" I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise is like an exquisite string of pearls: the perfect balance of elegance, style, design, and beauty. This book is inspiring, spirited, and totally absorbing." —Diane von FurstenbergThe story of Bunny Mellon, the great landscape and interior designer, becomes a revelatory exploration of extreme wealth in the American century.Bunny Mellon, whose life was marked by astonishing good fortune as well as t...

Mac Griswold's The Manor is the biography of a uniquely American place that has endured through wars great and small, through fortunes won and lost, through histories bright and sinister—and of the family that has lived there since its founding as a Colonial New England slave plantation three and a half centuries ago.In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon a stately yellow house and a garden guarded by looming bo...

Two women vie to change their destinies after Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte orders marriage to a princess he hopes will bear him a royal heir in this compelling novel from the internationally bestselling author of Nefertiti and Maria.“A fascinating tale that won’t soon be forgotten.”—Times Record NewsAfter the bloody French Revolution, Emperor Napoleon’s power is absolute. When eighteen-year-old Marie-Louise is told ...

Winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize: “[A] commanding and important book.”—Jill Lepore, The New YorkerThis epic work—named a best book of the year by the Washington Post, Time, the Los Angeles Times, Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and a notable book by the New York Times—tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history...

**In a riveting, groundbreaking narrative, Russell Shorto tells the story of New Netherland, the Dutch colony which pre-dated the Pilgrims and established ideals of tolerance and individual rights that shaped American history.UPDATED EDITION WITH A NEW PREFACE AND POSTSCRIPT"Astonishing . . . A book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past." --The New York Times**When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the tru...

A multicultural, multinational history of colonial America from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Internal Enemy and American RevolutionsIn the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from milennia past, through the decades of Western colonization and co...

**PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • ANISFIELD-WOLF AWARD WINNER • A revelatory study of the ways in which slavery both destabilized and created American politics.“Vivid and provocative; [Lepore] evokes eighteenth-century New York in all its moral and physical messiness.” —The New Yorker“A historical study that is both intellectually rigorous and broadly accessible. . . . The type of book that we need to read and historians need to write, more often.” —Newsday**

This compelling look at the wellsprings of cultural vitality during one of the most dehumanizing experiences in history provides a fresh perspective on the African-American past.From the Trade Paperback edition.

"Part historical narrative, part genealogical detective work," this is t he true story of an African American family in Maryland over six generations ( Library Journal).Using diaries, court records, legal documents, books, paintings, photographs, and oral histories, From Slave Ship to Harvard traces a family—from the colonial period and the American Revolution through the Civil War to Harvard and finally today—forming a unique nar...

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in HistoryA New York Times Notable BookA New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice SelectionA Providence Journal Best Book of the YearWinner of the Organization of American Historians Merle Curti Award for Social HistoryFinalist for the Harriet Tubman PrizeFinalist for the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize"This book is an original achievem...

Europeans, Africans, and American Indians practiced slavery long before the first purchase of a captive African by a white land-owner in the American colonies; that, however, is the image of slavery most prevalent in the minds of Americans today. This Very Short Introduction begins with the Portuguese capture of Africans in the 1400s and traces the development of American slavery until its abolition following the Civil War. Historian Heather Andrea Williams draws upon the rich rec...

From peglegged Peter Stuyvesant to CBGB’s, the story of the Bowery reflects the history of the city that grew up around it.It was the street your mother warned you about—even if you lived in San Francisco. Long associated with skid row, saloons, freak shows, violence, and vice, the Bowery often showed the worst New York City had to offer. Yet there were times when it showed its best as well.The Bowery is New York’s oldest street and Manhattan’s broadest boule...