A ';powerful' (The Wall Street Journal) biography of one of the 19th century's greatest statesmen, encompassing his decades-long fight against slavery and his postwar struggle to bring racial justice to America.
The relationship between Abraham Lincoln and his two most influential ancestors--his mother and "e;the Virginia planter,"e; a slaveholder, a shadowy grandfather he likely never met--is rarely mentioned in Lincoln biographies or in history texts.
Throughout the history of the United States, only nine men were elevated to the White House by the death or failure of a sitting president, and their legacies are as mixed as their circumstances.
From the dime novels of the Civil War era to the pulp magazines of the early 20th century to modern paperbacks, lurid fiction has provided thrilling escapism for the masses.
With the American revolutionaries in discord following victory at Yorktown and the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783, the proposed federal Constitution of 1787 faced an uncertain future when it was sent to the states for ratification.
Writers often depict Thomas Jefferson as a narrow-minded defender of states' rights and Virginia's interests, despite his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and vigorous defense of the young republic's sovereignty.
Few families have influenced America like the Roosevelts--two presidents from different parties, including our longest-serving chief executive, and the "e;First Lady of the World.
A positive legacy of the troubled Nixon administration--and one virtually unknown to the American public--is the extensive acquisition of valuable art and antiques for the White House and the redecoration of the executive mansion by Pat Nixon.
Written with the cooperation of President Jimmy Carter and his family, this book provides an intimate glimpse inside the life of the woman who--as nurse, mother and social justice activist in segregated southwest Georgia--made a lifelong habit of breaking the rules defining a woman's place in and out of the home and the status of blacks in society.
This first comprehensive study of the medical histories of America's first ladies--from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama--discusses their illnesses, their treatments and their physicians in the context of their times.
The most enigmatic of the associates of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, Confederate soldier Lewis Thornton Powell, using the alias Lewis Paine, was a key player in the postwar attempt to undermine the Federal government.
From the time he left office in 1853, President Millard Fillmore has become increasingly shrouded in mystery and stereotyped by anecdotes with slender connections to facts.
Not every presidential visit to the theatre is as famous as Lincoln's last night at Ford's, but American presidents attended the theatre long before and long after that ill-fated night.
Since the Constitution delegates presidential powers in general rather than specific terms, the domestic influence of the president has varied over time according to the nature of the person holding the office.
This book is the definitive record of election results in the gubernatorial races from 1912 to 1931 for every candidate who received at least 1 percent of the total vote.
Tall, handsome and charismatic, James Jaquess impressed men and charmed ladies who knew him as a preacher, a college president or colonel of an Illinois regiment.
A haunting personal story of Berlin at the end of the Third Reich-and an unflinching investigation into a family's Nazi pastWhen Gabrielle Robinson found her grandfather's Berlin diaries, hidden behind books in her mother's Vienna apartment, she made a shocking discovery her beloved Api had been a Nazi.
'Shimon Peres was a giant of Israel's founding generation, a tireless advocate for peace, and an eternal optimist who lived his life with a sense of hope and possibility.
Literature is at the heart of popular understandings of the First World War in Britain, and has perpetuated a popular memory of the conflict centred on disillusionment, horror and futility.
Literature is at the heart of popular understandings of the First World War in Britain, and has perpetuated a popular memory of the conflict centred on disillusionment, horror and futility.
