White supremacy shaped all aspects of post-Civil War southern life, yet its power was never complete or total. The form of segregation and subjection nicknamed Jim Crow constantly had to remake itself over time even as white southern politicians struggled to extend its grip. Here, some of the most innovative scholars of southern history question Jim Crow's sway, evolution, and methods over the course of a century. These essays bring to life the southern men and women--some heroic and decen...

Long before the Montgomery bus boycott ushered in the modern civil rights movement, black and white southerners struggled to forge interracial democracy in America. This innovative book examines the most successful interracial coalition in the nineteenth-century South, Virginia’s Readjuster Party, and uncovers a surprising degree of fluidity in postemancipation southern politics.Melding social, cultural, and political history, Jane Dailey chronicles the Readjusters' efforts to fost...

Although the origins, application, and socio-historical implications of the Jim Crow system have been studied and debated for at least the last three-quarters of a century, nuanced understanding of this complex cultural construct is still evolving, according to Stephanie Cole and Natalie J. Ring, coeditors of The Folly of Jim Crow: Rethinking the Segregated South. Indeed, they suggest, scholars may profit from a careful examination of previous assumptions and conclusions ...

Building the American Republic combines centuries of perspectives and voices into a fluid narrative of the United States. Throughout their respective volumes, Harry L. Watson and Jane Dailey take care to integrate varied scholarly perspectives and work to engage a diverse readership by addressing what we all share: membership in a democratic republic, with joint claims on its self-governing tradition. It will be one of the first peer-reviewed American history textbooks to be offer...

A US Army veteran and West Point history professor delivers a “must-read” for anyone “seeking a firm grasp of accurate American history” (Kirkus).“A US history study guide like no other . . . offers profound insights and challenges the standard US history narrative.” —Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizIn this brilliant, readable, and raw revisionist history, Major (ret.) Danny Sjursen challenges us to think critically of our understanding of our...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Democracy Awakening**, the paradoxical evolution of the Republican Party—founded to give the poor equal opportunity, but too often aligned with the country's elites.****"The most comprehensive account of the GOP and its competing impulses.” —**Los Angeles TimesWhen Abraham Lincoln helped create the Republican Party on ...

A wide-ranging collection of speeches—many published here for the first time—by the historian and author of A People's History of the United States.Howard Zinn has illuminated our history like no other US historian. This collection of his speeches on protest movements, racism, war, and American history covers more than four decades of his active engagement with the audiences he inspired with his humor, insight, and clarity.This volume features Zinn...

The New York Times–bestselling author and Fox News judicial analyst examines the effects of two US presidents on personal freedom."Either the Constitution means what it says, or it doesn't."America's founding fathers saw freedom as a part of our nature to be protected—not to be usurped by the federal government—and so enshrined separation of powers and guarantees of freedom in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But a little over a hundred years...

A compelling look at the movements and developments that propelled America to world dominanceIn this landmark work, acclaimed historian Joshua Freeman has created an epic portrait of a nation both galvanized by change and driven by conflict. Beginning in 1945, the economic juggernaut awakened by World War II transformed a country once defined by its regional character into a uniform and cohesive power and set the stage for the United States’ rise to global dominance. Meanwhile, Fre...

The Age of Reagan brings to life the tumultuous decade and a half that preceded Ronald Reagan’s ascent to the White House. Drawing on scores of interviews and years of research, Steven F. Hayward takes us on an engrossing journey through the most politically divisive years the United States has had to endure since the decade before the Civil War.Hayward captures an America at war with itself—and an era whose reverberations we feel to this very day. He brings new insight in...

“Those who say that we’re in a time when there are no heroes, they just don’t know where to look.”–President Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981Hero. It was a word most Americans weren’t using much in 1980. As they waited on gas and unemployment lines, as their enemies abroad grew ever more aggressive, and as one after another their leaders failed them, Americans began to believe the country’s greatness was fading.Yet within two years the recession and gas shortage were ...

In this short biography, Michael Schaller, acclaimed historian of the American political right, offers readers a poignant account of Ronald Reagan's life and achievements, from his small-town upbringing in rural Illinois to his cinematic success in Hollywood, entry into politics as governor of California, and meteoric rise to the White House, where he served for eight years. The polarizing Great Communicator oversaw many developments that changed the face of American politics and life-the ...