Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South BY KERI LEIGH MERRITT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 372 PAGES, $24.55 – Keri Leigh Merritt’s work, Masterless Men, is a fascinating and long overdue examination of the difficult relationship between Southern… Continue Reading
The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire BY STEPHEN KINZER ST. MARTIN’S GRIFFIN, 336 PAGES, $9.89 – By the end of the 19th century, America’s borders had spread across the continent from shore to shore.… Continue Reading
American Empire: A Global History BY A.G. HOPKINS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 960 PAGES, $21.49 – The Cold War is popularly portrayed as a tense but relatively non-violent stand off between Soviet style Communism and Western Democracy. However, for most of… Continue Reading
This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy BY MATTHEW KARP HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 368 PAGES, $26.95 – The Antebellum South has traditionally been portrayed as regressive and sectional, defensively focused on preserving slavery in the… Continue Reading
Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth BY HOLGER HOOCK BROADWAY BOOKS, 576 PAGES, $13.89 – It was a deceptively lovely Autumn day in the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, but the residents desperately trying to evacuate had little time to appreciate… Continue Reading
Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth BY HOLGER HOOCK BROADWAY BOOKS, 576 PAGES, $13.89 – While the American Revolution was not necessarily a religious war, adherents to particular religious denominations often fell more predominantly on one side of the conflict… Continue Reading
A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico BY AMY S. GREENBERG VINTAGE, 370 PAGES, $8.88 – Few of America’s foreign wars have been as controversial in their own time as the U.S.-Mexican War. The… Continue Reading
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War BY JEFFREY ROGERS HUMMEL OPEN COURT, 448 PAGES, $29.95 – States’ rights and secession haven’t always been synonymous with the South. In fact, in the lead up to the… Continue Reading
Historical tales are told through the eyes of the narrators. While ethnocentric history is often just human nature, it is a problem if we only see our own people as the shapers of history: as if we have been the… Continue Reading
The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln-Teddy Roosevelt-Wilson How the Income Tax Transformed America BY STEVEN R. WEISMAN SIMON & SCHUSTER, 432 PAGES, $25.99 – Wars naturally consolidate and centralize government, leading to a greater flow of wealth to those in power.… Continue Reading