Books on U.S. History

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The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is a work of narrative nonfiction written by Daniel James Brown and published in 2013. Brown is known for his nonfiction works, including The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride (2009) and Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II (2021). The Boys in the Boat... Read The Boys in the Boat Summary

Julie Otsuka is a Japanese American writer who was born in 1962 in Palo Alto, California. Both The Buddha in the Attic (2011) and her 2002 novel, When the Emperor was Divine, portray the Japanese American experience of internment camps following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The subject is close to Otsuka’s heart; the FBI arrested her grandfather on suspicion of being an enemy spy, while her mother, uncle, and grandmother were... Read The Buddha in the Attic Summary

The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin is an account of a devastating natural disaster that took place in 1888. Affecting multiple Midwestern states, the blizzard claimed the lives of many people, including children. The loss of lives to the blizzard laid bare the vulnerabilities of isolated immigrant communities in the Great Plains and marked a watershed moment in American history regarding disaster prediction and mitigation. The author, David Laskin, is a well-known historian who has... Read The Children's Blizzard Summary

“The Chrysanthemums” is a short story by American author John Steinbeck, originally published in 1937 in Harper’s Magazine. It was later added to Steinbeck’s collection of short stories titled The Long Valley, which was published in 1938, and it was adapted into a short film by Steve Rossen in 1990.The story opens with a description of a grey winter day in the Salinas Valley of California, where many of Steinbeck’s writings are set. After describing... Read The Chrysanthemums Summary

The Cider House Rules is the sixth novel by the American Canadian author John Irving. It was published in 1985 by William Morrow and Company. The novel was made into a movie directed by Lasse Hallstrom in 1999. Other works by this author include Avenue of Mysteries, A Son of the Circus, and Until I Find You.This guide uses the 2012 William Morrow Kindle Edition of The Cider House Rules.Plot SummaryThe Cider House Rules is... Read The Cider House Rules Summary

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Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (2017) is a historical study of how the US government and legal system implemented and enforced de jure segregation. This guide cites the 2017 Kindle edition, and all pagination refers to location numbers.Rothstein challenges the belief that segregation was de facto, or the result of individual choices. Rather, he shows how all levels of government created the system of residential... Read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America Summary

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Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s book The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America is a nonfiction history published in 2010. Muhammad, an American historian specializing on race and public policy, studies the connections between Blackness, crime, and the makings of America’s urban North after the Civil War. The book has garnered significant accolade, winning awards such as the 2011 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize and landing on the Vera Institute of... Read The Condemnation of Blackness Summary

The Confessions of Nat Turner, by William Styron, is a work of historical fiction that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967. The first-person account of the 1831 Virginia slave revolt begins and ends in the prison where Nat Turner, an African American slave, was held before, during, and following his trial. Turner awaits execution as the leader of the two-day slave rebellion that started in Southampton County and ended with the death of approximately 55... Read The Confessions of Nat Turner Summary

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The Corrections is a 2001 novel by Jonathan Franzen that won the National Book Award. Franzen is the author of several essay collections and novels, including the novels Freedom, Purity, and Crossroads. He has received many awards for his work, including the Whiting Award in 1988 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996.The main action of the novel takes place during the turn of the 21st century, a time of great financial prosperity in the United... Read The Corrections Summary

The Courage of Sarah Noble, written by Alice Dalgliesh and published in 1954, follows the experience of young Sarah as she accompanies her father to Connecticut. It is based on a true story that took place in 1707, though Dalgliesh admits in the “Author’s Note” that she has “had to imagine many of the details” of Sarah’s story; thus, this is a work of historical fiction and not a biography or nonfiction text.Dalgliesh was a... Read The Courage of Sarah Noble Summary

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The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) is a short novel by Thomas Pynchon that handles topics related to the US counterculture movement and the 1960s at large. In the novel, Oedipa Maas unearths a centuries-old conspiracy about warring mail-delivery firms. This discovery leads her along an absurdist investigation of the firms and their motivations. The novel has been heralded as one of the best English-language novels of the 20th century and is considered a primary... Read The Crying of Lot 49 Summary

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The Declaration of Independence is one of the founding documents of the United States of America. The text was written primarily by Thomas Jefferson in June of 1776 after the Second Continental Congress appointed him the chair of the Committee of Five (the others were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman), a group designated to draft a statement declaring the American colonies independent from Great Britain. Jefferson based his draft on existing... Read The Declaration of Independence Summary

... Read The Demon of Unrest Summary