A comprehensive, highly readable referenceThis is an authoritative, one-stop resource for essential information on the exploration of North America, from alleged pre-Columbian explorers to polar expeditions in the twentieth century. Completely up-to-date in content and historical approach, the book is divided into seven sections, each covering a major area of exploration. Vivid, narrative entries bring to life early expeditions (e.g., African and Scandinavian voyages, real and apoc...

The first account of the remarkable eighteen-month journey of Lorena Hickok, intimate friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, throughout the country during the worst of the Great Depression, bearing witness to the unprecedented ravaged.During the harshest year of the Great Depression, Lorena Hickok, a top woman news reporter of the day and intimate friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, was hired by FDR’s right hand man Harry Hopkins to embark upon a grueling journey to the hardest hit...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARThe first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie booksMillions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls—the pioneer girl...

The Years of Lyndon Johnson is the political biography of our time. No president—no era of American politics—has been so intensively and sharply examined at a time when so many prime witnesses to hitherto untold or misinterpreted facets of a life, a career, and a period of history could still be persuaded to speak.The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and urge to power that...

From New York Times bestselling historian Douglas Brinkley comes a sweeping historical narrative and eye-opening look at the pioneering environmental policies of President Theodore Roosevelt, avid bird-watcher, naturalist, and the founding father of America’s conservation movement.In this groundbreaking epic biography, Douglas Brinkley draws on never-before-published materials to examine the life and achievements of our “naturalist president.” By setting a...

The epic story of how one man shaped events, people, and himself to forever change a country.President Theodore Roosevelt forever transformed America, ushering the country into the arena of world supremacy. His brand of leadership is entirely American: confident, compassionate, energetic, diverse, visionary.But Roosevelt was not a born leader; his ascent to the apex of power was not a foregone conclusion. He made himself a leader of consequence and it is his epic journey to...

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist "plunges into the battles and escapades of the entrepreneurs . . . who created the national rail system . . . engrossing" ( The New York Times).In 1869, when the final spike was driven into the transcontinental railroad, few were prepared for its seismic aftershocks. Once a hodgepodge of short, squabbling lines, America's railways soon exploded into a titanic industry helmed by a pageant of speculators, crooks, and vision...

As breathtaking today as the day it was completed, Hoover Dam not only shaped the American West but helped launch the American century. In the depths of the Great Depression it became a symbol of American resilience and ingenuity in the face of crisis, putting thousands of men to work in a remote desert canyon and bringing unruly nature to heel.Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Michael Hiltzik uses the saga of the dam’s conception, design, and construction to tell the broader story of ...

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War: a "first-rate" narrative history (The New York Times)that brilliantly portrays the emergence, in a remarkably short time, of a recognizably modern America.American Colossus captures the decades between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, when a few breathtakingly wealthy businessmen transformed the United States from an ag...

"Vivid, Comprehensible . . . cuts through decades of mythmaking." —Texas MonthlyPopular culture transformed his memory into “Davy Crockett,” and Hollywood gave him a raccoon hat he hardly ever wore. In this surprising New York Times bestseller, historian Michael Wallis has cast a fresh look at the flesh-and-blood man behind one of the most celebrated figures in American history. More than a riveting story, Wallis’s David Crockett is a rev...

This is the story of a political miracle -- the perfect match of man and moment. Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in March of 1933 as America touched bottom. Banks were closing everywhere. Millions of people lost everything. The Great Depression had caused a national breakdown. With the craft of a master storyteller, Jonathan Alter brings us closer than ever before to the Roosevelt magic. Facing the gravest crisis since the Civil War, FDR used his cagey political inst...