Thomas Blantz’s monumental The University of Notre Dame: A History tells the story of the renowned Catholic university’s growth and development from a primitive grade school and high school founded in 1842 by the Congregation of Holy Cross in the wilds of northern Indiana to the acclaimed undergraduate and research institution it became by the early twenty-first century. Its growth was not always smooth—slowed at times by wars, financial challenges, fires, and illnesses. It is the...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: The definitive biography of Martin Luther King Jr.In this monumental account of the life of Martin Luther King Jr., professor and historian David Garrow traces King's evolution from young pastor who spearheaded the 1955–56 bus boycott of Montgomery, Alabama, to inspirational leader of America's civil rights movement. Based on extensive research and more than seven hundred interviews, with subjects including Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, ...

A "remarkable" study of white Catholics and African Americans—and the dynamics between them in New York, Chicago, Boston, and other cities ( The New York Times Book Review).Parish Boundaries chronicles the history of Catholic parishes in major cities such as Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia, melding their unique place in the urban landscape to the course of twentieth century American race relations. In vivid portraits of parish...

The first commercial, in-depth biography of Father Michael McGivney, the American-born Roman Catholic priest who may well be declared a saint. . . . “Delightful. . . . No magisterial biography emanating a suffocating aura of pomp and self-importance, this book is as low-key and as uplifting as Father Michael McGivney himself.”—Calgary Herald“Father McGivney’s vision remains as relevant as ever in the changed circumstances of today’s Church and society.”—Pope John Paul IIIn ...

"A remarkable story. . . . It is to Mark Adams's great credit that, in Mr. America, he has rescued from obscurity a man whose influence is still felt in this country more than a century after he muscled his way onto the national scene." — Wall Street Journal"Hilarious. . . . Delightful. . . . If Macfadden hadn't existed, we would have had to invent him." —Was hington PostMr. America is the fascinating true story of Bernarr Macfadden, a se...

In Pursuing Truth**, Mary J. Oates explores the roles that religious women played in teaching generations of college and university students amid slow societal change that brought the grudging acceptance of Catholics in public life.** Across the twentieth century, Catholic women's colleges modeled themselves on, and sometimes positioned themselves against, elite secular colleges. Oates describes these critical pedagogical practices by focusing on ...

The National Shrine in Washington, DC has been deeply loved, blithely ignored, and passionately criticized. It has been praised as a "dazzling jewel" and dismissed as a "towering Byzantine beach ball." In this intriguing and inventive book, Thomas Tweed shows that the Shrine is also an illuminating site from which to tell the story of twentieth-century Catholicism. He organizes his narrative around six themes that characterize U.S. Catholicism, and he ties these themes to the Shrine's mate...

Who is God? That is the question Elizabeth A. Johnson has spent her life exploring. As a Catholic theologian, writer, teacher, and religious woman, Johnson has searched for “the Living God” and ways to understand God that make sense for our time, perhaps most famously in her groundbreaking book She Who Is. Her work is firmly grounded in the Catholic tradition while it explores the edges of that tradition, pushing it to be more inclusive—a project that has caught the attention of o...

Now, Jack R. Gannon’s original groundbreaking volume on Deaf history and culture is available once again. In Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America, Gannon brought together for the first time the story of the Deaf experience in America from a Deaf perspective. Recognizing the need to document the multifaceted history of this unique minority with its distinctive visual culture, he painstakingly gathered as much material as he could on Deaf American life. The result is a...

“Utterly illuminating. . . . Just a really revelatory book.”—Jill Lepore, The New York Times**,** The “Book Review” Podcast • “As historian Stein traces in Bicentennial**, a national birthday can launch a much broader, more inclusive, and ambitious national project.”—Rebecca Brenner Graham,** The New Republic **• “A comp...

"This is, simply put, the best biography I have read in years."—The Spectator WorldFrank Meyer devised the blueprint for American conservatism—fusionism—championed by Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and so many to this day. Yet long before and far away, Communists in London chanted “Free Frank Meyer!” to block the deportation of a comrade who was their cause célèbre. Those fervent Marxists could never have predicted that their hero...

In Subversive Habits, Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, hailing them as the forgotten prophets of Catholicism and democracy. Drawing on oral histories and previously sealed Church records, Williams demonstrates how master narratives of women’s religious life and Catholic commitments to racial and gender justice fundamentally change when the lives and experiences of African American nuns are taken seriously. For Black ...