United States

As relevant as ever to the task of understanding Donald Trump, The Trump Tapes reveal Trump in his own words – a man consumed by the past and clinging to his grievances, unable to understand his responsibilities as president or address the crises affecting the country....

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making - from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy....

In the 1920s the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles....

The first comprehensive oral history of 9/11, deftly woven and told in the voices of ordinary people grappling with extraordinary events....

In 1528, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong. Of the 300 men who had embarked on the journey, only four survived....

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science....

In 1999, when Tom O’Neill was assigned a magazine piece about the 30th anniversary of the Manson murders, he worried there was nothing new to say.... 

Discover the game-changing theory of the cycles of history and what past generations can teach us about living through times of upheaval—with deep insights into the roles that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have to play....

This is a 9/11 book like no other. Masterfully weaving together multiple strands of the events in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Fall and Rise is a mesmerising, minute-by-minute account of that terrible day....

In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement....

Twelve Years a Slave is the true story of Solomon Northup: born a free black man in New York State, and sold into slavery after being tricked in 1841....

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet....

From bestselling author Garrett M. Graff comes the first definitive narrative history of Watergate—exploring the full scope of the scandal through the politicians, investigators, journalists, and informants who made it the most influential political event of the modern era.

This is a sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas that culminated in the assault on America....

New York Times best-selling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times best-selling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty - his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts....

As Germany and then Japan surrendered in 1945, there was a tremendous hope that a new and much better world could be created from the moral and physical ruins of the conflict....

The number one New York Times bestselling authors of Vanderbilt return with another riveting history of a legendary American family, the Astors, and how they built and lavished their fortune....

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....

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa....

Russians Among Us describes for the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it reveals new information about today's spies as well as those trying to catch them and those trying to kill them....

A humorous and rousing set of literal and figurative sojourns as well as a mission statement about comprehending, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, fueled by three journeys undertaken by actor, humorist, and New York Times best-selling author Nick Offerman....

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Command and Control, a ground-breaking account of the management of nuclear weapons from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation....

By the time Henry Kissinger was made secretary of state in 1973, he had become the most admired person in America and one of the most unlikely celebrities ever to capture the world’s imagination....

The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career - 1958 to 1964....

The thrilling story of Edward Rulloff—a serial murderer who was called 'too intelligent to be killed'—and the array of 19th-century investigators who were convinced his brain held the key to finally understanding the criminal mind....

Populism has become a global movement associated with nationalism and strong-man politicians, but its root causes remain elusive. Mud, Blood, and Ghosts exposes one deep root in the soil of the American Great Plains. Julie Carr traces her own family’s history through archival documents to draw connections between US agrarian populism, spiritualism, and eugenics, helping listeners to understand populism’s tendency toward racism and exclusion.

Martha Washington was the original First Lady of the United States and, of course, the wife of General and President George Washington. Yet as much as history has kept her lingering in the shadows of her husband, she has her own unique story to tell. This biography delves into her early life in colonial Virginia, her first marriage to Daniel Parke Custis, and the untimely death that left her a young widow managing a vast estate. The narrative then charts her storied courtship and subsequent marriage to George Washington, the man who would become the father of a burgeoning nation.

On February 2, 1963, a tanker with 39 men aboard departed Beaumont and never returned. In the mid-spring of 1882, Billy the Kid's friend, foe, and equal escaped Huntsville Penitentiary and vanished. On December 9, 1961, a young boy in Wichita Falls disappeared without a trace. On November 18, 1936, a father and son were swallowed by a Walled Kingdom. On December 23, 1974, three girls went to a Fort Worth mall and were never seen or heard from again. This collection explores 20 baffling disappearances that investigators have studied for decades, to no avail.

An acclaimed nonfiction international political thriller exposing the real reason for Watergate, the hidden death of Howard Hughes, and the illicit activities of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with the CIA’s worldwide pursuit of John Meier trying to expose it all, including revealing information on the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and critical comments by New York Times best-selling author Jim Hougan.

LaTonya Summers was only six years old the first time she unconsciously tried to be "more white". Recollecting experiences from her childhood in foster care through to her life today as an Assistant Professor and mother, LaTonya examines how her perception of self was affected by internalized racism and led her to adopt white norms - influencing everything from her music and clothing choices to her speech and values. Join LaTonya in her journey of realization.

Dive into a captivating journey through American history with A Short Story of America: A Glimpse through the Pages of Time. This concise yet comprehensive guide provides a curated exploration of the pivotal moments and influential figures that have shaped the United States. From colonial settlements to modern challenges, this book captures the essence of the American spirit and its evolution through time.

Molly’s story is a memoir. It is an account of a first-generation immigrant who came from Eastern Europe through Paris to America. We see the world, lovingly and playfully through the eyes of an innocent child, and then more reflective as an older adult. Her story is intermingled with those of her aunts and uncles who remained in Paris, and witnessed the horrors of Nazi occupation during World War II.

From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.

America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history.

Since its founding as a discipline, Black Studies has been under relentless attack by social and political forces seeking to discredit and neutralize it. Our History Has Always Been Contraband was born out of an urgent need to respond to the latest threat: efforts to remove content from an AP African American Studies course being piloted in high schools across the United States. 

Black vernacular doesn’t often get its due—despite its enormous influence on mainstream culture—but Historically Black Phrases is here to give Black language its flowers. A celebration of more than two hundred staples of Black conversation—from church sayings and units of measure to compliments and reprimands—this sharp and witty guide explores the unique importance of Black expression and communication.

Many Americans, argues Michael C. C. Adams, tend to think of the Civil War as more glorious, less awful, than the reality. In Living Hell, Adams tries a different tack, clustering the voices of myriad actual participants on the firing line or in the hospital ward to create a virtual historical reenactment. Neither film nor reenactment can fully capture the hard truth of the four-year conflict. Living Hell presents a stark portrait of the human costs of the Civil War and gives listeners a more accurate appreciation of its lasting consequences.

The sons of liberty are celebrated in the rebellious history of Boston—but what of their sisters? An audacious and determined procession of reformers, socialites, criminals, and madams made the city what it is today. One hundred years before Rosa Parks, African American abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond refused to give up her seat while attending a play in Boston. Fiery activists Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall led a boycott against bird plumage in ladies' dress and brought the fashion industry to its knees.

The greatest of all Civil War campaigns, Gettysburg was the turning point of the turning point in our nation’s history. Volumes have been written about this momentous three-day battle, but recent histories have tended to focus on the particulars rather than the big picture: on the generals or on single days of battle—even on single charges—or on the daily lives of the soldiers. In Gettysburg Sears tells the whole story in a single volume.

Told through the lenses of specific people who both influenced the process and were impacted by the results, The Electoral College looks at how the Electoral College has changed US history and why it endures.