Books on U.S. History

... Read The Price for Their Pound of Flesh Summary

The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (1958) is a work of history by Edmund S. Morgan. The Puritan Dilemma is a biographical study of the first governor of colonial Massachusetts, John Winthrop. Morgan examines Winthrop’s work and life, presenting him as a man of high ideals who understood how to lead as a model of moderation and practical flexibility. Though many Puritans chose to withdraw from the world into little cells of self-righteousness... Read The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop Summary

The Radical and the Republican is a nonfiction book written by James Oakes and published in 2007. While many nonfiction works are centered around a central thesis, hypothesis, or argument, The Radical and the Republican does not follow this pattern; instead, Oakes’s approach is one of compare-and-contrast. He sets up Abraham Lincoln (the Republican) and Frederick Douglass (the Radical) as foils, which allows him to move back and forth from the two historical figures as... Read The Radical and the Republican Summary

The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991) is a non-fiction book written by American historian and Brown University professor Gordon S. Wood. Most revolutions are an act of violence that result in deaths, property destruction, and a world turned upside down. Americans do not see the American Revolution this way. The American founding fathers were educated men who wrote pamphlets and spoke openly in legislative halls. As the story goes, they were gentlemen, not radicals... Read The Radicalism of the American Revolution Summary

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The Red Badge of Courage was written in 1895 by Stephen Crane, a novelist, poet, and journalist well known for his naturalist style and for incorporating the inner lives of common and marginalized people. The novel won wide acclaim for Crane, though his life after the book’s publication was distinguished by scandal and money troubles. Its themes reframe the concept of military duty as a rite of passage, detailing a highly individual and self-searching act... Read The Red Badge of Courage Summary

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Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791) is one of the 18th-century’s most influential political treatises. It offers a spirited defense of the ongoing French Revolution and calls for dramatic reforms in Britain. Paine wrote Rights of Man as a direct response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a conservative critique that professes skepticism and even horror at the course of events in France since the Revolution began in 1789. Rights of... Read The Rights of Man Summary

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The Right Stuff is a lively account of the early American space program and its roots in the subculture of military test pilots that developed after World War II. Wolfe’s eclectic, wide-ranging narrative combines numerous elements: technological advancements in mid-20th-century flight; the generation of daring pilots who pushed innovations to their limits; and reflections on the moral, cultural, and political significance of the first astronauts at the height of the Cold War. Taken together, these... Read The Right Stuff Summary

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey (2005) is a work of nonfiction by Candice Millard, a former writer and editor for National Geographic. The book describes Roosevelt’s 1914 expedition down an unexplored river in the Amazon rainforest, which nearly cost him his life. Despite poor preparation for the trip, Roosevelt and the group managed to overcome the Amazon’s physical and psychological challenges and placed a 1,000-mile river on the map in a historic... Read The River of Doubt Summary

The Room Where It Happened is a nonfiction memoir published in 2020 by American diplomat John Bolton. A New York Times best-seller, the book chronicles Bolton’s 17-month tenure as national security advisor under President Donald Trump. Between April 2018 and September 2019, Bolton was party to some of the most important events in Trump’s presidency, including two summits with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the US’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, and the 2019... Read The Room Where It Happened Summary

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The Secret History of Wonder Woman is a nonfiction book by Jill Lepore, published in 2014. It falls into the categories of history, comics, women’s studies, and biography, and won the American History Book Prize from the New York Historical Society. Lepore is a professor of American history at Harvard University and a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine. This guide was written from the hardcover first edition.SummaryThe first section, called “Veritas,” includes nine... Read The Secret History of Wonder Woman Summary

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“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway that was first published in Cosmopolitan in 1936. It explores themes of power and dominance, courage and cowardice, and the nature of masculinity. The story details a hunting party and love triangle in which a husband, a wife, and their hired huntsman struggle for dominance and power over one another. This guide references the collection The Snows of Kilimanjaro... Read The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber Summary