From the acclaimed author of A Wilderness So Immense comes a pioneering study of Thomas Jefferson's relationships with women, both personal and political.The author of the Declaration of Independence, who wrote the words “all men are created equal,” was surprisingly uncomfortable with woman. In eight chapters, Kukla examines the evidence for the founding father's youthful misogyny, beginning with his awkward courtship of Rebecca Burwell, who declined Jefferson's marriage p...

In A Wilderness so Immense*,* historian Jon Kukla recounts the fascinating tale of the personal maneuverings, political posturing, and international intrigue that culminated in the greatest land deal in history. Spanning nearly two decades, Kukla’s book brings to life a pageant of characters from Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Jay, to Napoleon and Carlos III of Spain and other colorful figures.Employing letters, memoirs, contemporary documents, and a host...

“A brilliant orator, a firebrand for freedom and individual rights, Henry stands as an American luminary, and Kukla’s magisterial biography shines the glow of achievement on subject and author alike” (Richmond Times Dispatch). Patrick Henry restores its subject, long underappreciated in history as a founding father, to his seminal place in the story of American independence.Patrick Henry is best known for his fiery declaration, “Give me liberty, o...

Virginia Women is the first of two volumes exploring the history of Virginia women through the lives of exemplary and remarkable individuals. This collection of seventeen essays, written by established and emerging scholars, recovers the stories and voices of a diverse group of women, from the seventeenth century through the Civil War era. Placing their subjects in their larger historical contexts, the authors show how the experiences of Virginia women varied by race, class, age, ...

Born in 1736, Patrick Henry was an attorney and planter, and an outstanding orator in the movement for independence. A contemporary of Washington, Henry stood with John and Samuel Adams among the leaders of the colonial resistance to Great Britain that ultimately created the United States. The first governor of Virginia after independence, he was re-elected several times. After declining to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Henry opposed the Constitution, arguing that it grante...

Born in 1736, Patrick Henry was an attorney and planter, and an outstanding orator in the movement for independence. A contemporary of Washington, Henry stood with John and Samuel Adams among the leaders of the colonial resistance to Great Britain that ultimately created the United States. The first governor of Virginia after independence, he was re-elected several times. After declining to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Henry opposed the Constitution, arguing that it grante...

This riveting audiobook narrated by Phyllida Nash traces the history of the city that led the West out of the ruins of the Roman EmpireAt the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. For three centuries, the cit...

Charles Leerhsen brings the notorious Butch Cassidy to vivid life in this “lyrical and deeply researched” (Publishers Weekly) biography that goes beyond the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to reveal a more fascinating and complicated man than legend provides.For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cass...

In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I and the failed November Revolution of 1918–19, the conservative government of Bavaria identified Jews with left-wing radicalism. Munich became a hotbed of right-wing extremism, with synagogues under attack and Jews physically assaulted in the streets. It was here that Adolf Hitler established the Nazi movement and developed his anti-Semitic ideas. Michael Brenner provides a gripping account of how Bavaria's capital city became the testing...

A “f****ascinating slice of rarely considered American history” (Booklist)—the story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison—whose annual summer sojourns introduced the road trip to our culture and made the automobile an essential part of modern life.In 1914 Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year Ford, Edison, and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip an...

Marking the 200th anniversary of his death, Napoleon is an unprecedented portrait of the emperor told through his engagement with the natural world.“How should one envisage this subject? With a great pomp of words, or with simplicity?” —Charlotte Brontë, “The Death of Napoleon”The most celebrated general in history, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) has for centuries attracted eminent male writers. Since Thomas Carlyle first christened him “our last Great Man,...

The Mexican War introduced vast new territories into the United States, among them California and the present-day Southwest. When gold was discovered in California in the great Gold Rush of 1849, the population swelled, and settlers petitioned for admission to the Union. But the U.S. Senate was precariously balanced with fifteen free states and fifteen slave states. Up to this point, states had been admitted in pairs, one free and one slave, to preserve that tenuous balance in the Senate. ...