In the harsh winter of 1779, as the leader of a flotilla of settlers, John Donelson loaded his family and thirty slaves into a forty-foot flatboat at the present site of Kingsport, Tennessee. Their journey into the wilderness led to the founding of a settlement now known as Nashville—over one thousand river miles away. In the fall of 2016, photographer John Guider retraced the Donelson party’s journey in his hand-built 14½' motorless rowing sailboat while making a visual documentation of t...

Sensing Sacred is an edited volume that explores the critical intersection of “religion” and “body” through the religious lens of practical theology, with an emphasis on sensation as the embodied means in which human beings know themselves, others, and the divine in the world. The manuscript argues that all human interaction and practice, including religious praxis, engages “body” through at least one of the human senses (touch, smell, hearing, taste, sight, kinestics/proprioception). Unfo...

“Simon Winchester never disappoints, and The Men Who United the States is a lively and surprising account of how this sprawling piece of geography became a nation. This is America from the ground up. Inspiring and engaging.” —Tom BrokawSimon Winchester, acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and ...

"[A] wonderfully entertaining account of an often-overlooked oddity of America's history: how the jigsaw-puzzle layout of the United States emerged." —VogueThe New York Times BestsellerWhy does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!...

The surprising story of how Thomas Jefferson commanded an unrivaled age of American exploration—and in presiding over that era of discovery, forged a great nation.At the dawn of the nineteenth century, as Britain, France, Spain, and the United States all jockeyed for control of the vast expanses west of the Mississippi River, the stakes for American expansion were incalculably high. Even after the American purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Spain still coveted th...

**Instant BestsellerWinner of the 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Nonfiction • A Chicago Public Library Must-Read Book of 2024 • A Booklist Editors' ChoiceA sweeping history of the Mississippi River—and the centuries of human meddling that have transformed both it and America.**The Mississippi River lies at the heart of America, an undeniable life force that is intertwined with the nation’s culture and history. Its watershed spans almost half the coun...

From Jay Feldmen comes an enlightening work about how the most powerful earthquakes in the history of America united the Indians in one last desperate rebellion, reversed the Mississippi River, revealed a seamy murder in the Jefferson family, and altered the course of the War of 1812.On December 15, 1811, two of Thomas Jefferson’s nephews murdered a slave in cold blood and put his body parts into a roaring fire. The evidence would have been destroyed but for a rare...

A fascinating account of how the Mississippi River shaped AmericaIn Old Man River, Paul Schneider tells the story of the river at the center of America's rich history—the Mississippi. Some fifteen thousand years ago, the majestic river provided Paleolithic humans with the routes by which early man began to explore the continent's interior. Since then, the river has been the site of historical significance, from the arrival of Spanish and French explorers in...

Recommended by the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy as an exemplary informational text. Early nineteenth century America could just about be summed up by Henry David Thoreau's words when he said, "Eastward I go only by force, but westward I go free." It was an exuberant time for the diverse citizens of the United States, who included a range of folk, from mountain men and railroad builders to whalers and farmers, as they pushed forward in...

After the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad was the nineteenth century's most transformative event. Beginning in 1842 with a visionary's dream to span the continent with twin bands of iron, Empire Express captures three dramatic decades in which the United States effectively doubled in size, fought three wars, and began to discover a new national identity. From self--made entrepreneurs such as the Union Pacific's Thomas Durant and er...

Recommended by the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy as an exemplary informational text. Beginning with George Washington's inauguration and continuing into the nineteenth century, The New Nation tells the story of the remarkable challenges that the freshly formed United States faced. Thomas Jefferson's purchase of the Louisiana Territories (bought from France at a mere four cents an acre!), Lewis and Clark's daring expedition through this ...

Recommended by the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy as an exemplary informational text. Covering a time of great hope and incredible change, Reconstruction and Reform is a dramatic look at life after the Civil War in the newly re United States. Railroad tycoons were roaring across the country. New cities sprang up across the plains, and a new and different American West came into being: a land of farmers, ranchers, miners, and city dweller...