"Sundquist's careful, thoughtful study unearths new and fascinating evidence of the rhetorical traditions in King's speech."—Drew D. Hansen, author of The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech T hat Inspired a Nation"I have a dream"—no words are more widely recognized, or more often repeated, than those called out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963. King's speech, elegantly structured and ...

Originally published in 1979. Eric Sundquist takes four representative writers—James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville—and considers the way in which each grapples with the crucial issues of genealogy and authority in his works. From all four a common pattern emerges: the desire to revolt against the past is countered by the need to invoke or even repeat it. Sundquist's approach to the texts is psychoanalytic, but he does not attempt a clinical ...

Based on a historically accurate account of the Wilmington, North Carolina, "race riot" of 1898, African-American author Charles W. Chesnutt's innovative novel is a passionate portrait of the betrayal of black culture in America.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and ac...

For the last decade scholars have been questioning the idea that the Holocaust was not talked about in any way until well into the 1970s. After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence is the first collection of authoritative, original scholarship to expose a serious misreading of the past on which, controversially, the claims for a ‘Holocaust industry’ rest. Taking an international approach this bold new book exposes the myth and opens the way for a sweeping reassessment of Jewish l...

A comprehensive survey of the most important writing to come out of the Holocaust.Finalist for the 2019 National Jewish Book Award in the Anthologies and Collections Category presented by the Jewish Book CouncilSilver Winner for Anthologies, 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year AwardsWriting in Witness is a broad survey of the most important writing about the Holo...

"Lays bare the essence of [President Eisenhower's] leadership in war and peace—his singular devotion to the unity and security of the American people." — The Wall Street JournalFew leaders have made decisions as momentous—and varied—as Dwight D. Eisenhower. From D-Day to Little Rock, from the Korean War to Cold War crises, from the Red Scare to the Missile Gap controversies, Ike was able to give our country eight years of peace and prosperity by relying on ...

A definitive chronicle of the 1871 Chicago Fire as remembered by those who experienced it—from the author of Chicago and the American Literary Imagination.Over three days in October, 1871, much of Chicago, Illinois, was destroyed by one of the most legendary urban fires in history. Incorporated as a city in 1837, Chicago had grown at a breathtaking pace in the intervening decades—and much of the hastily-built city was made of wood. Starting in Catherine and...

Newly updated: "An enjoyable introduction to American working-class history." — The American ProspectPraised for its "impressive even-handedness", From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend has set the standard for viewing American history through the prism of working people ( Publishers Weekly, starred review). From indentured servants and slaves in seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Sil...

From singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, a lyrical, sweeping novel about a young boy's coming-of-age during the last days of the lumberjacks.In the tiny timber town of Cordelia, Idaho, ninety-nine year old Weldon Applegate recounts his life in all its glory, filled with tall tales writ large with murder, mayhem, avalanches and bootlegging. It’s the story of dark pine forests brewing with ancient magic, and Weldon’s struggle as a boy to keep his father’s inherited timber...

An award-winning historian shares the true story of a frayed and diasporic Sephardic Jewish family preserved in thousands of letters.One of The Economist's Best Books of 2019A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceA National Jewish Book Award finalistFor centuries, the bustling port city of Salonica was home to the sprawling Levy family. As leading publishers and editors, t...

This military memoir examines one of the most vicious and tragically forgotten battles of the Vietnam War from a variety of perspectives.In June of 1967, the Viet Cong sought to isolate and destroy an elite South Vietnamese unit as part of a new offensive strategy. They sent a voluntary POW as an "informant" to dupe the 52nd Vietnamese Ranger Battalion into taking a dangerous position in the III Corps sector of South Vietnam. In the midst of an ambush, the members ...

Longlisted for the Cundill History PrizeProfiled in The New YorkerNew York Times Book Review • Editors’ ChoiceVivid and magisterial, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen reconfigures the rise of a modern world through the advent and spread of written constitutions.A work of extraordinary range and striking originality, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen traces the global history of written constitutio...