History / History by country / United States / Historical period

The Warrior's Silence

by John Elliott

Ord Elliott was a Marine Rifle Platoon Commander in Vietnam in 1967. Although the Vietnam War has been over for many years, a sense of something lost lingers within Ord

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

by S. C. Gwynne

In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah,...

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

by Charles C. Mann

From the author of 1491—the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas—a deeply engaging new history of the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs.

More than 200 million years...

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

by Walter Isaacson

Benjamin Franklin is the Founding Father who winks at us. An ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of flesh rather than...

1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

by Charles C. Mann

In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.

Contrary to what so many Americans...

Common Sense

by Thomas Paine

When Thomas Paine first anonymously published his series of pamphlets titles Common Sense they became an overnight success. First released in 1776 at the height of the American Revolution the treatise denounced...

Jim Bridger - Mountain Man

by Stanley Vestal

JIM BRIDGER- MOUNTAIN MAN: A BIOGRAPHY by STANLEY VESTAL. Contents include: PREFACE ix PART 1 TRAPPER I ENTERPRISING YOUNG MAN 1 II. SET POLES FOR THE MOUNTAINS 8 HI. HIVERNAN 21 IV. THE MISSOURI LEGION 28 V....

Jarhead: A Solder's Story of Modern War

by Anthony Swofford

Anthony Swofford's Jarhead is the first Gulf War memoir by a frontline infantry marine, and it is a searing, unforgettable narrative.

When the marines -- or "jarheads," as they call themselves -- were sent...

Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster

by Melissa Fay Greene

The deepest coal mine in North America was notoriously unpredictable. One late October evening in 1958, it "bumped" - its rock floors heaving up and smashing into rock ceilings. A few miners staggered out, most...

Common Sense

by Thomas Paine & Diana Gabaldon

Includes the complete texts of Common Sense; Rights of Man, Part the Second; The Age of Reason (part one); Four Letters on Interesting Subjects, published anonymously and just discovered to be Paine’s work;...

The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville

by Shelby Foote

This first volume of Shelby Foote’s classic narrative of the Civil War opens with Jefferson Davis’s farewell to the United States Senate and ends on the bloody battlefields of Antietam and Perryville, as...

The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush

by Howard Blum

It is the last decade of the 19th century. The Wild West has been tamed and its fierce, independent and often violent larger-than-life figures – gun-toting wanderers, trappers, prospectors, Indian fighters,...

Blue, Gray and Red: Two Nurse's Views of the Civil War

by Louisa May Alcott & Kate Cumming

Two Nurses - Two Experiences - One Civil War Blue, Gray and Red presents the hard reality of the Civil War. There are no stirring bugle calls, only the calls of the wounded. There are no battlefield heroics,...

Phantom in the River

by Foster Gary Wayne

On May 14, 1967, a US Navy F-4B Phantom II jet, flown by Ev Southwick and Jack Rollins, launched from the USS Kitty Hawk. Their F-4 was rendered disabled while flying a mission against the formidable air defenses...

Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America

by William C. Davis

William C. Davis, one of America's best Civil War historians, here offers a definitive portrait of the Confederacy unlike any that has come before. Drawing on decades of writing and research among an unprecedented...

The Village

by Bing West

In Black Hawk Down, the fight went on for a day. In We Were Soldiers Once & Young, the fighting lasted three days. In The Village, one Marine squad fought for 495 days -- half of them died.

Few American battles...

Clapton's Guitar

by Allen St. John

In 1994, Eric Clapton came across a Wayne Henderson guitar in a recording studio and decided on the spot that he had to have one. Rarer than Stradivarius violins, these musical works of art are built from near-extinct...

Gettysburg: Two Eyewitness Accounts

by Frank Haskell & William C. Oates

In this unique series the Civil War comes vividly to life.  Here an eyewitness accounts--many available for the first time in decades--by generals, journalist, and ordinary foot soldiers, both blue and gray,...

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

by James M. Mcpherson

A broad history of the U.S. after the Mexican War and through the American Civil War. This digital edition was derived from ACLS Humanities E-Book's (http://www.humanitiesebook.org) online version of the same...

Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862

by Joseph L Harsh

Complementing Confederate Tide Rising, which covers the origins of the Maryland Campaign, Taken at the Flood is a detailed account of the military campaign itself. It focuses on military policy and strategy...