The American realizes that 'Progress is God.' The destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent -- to rush over this vast field to the Pacific Ocean… to change darkness into light and confirm the destiny of the human race… Divine task! Immortal mission! The pioneer army perpetually strikes to the front. Empire plants itself upon the trails. William GilpinBy 1821, no one knew who would control the West’s seemingly infinite spaces,...

In 1915, Bronislaw Malinowski set out to document the 'exotic' practices of a small group of islanders off the coast of Papua New Guinea. With extensive data on sex, magic and spirits of the dead, his work set the stage for anthropologists for decades to come and brought him fame as one of the founding fathers of anthropology. Four generations and almost one hundred years later, his great grandson travels to the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea...

A chorus of extraordinary voices tells one of history's great epics: The four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619-- a year before the Mayflower dropped anchor off Cape Cod, when the White Lion disgorged "some 20 and odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia-- to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary...

The first comprehensive history of the Lakota Indians and their profound role in shaping America's history. This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early sixteenth to the early twenty-first century. Pekka Hamalainen explores the Lakotas' roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and reveals how they reinvented themselves twice: first as a river people who dominated the Missouri Valley, America's...

"American schoolchildren have long been taught that their country was 'discovered' by Christopher Columbus in 1492. But the history of Native Americans in the United States goes back tens of tens of thousands of years prior to Columbus's and other colonizers' arrivals. So, what's the true history?"--

"From the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists-Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans-who came together to create the most famous and bestselling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue. The myth of the 60s depends on the 1950s being the before times of conformity, segregation, straightness-The Lonely Crowd...

"For many Americans, imagining a bright future has always been an act of resistance. A People's Future of the United States presents twenty never-before-published stories by a diverse group of writers, featuring voices both new and well-established. These stories imagine their characters fighting everything from government surveillance, to corporate cities, to climate change disasters, to nuclear wars. But fear not: A People's Future also invites...

"Much has been written about the widening gulf between rich and poor in the United States, the pernicious effects our deepening income inequality has on the nation's well-being, and how our style of capitalism has failed to provide a living wage for so many Americans. But nothing has fully detailed the crucial role a small cohort of elite financiers has played in this dispiriting outcome over the past three decades. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist...

"This comprehensive guide charts an incredible historical journey through the centuries, from the Indigenous peoples, to the founding of a new country and the war that divided it, to America's extraordinary impact on the world today. With the complete texts of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address, as well as state-by-state information, this groundbreaking reference book shows how the country's present and future...

Occupying Massachusetts: Layers of History on Indigenous Land is an art book that engages with history. Featuring photographs of dwellings and vernacular structures found in rural Massachusetts, the book is a meditation on the human occupation of land, with an emphasis on the long presence of Indigenous people and the waves of settlement by people from other countries that began during the early 1600s and continues today.0Utilizing a muted color palette,...