Mass shootings are an alarming, recurrent feature of gun culture in the United States. Beyond the lives lost, they rob everyday Americans of their quality of life and peace of mind. Most Americans agree that these tragedies demand government attention, yet despite their horrific toll, elected officials remain unwilling or unable to act.But there are practical, achievable steps we can take to save lives. Gunocracy dissects the problem and outlines solutions-both simple and complicat...

Weaves the author’s own four-month cross-country sojourn in a VW van with thoughts on travel narratives across the history of American literatureIn Driving Lessons, Christopher B. Strain sets out on a quintessential American road trip, exploring not just the roads and byways of the country but the road trip’s place in American culture. Strain dives into the well of American travel writing, illuminating fascinating aspects of the road trip, such as...

In the 1990s, churches across the southeastern United States were targeted and set ablaze. These arsonists predominately targeted African American congregations and captured the attention of the media nationwide. Using oral histories, newspaper accounts, and governmental reports, Christopher Strain gives a chronological account of the series of church fires.Burning Faith considers the various forces at work, including government responses, civil rights groups, religious fo...

The Long Sixties is a concise and engaging treatment of the major political, social, and cultural developments of this tumultuous period.A comprehensive yet concise overview that offers coverage of a variety of topics, from the beginnings of the Cold War shortly after World War II, through the civil rights, women's, and Chicano civil rights movements, to Watergate, an event that transpired in 1974 but capped the "Long Sixties."A detached an...

In Driving Lessons, Christopher B. Strain sets out on a quintessential American road trip, exploring not just the roads and byways of the country but the road trip's place in American culture. Strain dives into the well of American travel writing, illuminating fascinating aspects of the road trip, such as how race, class, and gender shape the experiences of road trippers.In the summer of 1998, amid a professional crisis of confidence, Strain settled on a plan to reconnect ...

An award-winning historian argues that America's obsession with security imperils our democracy in this "compelling" portrait of cultural anxiety (Mary L. Dudziak, author of War Time).For the last sixty years, fear has seeped into every area of American life: Americans own more guns than citizens of any other country, sequester themselves in gated communities, and retreat from public spaces. And yet, crime rates have plummeted, making life in America safer...

A “galvanizing” (The Wall Street Journal) deep dive into cancel culture and its dangers to all Americans from the team that brought you Coddling of the American Mind.Cancel culture is a new phenomenon, and The Canceling of the American Mind is the first book to codify it and survey its effects, including hard data and research on what cancel culture is and how it works, along with hundreds of new examples showing the left and right both w...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE * AMAZON'S TOP 20 HISTORY BOOKS OF 2023 * B&N BEST OF EDUCATIONAL HISTORY * THE ROOT'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 * CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of untold American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.America’s backstory is a whitewash...

“Perlstein...aims here at nothing less than weaving a tapestry of social upheaval. His success is dazzling.” —Los Angeles Times“Both brilliant and fun, a consuming journey back into the making of modern politics.” —Jon Meacham“Nixonland is a grand historical epic. Rick Perlstein has turned a story we think we know—American politics between the opposing presidential landslides of 1964 and 1972—into an often-surprisi...

**A NONAME BOOK CLUB PICKNamed a Kirkus Reviews "Best Book of 2021""Becoming Abolitionists is ultimately about the importance of asking questions and our ability to create answers. And in the end, Purnell makes it clear that abolition is a labor of love—one that we can accomplish together if only we decide to."—Nia Evans, Boston Review**For more than a century, activists in the United States have tried to reform the police. From com...

Don’t miss this “fresh and conversational” (TIME Magazine), “potent and provocative” (The San Francisco Chronicle), #1 New York Times bestselling exploration of racism—and antiracism—in America.This is NOT a history book.This is a book about the here and now.A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.A book about race.The construct...

The New York Times bestselling portrait of America on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the tumultuous political and economic times of the 1970s is “a Rosetta stone for reading America and its politics today” (Frank Rich, The New York Times Book Review).In January of 1973 Richard Nixon announced the end of the Vietnam War and prepared for a triumphant second term—until televised Watergate hearings revealed his White House as little better than a...