practicing Jew he learned to overcome bigotry both at Andover and at Harvard, which then had no Jewish professors. In 1957 Blum joined the faculty of Yale University's history department, widely regarded as the nation's best, where he became both influential and popular and where his students included one future U.S. president as well as others who aspired to the office. He reveals much about the inner workings of Ivy League education and tells of controversies over the Vietnam War and the Black Panthers, his role in Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign, and how he searched for common ground between reactionary faculty and radical students. More than a recounting of a singular life, Blum's story explains how political history was researched and written during the second half of the twentieth century, describing how the discipline evolved, gained ascendancy, and was challenged as historical fashions changed. It also offers revealing glimpses of such prominent academics as Kingman Brewster, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., C. Vann Woodward, and William Sloan Coffin. Over a distinguished career, Blum witnessed considerable change in elite educational institutions, where minorities and women were grossly underrepresented when he first entered academia. In a memoir brimming with insight and laced with humor, he looks back at the academy—"not a refuge from reality but an alternative reality"—as he reflects upon his intellectual journey and his contributions to the study and writing of twentieth-century American history.
University Press of Kansas 2004 283 pages

Conservative at the Core: a new history of American conservatism

Lichtman, Allan J.
"Allan J. Lichtman investigates the foundations and history of conservative thought to identify and reveal the central crisis that lies at the heart of conservative principles and today's politics. He explores a century of American conservative politics to demonstrate that professed conservative principles-free enterprise, limited government, fiscal responsibility, states' rights, law and order, personal morality, and American sovereignty-are dispensable notions for public appeal only. Instead, conservatives have only consistently advanced their version of traditional Christian values and support for private (not free) enterprise. Lichtman provides a sweeping history of the American conservative movement from the end of World War I to the present day. He draws on leaders like Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Donald J. Trump, and the conservative Democrats responsible for Jim Crow discrimination in the South. Contrary to those who have described Trump as a deviation from professed core principles, Conservative at the Core ultimately argues that Trump and his allies represents the culmination of the American conservative tradition, consistently upholding and fulfilling conservative nationalist values"-- Provided by publisher.
University of Notre Dame Press 2025-09 364 pages

Privilege and creative destruction: the Charles River Bridge case

Kutler, Stanley I.
In this now-classic work in legal and constitutional theory, Stanley I. Kutler examines one of the Supreme Court's most celebrated decisions. In 1837, the Court rules that the state of Massachusetts had the right to erect a free bridge over the Charles River even though it had previously chartered a privately owned toll bridge at the same location. The Court's decision fostered the idea of "creative destruction," a process that encourages new forms of property at the expense of older ones. Exploring the origins, context, and impact of this decision, Kutler integrates traditional American constitutional history with the "new legal history: that emphasizes the social and economic bases of legal change.
John Hopkins University Press 1990 191 pages

The Betrayal of the American Right (Large Print Edition)

Murray Rothbard
LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com This remarkable piece of history will change the way you look at American politics. It shows that the corruption of American "conservatism" began long before George W. Bush ballooned the budget and asserted dictatorial rights over the country and the world. The American Right long ago slid into the abyss.Betrayal of the American Right is the full story, and the author is none other than Murray N. Rothbard, who witnessed it all first hand. He tells his own story and reveals that machinations behind the subversion of an anti-state movement into one that cheers statism of the worst sort.The book was written in the mid-1970s and is only now published for the first time. Each time a prospective publisher promised to go ahead, the deal fell through. Even so, it has been privately circulated for the 30 years since it was written - and everyone lucky enough to own a copy of the manuscript knew he had a treasure.People who have read it swear that it is the best account ever how the old right was subverted to become a propaganda branch of the state, not just recently but fifty years ago. So Rothbard's account is not only a critical historical document; it also has explosive explanatory power.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2007 256 pages

B'Nai B'Rith and the Challenge of Ethnic Leadership

Deborah Dash Moore
B'nai B'rith has a history almost as diverse as the story of American Jewry itself. The oldest secular Jewish organization in the United States, it was founded in 1843. Thereafter, it followed in the footsteps of its immigrant founders, spreading into the cities, towns, and villages of America, eventually becoming the worldwide order it is today. What is more, B'nai B'rith's physical expansion was paralleled by the scope of its activities. It supports one of the most prominent American Jewish defense organizations, the Anti-Defamation League. Its Hillel Foundations constitute an international network of student activities on college campuses. It sponsors a broad array of learning programs through its Adult Jewish Education Commission. The B'nai B'rith Youth Organization serves the entire Jewish community. It conducts projects and programs in Israel of philanthropic and educational nature, helps finance several national Jewish hospitals and homes for the aged, and supervises an International Council to coordinate its overseas units and to take responsible action on issues relating to world Jewish affairs. And it is partnered in all these activities by B'nai B'rith Women, an independent organization. This is the saga of B'nai B'rith, recounted by Professor Deborah Dash Moore. To elucidate the diverse facets of this venerable, yet youthful, organization and to reveal their integral relationship to the history of the Jews in America, Professor Moore focuses on the moments of innovation that have influenced its development and direction, and on the outstanding individuals who have guided the Order's destiny.
State University of New York Press 1981 288 pages

How We Elected Lincoln

Abram J. (Abram Jesse) Dittenhoefer,Julius Chambers
"How We Elected Lincoln: personal recollections of Lincoln and men of his time" offers a fascinating glimpse into the political landscape of 19th-century America and the pivotal election of 1860. Abram J. Dittenhoefer, a contemporary observer, provides firsthand accounts and anecdotes illuminating the personalities and events that shaped this critical period in United States history. Explore the political climate leading up to the American Civil War through the eyes of someone who witnessed it firsthand. This volume delves into the strategies, personalities, and turning points that led to Abraham Lincoln's election. A valuable resource for anyone interested in political history, the Civil War period, or the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, this book provides a unique and insightful perspective on a nation on the brink. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2025-03-29 62 pages

Carrier Clash

Eric Hammel
CARRIER CLASH The Invasion of Guadalcanal & the Battle of the Eastern Solomons August 1942 Eric Hammel The Battle of the Eastern Solomons was history's third carrier clash. A collision of U.S. Navy and Imperial Navy carriers in the wake of the invasion of Guadalcanal-whose airfield the United States desperately needed and the Japanese desperately wanted back-the battle was waged at sea and over Guadalcanal's besieged Marine-held Lunga Perimeter on August 24, 1942. Based upon the first half of Eric Hammel's acclaimed 1987 battle narrative, Guadalcanal: The Carrier Battles, and in large part upon important new information obtained from both Japanese and American sources, Carrier Clash unravels many of the mysteries and misconceptions that have veiled this complex battle for more than a half century. Beginning with detailed descriptions of the history of the aircraft carrier, the development of carrier-air tactics, the training of carrier pilots, and numerous operational considerations that defined the way carrier battles had to be fought, Carrier Clash takes the reader into the air with brave U.S. Navy fighter pilots as they protect their ships and the Guadalcanal invasion fleet against determined Japanese air attacks on August 7 and 8, 1942. After he sets the stage for the August 24 Battle of the Eastern Solomons, author Hammel puts the reader right into the cockpits of U.S. Navy Dauntless dive-bombers as they dive on the Imperial Navy light carrier Ryujo-and hit the ship with 500-pound bombs! Once again, in this strange tit-for-tat battle, U.S. Navy Wildcat fighter pilots must defend their ships against an onslaught by Imperial Navy Val dive-bomber pilots determined to sink the U.S. carriers, or die trying. Hammel's coverage of the bomb damage to the USS Enterprise and subsequent fire-fighting and rescue efforts by her crew are especially compelling. Carrier Clash is the definitive combat history of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, history's third battle (of only five) between American and Japanese aircraft carriers. Critical Acclaim for Carrier Clash: The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, August 1942: The Bookwatch says: Carrier Clash takes the reader into the air with brave U.S. Navy pilots . . . [It] is an important contribution to the military history of World war II's battle for control of the Pacific. The Book World says: Carrier Clash is a stark revelation of a complex encounter. Military Magazine says: Mr. Hammel presents the entire battle in a clear, easy-to-follow manner while interjecting interesting views of the [Battle of the Eastern Solomons] as seen by the participants on both sides. Military Review says: The book is loaded with great charts (maps), order of battle, and other hard to find details. Although Hammel describes the land and surface ship battles, his forte is his vivid descriptions of the aerial dogfights during the [Guadalcanal] invasion and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Canadian Military History says: Eric Hammel continues his tradition of exciting, well crafted books on the Pacific War with this account of the carrier battles that accompanied the American landings on Guadalcanal. . . . There is no denying that this is a cracking good read and an excellent companion to Hammel's other books on the Guadalcanal Campaign. Sea Power says: Acclaimed military historian Eric Hammel presents a landmark history of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons . . . Drawing on newly declassified information from U.S. and Japanese sources, and on numerous other archival sources, Hammel brings a fresh perspective to the outcome of the war as a whole. . . . [He] describes with precision and insight the key events in the Guadalcanal/Eastern Solomons campaigns, the strategic implications of the battle, and the impact on the overall battle plans of both adversaries.
Pacifica Military History 2009-06 394 pages

Racism, dissent, and Asian Americans from 1850 to the present: a documentary history

Foner,PhilipSheldon,1910-1994,Rosenberg,Daniel,1953-
Drawing from a broad range of articles, speeches, short stories, pamphlets, sermons, debates, laws, public statements, Supreme Court decisions and conventions, this documentary history demonstrates the persistence of a humanist, if not an anti-racist, pulse in American society in the face of discriminatory government policy and prevalent anti-Asian ideology and treatment. Focusing on support for the rights of Japanese and Chinese immigrants and their descendants, the book traces a 130-year period, culminating with the governmental redress for survivors of the Japanese evacuation and internment during WWII. Foner and Rosenberg highlight expressions from the clergy, the labor movement, the abolitionists, and public figures such as Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, John Stuart Mill, Norman Thomas and Carey McWilliams. It includes material never before published showing Black support for Asian rights and demonstrates the consistency of the Industrial Worker of the World's solidarity with Chinese and Japanese-American workers. It is also the first work to give serious treatment to clergymen's efforts against anti-Asian discrimination. After the introduction, Foner discusses law and dissent. The next four sections are devoted to statements by public figures, the views of the clergy, the labor movement and African-Americans. The final section covers relocation and protest. The book provides a valuable contribution to the debates on American dissent in general and against racism in particular, the meaning of American nationality, the criminality of the evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the immigration policies of the United States government.
Greenwood Press 1993-04-30 311 pages

The Jews' secret fleet

Greenfield, Murray S.
This is the dramatic story of the rescue of Jews from Europe after World War II by North American Jewish volunteers who smashed through the British blockade and brought thousands of refugees to safe haven in Palestine through the illegal Aliyah Bet. Film director Alan Rosenthal was inspired by this book to create his documentary film Waves of Freedom, released in 2008. Packed with photos, and enhanced by the eminent historian Sir Martin Gilbert's introduction, this meticulously researched book is the definitive word on a little-known chapter of Jewish history. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Murray S. Greenfield was one of the volunteer sailors in the Aliyah Bet operations. He has served as executive director of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI) and as volunteer director of the American Association for Ethiopian Jewry (AAEJ). He lives in Israel with his wife Hana.
Gefen 2010 190 pages

West Indian workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940

Chomsky, Aviva
In the late nineteenth century, several U.S.-based companies, which merged into the United Fruit Company in 1899, began to build railroads and cultivate bananas in Costa Rica's Atlantic Coast province of Limon, recruiting mainly Jamaican workers. The society that developed in Limon was an English-speaking enclave of white North American managers and black West Indian workers, with a culture and history distinct from that of the rest of Costa Rica. This detailed and informative study of the banana industry on Costa Rica's Atlantic Coast, focusing on the lives of the industry's workers, explains why the United Fruit Company was never able to maintain the kind of social and economic control it sought over its workers and how the workers managed to create a vibrant alternative social and economic system around the plantation. West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870-1940 is among the first studies of the social history of multinational corporations and makes a significant contribution to current scholarship on plantation societies and labor systems, the history of medicine, the social and labor history of Central America, and Afro-Caribbean history.
Louisiana State University Press 1996 302 pages

The forest: a fable of America in the 1830s

Nemerov, Alexander
"Set amid the glimmering lakes and disappearing forests of the United States in the 1830s, The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s imagines how individuals at the time experienced their lives. Part truth, part fiction, this book follows painters, poets, enslaved individuals, farmers, and artisans through various settings. Some, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nat Turner, Thomas Cole, and Edgar Allan Poe, are well-known; others are not. All are creators of private and grand designs, and makers of the worlds they inhabited. The Forest unfolds in brief stories. Each is an episode revealing a lost world of intricate relations: human beings going their own ways or crossing paths, in a place that is known to history, or is remote and unknown. For Alex Nemerov, the forest is a description of American society, as he writes, "the dense and discontinuous woods of nation, the foliating thoughts of different people, each with their separate life to lead." Nemerov's art history is at its center an experiment in writing, in how to write differently about visual culture. The Forest examines the history of the United States on a human scale, displaying the patterns of life alongside examples of paintings, prints, photographs and objects"--
Princeton University Press 2023 277 pages

Conversations with Chaim Potok

Potok, Chaim
One of America's most popular Jewish writers, Chaim Potok (b. 1929) is the author of such novels as The Chosen (1967), The Promise (1969), The Book of Lights (1981), and Davita's Harp (1985). Each of his novels explores the tension between tradition and modernity, and the clash between Jewish culture and contemporary Western civilization, which he calls "core-to-core culture confrontation." Although primarily known as a novelist, Potok is an ordained Conservative rabbi and a world-class Judaic scholar who has also published children's books, theological discourses, biographies, and histories. Conversations with Chaim Potok presents interviews ranging from 1976 to 1999. Potok discusses the broad range of his writing and the deep influence of non-Jewish novels-in particular, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -on his work. Interviews bear witness to Potok's many other influences-Orthodox Jewish doctrine, Freudian psychoanalytical theory, Picasso's Guernica, and Jewish kabbalah mysticism. Though labeled an American Jewish writer, Potok argues that Flannery O'Connor should then be called an American Catholic writer and John Updike an American Protestant writer. "In his mind," editor Daniel Walden writes, "just as Faulkner was a writer focused on a particular place, Oxford, Mississippi, . . . so Potok's territory was a small section of New York City." Potok often explores conflict in his writings and in his interviews. Strict Jewish teachings deem fiction an artifice and therefore unnecessary, yet since the age of sixteen Potok has been driven to write novels. At the root of all of these conversations is Potok's intense interest in the turmoil between Jewish culture, religion, and tradition and what he calls "Western secular humanism." As he discusses his work, he continually includes broader issues, such as the state of Jewish literature and art, pointing out with pride and enthusiasm his belief that Jewish culture, in the twentieth century, has finally begun to have a significant role in producing and shaping the world's art and literature. Whether discussing the finer details of Talmudic textual analysis or his period of chaplaincy during the Korean War, Potok is articulate and philosophical, bringing deep consideration into what may seem small subjects. Although his novels and histories take place primarily in the recent past, the Chaim Potok that emerges from this collection is a writer deeply rooted in the tensions of the present. Daniel Walden is Professor Emeritus of American Studies, English and Comparative Literature at Penn State University. He has written or edited several books, including On Being Jewish (1974), Twentieth Century American Jewish Writers (1984), The World of Chaim Potok (1985), and American Jewish Poets: The Roots and the Stems (1990).
University Press of Mississippi 2001 181 pages

Native Ways California Indian Stories and Memories

Malcolm Margolin,Yolanda Montijo
This collection of stories and memories, suitable for adolescents, offers a perspective on both traditional and contemporary ways of California Indians. Some stories are from old reports and books, and some are from people of today. The introduction ties the wide variety of Indians that live in California to the variety of landscape and climate. Before the arrival of outsiders, over 100 languages were spoken in California. Subjects range from descriptive and informational topics, such as how marriages were arranged and how acorns were cooked, to larger concepts, such as the importance of family compared to the insignificance of the individual. The Indian belief that all things are alive in the same way that humans are alive explains why all things are viewed as sacred and why religion is very much a part of everyday life. Leaders were chosen because they were respected, and ruled by getting everyone to agree rather than by strength. Wars were small because winners had to give gifts for the people they had killed. A chapter on growing up Indian discusses family, nonformal learning, childhood games, reminiscences of childhood, toys, teaching-stories, learning to hunt, becoming a woman or man, and getting married. An index, a map of Native California, over 80 photographs, and a list of California Indian resources are included. (TD)
Heyday Books 1995 127 pages

Benjamin West and the struggle to be modern

Grossman, Loyd
Zum Zeitpunkt seines Todes im Jahr 1820 war Benjamin West der berühmteste Künstler der englischsprachigen Welt und wurde in ganz Europa gefeiert. Aus bescheidenen Verhältnissen in Pennsylvania stammend, hatte er als erster amerikanischer Künstler in Italien studiert und war innerhalb weniger Jahre nach seiner Ankunft in London maßgeblich an der Gründung der Royal Academy of Arts beteiligt und zum Historienmaler von König Georg III. ernannt worden. Wie der Autor in diesem Buch feststellt, gehörte West jedoch zur Avantgarde, die den Neoklassizismus und die Romantik schuf und zu den ersten Malern, die die inspirierenden Qualitäten zeitgenössischer Ereignisse darstellten. Vor allem sein bekanntestes Gemälde, Der Tod des General Wolfe, war ein revolutionäres Werk, das die Kunst nachhaltig veränderte. Es ist das erste Buch, das den Beitrag von West zu den Ideen der Moderne und der Erneuerung der Historienmalerei bewertet und es bietet spannende neue Einblicke in Wests berühmtestes Gemälde.
Merrell 2015 255 pages

Explorers in Eden Pueblo Indians and the Promised Land

Jerold S. Auerbach
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the pueblos of the Southwest frequently inspired Anglo-American visitors to express their sense of wonder and enchantment in biblical references. Frank Hamilton Cushing's first account of Zuni pueblo described a setting that looked like "The Pools of Palestine." Drawn to the Southwest, Mabel Dodge imagined "a garden of Eden, inhabited by an unfallen tribe of men and women." There she was attracted to Tony Luhan, a Taos Indian who looked "like a Biblical figure." When historian Jerold Auerbach first saw Edward S. Curtis's early twentieth-century photograph Taos Water Girls , he realized that "here, indeed, was the biblical Rebecca, relocated to New Mexico from ancient Haran, where Abraham's faithful servant had journeyed to find a suitable wife for Isaac. Rebecca with her water pitcher is as familiar a biblical icon as Noah and his ark or Moses with the stone tablets. Curtis had recast her as the archetypal Pueblo maiden." Explorers in Eden uncovers an intriguing array of diaries, letters, memoirs, photographs, paintings, postcards, advertisements, anthropological field studies, and scholarly monographs. They reveal how Anglo-Americans disenchanted with modern urban industrial society developed a deep and rich fascination with pueblo culture through their biblical associations.
UNM Press 2008-03-16 213 pages

A delightful compendium of consolation: a fabulous tale of romance, adventure, and faith in the medieval Mediterranean

Visotzky, Burton L.
The year is 1031. Karimah, a charming, headstrong Jewish nineteen-year-old has followed her heart on an adventure that will take her far from home. The story is revealed in her letters to the family she left behind in Egypt, their letters to her, and their correspondence with others as they seek to make sense of the disorder that Karimah has brought to their lives. Details of everday life from a millennium ago are now familiar to scholars through the discovery of the Cairo Geniza, a synagogue storeroom full of several centuries' worth of religious manuscripts, receipts, and business correspondence. The author creates an impassioned portrayal of a time when Jews and Muslims lived together in reasonable harmony.
BenYehuda Press 2007 327 pages