History helps us understand change, provides clues to our own identity, and hones our moral sense. But history is not a stand-alone discipline. Indeed, its own history is incomplete without recognition of its debt to its companions in the humane and social sciences. In Clio among the Muses, noted historiographer Peter Charles Hoffer relates the story of this remarkable collaboration. Hoffer traces history's complicated partnership with its coordinate disciplines of religion, philosophy, th...

The distinguished historian "does a remarkable job" with this lively and comprehensive textbook—now in a new, expanded edition (Daniel P. Kotzin, Teaching History).The Brave New World covers the span of early American history, from 30,000 years before Europeans ever landed on North American shores to creation of the new nation. With its exploration of the places and peoples of early America, this volume brings together the most recent scholarship on the col...

Finalist, 2025 PROSE Awards: Legal Studies and CriminologyA history of the humble footnote and its impact on the highest court in the landIn May 2022, a seismic legal event occurred as the draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health was leaked. The majority aimed to eliminate constitutional protection for abortion. Amidst the fervor, an unnoticed detail emerged: over 140 footnotes accompanied the majority opinion and ...

In the Civil War, the United States and the Confederate States of America engaged in combat to defend distinct legal regimes and the social order they embodied and protected. Depending on whose side's arguments one accepted, the Constitution either demanded the Union's continuance or allowed for its dissolution. After the war began, rival legal concepts of insurrection (a civil war within a nation) and belligerency (war between sovereign enemies) vied for adherents in federal and Confedera...

The Great Emu War, which unfolded in Australia in 1932, stands as one of the most peculiar conflicts in history, pitting humans against a flightless bird. Following World War I, many Australian veterans were given land to farm in Western Australia. However, their efforts were thwarted by an unexpected adversary: the emu population. These large, flightless birds descended upon the newly cultivated fields, wreaking havoc on crops and causing significant economic strain for the farmers. As th...

The Great Emu War, which unfolded in Australia in 1932, stands as one of the most peculiar conflicts in history, pitting humans against a flightless bird. Following World War I, many Australian veterans were given land to farm in Western Australia. However, their efforts were thwarted by an unexpected adversary: the emu population. These large, flightless birds descended upon the newly cultivated fields, wreaking havoc on crops and causing significant economic strain for the farmers. As th...

The story of a unique friendship in colonial America between a Founding Father and a founder of the evangelical movement.In the 1740s, two very different developments revolutionized Anglo-American life and thought—the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. This book takes an encounter between the paragons of each movement—the printer and entrepreneur Benjamin Franklin and the British-born revivalist George Whitefield—as an opportunity to explore the meaning of the ...

How three skilled orators navigated a polarized political landscapeFor the generation of politicians who inherited the Republic and the Union, the opening months of 1850 were a desperate time filled with increasing animosity between free and slave state leaders over issues of the expansion of slavery. Following the end of the Mexican-American War and the subsequent expansion of American territory came a series of fiery debates over how this new territory would be g...

There are moments in American history when all eyes are focused on a federal court: when its bench speaks for millions of Americans, and when its decision changes the course of history. More often, the story of the federal judiciary is simply a tale of hard work: of finding order in the chaotic system of state and federal law, local custom, and contentious lawyering. The Federal Courts is a story of all of these courts and the judges and justices who served on them, of the case la...

A lively synthesis of early American history, now in its third edition.The Brave New World covers the entire span of early American history, from 30,000 years before Europeans landed on North American shores to the Revolutionary War. With its exploration of the places and peoples of early America, this comprehensive new edition of a classic textbook brings together the most recent scholarship on the colonial and revolutionary eras, Native Americans, slaver...

For more than two centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court has provided a battleground for nearly every controversial issue in our nation’s history. Now a veteran team of talented historians—including the editors of the acclaimed Landmark Law Cases and American Society series—have updated the most readable, astute single-volume history of this venerated institution with a new chapter on the Roberts Court.The Supreme Court chronicles an institution that dramatically evolved from s...

America’s founders extolled a nation of laws, for they knew that only a fairly enforced legal system could protect liberty and property against corruption and tyranny. Nearly two and a half centuries later, that system remains the ultimate safeguard for us all. With concise but penetrating and provocative insights, the eminent Peter Charles Hoffer recaptures the spirit of this grand enterprise while never losing sight of its human face.The distillation of four decades of stellar wr...