"Cook makes clear the powerful ways that the reverberations of the Civil War still resonate within American political culture. A compelling story." —Joan Waugh, author of U. S. GrantWinner of the 2018 Book Prize in American Studies of the British Association of American StudiesAt a cost of at least 800,000 lives, the Civil War preserved the Union, aborted the breakaway Confederacy, and liberated a race of slaves. Civil War Memori...

Three historians examine what drove southern secession in the winter of 1860-1861 and why it culminated in the American Civil War.Politicians and opinion leaders on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line struggled to formulate coherent responses to the secession of the deep South states. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861 triggered civil war and the loss of four upper South states from the Union. The essays by three senior historians in Secessio...

CONTENTS:Introduction, Jean H. Baker and Charles W. Mitchell“Border State, Border War: Fighting for Freedom and Slavery in Antebellum Maryland,” Richard Bell“Charity Folks and the Ghosts of Slavery in Pre–Civil War Maryland,” Jessica Millward“Confronting Dred Scott: Seeing Citizenship from Baltimore,” Martha S. Jones“‘Maryland Is This Day . . . True to the American Union’: The Election of 1860 and a Winter of Discontent,” Charles W. Mitchell...

In 1957, Congress voted to set up the United States Civil War Centennial Commission. A federally funded agency within the Department of the Interior, the commission's charge was to oversee preparations to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the central event in the Republic's history. Politicians hoped that a formal program of activities to mark the centennial of the Civil War would both bolster American patriotism at the height of the cold war and increase tourism in the South. A...

One of the most talented and influential American politicians of the nineteenth century, William Pitt Fessenden (1806--1869) helped devise Union grand strategy during the Civil War. A native of Maine and son of a fiery New England abolitionist, he served in the United States Senate as a member of the Whig Party during the Kansas-Nebraska crisis and played a formative role in the development of the Republican Party. In this richly textured and fast-paced biography, Robert J. Cook charts Fes...

How Genghis Khan and the Mongols conquered nearly one-sixth of the planet: "The fascinating story of history's most misunderstood empire builders." —Alan Axelrod, bestselling author of Miracle at Belleau WoodEmerging out of the vast steppes of Central Asia in the early 1200s, the Mongols, under their ferocious leader, Genghis Khan, quickly carved out an empire that by the late thirteenth century covered almost one-sixth of the Earth's landmass—from Eastern ...

"Deftly tells the story" of the murder of a peasant turned preacher in Germany "finding in it a foreshadowing of peasant uprisings in the 16th century." — New York Times Book ReviewIn 1476, an illiterate German street musician had a vision of the Virgin Mary and began to preach a radical social message that attracted thousands of followers—and antagonized the church. The drummer was burned at the stake. This swiftly moving narrative of his rise and fall pa...

**"Extraordinary . . . [this] series of true stories about the authentic nature of bears reveals them as the sensitive and intelligent beings they are." ―Carl Safina, New York Times–bestselling author of Becoming Wild and Beyond WordsGrizzly bears have long been feared as unpredictable and dangerous. But one man, Charlie Russell, was key in breaking down the myths and helping save these magnificent beings from extinction. A naturalist who spent ov...

"With a delightfully irascible sense of humor, Henry Gee reflects on our origin . . . an excellent primer on how—and how not—to think about human evolution." —Carl Zimmer, author of Parasite RexThe idea of a missing link between humanity and our animal ancestors predates evolution and popular science and actually has religious roots in the deist concept of the Great Chain of Being. Yet, the metaphor has lodged itself in the contemporary imagination, and new...

Hungry for a treasure trove of weird and wonderful facts beyond your wildest imagination? Then keep on reading...Did you know that trees collaborate, communicate, and engage in chemical warfare?Or that humans are better at smelling rain than sharks are at smelling blood?Or that Napoleon once fought a pack of tame rabbits... and lost?Sometimes, life gets boring. Your sense of wonder often gets lost in a pile of chores, paperwork, and ...

Experience the history, politics, and tragedy of World War II as you've never seen it before with original, often firsthand daily reportage of The New York Times, our country's newspaper of record.The Times' complete coverage of World War II is now available for the first time in this unique package. Hundreds of the most riveting articles from the archives of the Times including firsthand accounts of major events and little-known anecdotes have been selecte...

An "extremely rewarding" exploration of how these two great human endeavors can not only coexist but enrich each other ( Times Literary Supplement).The conflict between science and religion seems indelible, even eternal. Surely two such divergent views of the universe have always been in fierce opposition? Actually, that's not the case, says Peter Harrison: Our very concepts of science and religion are relatively recent, emerging only in the past three hund...