The labor movement in the United States is a bulwark of democracy and a driving force for social and economic equality. Yet its stories remain largely unknown to Americans. Robert Forrant and Mary Anne Trasciatti edit a collection of essays focused on nationwide efforts to propel the history of labor and working people into mainstream narratives of US history. In Part One, the contributors concentrate on ways to collect and interpret worker-oriented history for public consumption. Part Two...

**Winner of the Lillian Smith Book AwardWinner of the Los Angeles Times Book PrizeFinalist for the National Book AwardThe Nation's "Most Valuable Book"“[A] vibrant intellectual history of the radical right.”—The Atlantic“This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains. . . . If you're worried about what all this means for Ameri...

In this instant New York Times bestseller, America’s top historians set the record straight on the most pernicious myths about our nation’s past.“Outstanding … Wonderfully accessible.” —Washington PostThe United States is in the grip of a crisis of bad history. Distortions of the past promoted in the conservative media have led large numbers of Americans to believe in fictions over facts, making co...

An explosive exposé of the man and the ideas behind the well-heeled right's relentless campaign to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatise public education, and curb democratic majority rule.Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over US government is a secretive political establishment with deep and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter democratic governance. But bill...

From nineteenth-century public baths to today’s private backyard havens, swimming pools have long been a provocative symbol of American life. In this social and cultural history of swimming pools in the United States, Jeff Wiltse relates how, over the years, pools have served as asylums for the urban poor, leisure resorts for the masses, and private clubs for middle-class suburbanites. As sites of race riots, shrinking swimsuits, and conspicuous leisure, swimming pools reflect many of the ...

In the blink of an eye, vast economic forces have created new types of communities and reinvented old ones. In The New Geography, acclaimed forecaster Joel Kotkin decodes the changes, and provides the first clear road map for where Americans will live and work in the decades to come, and why. He examines the new role of cities in America and takes us into the new American neighborhood. The New Geography is a brilliant and indispensable guidebook to a funda...

This "fascinating, engaging" history of St. Louis's monument to American expansion reveals a story of greed, discrimination, and community displacement (NextSTL.com).Rising to a triumphant height of 630 feet, the Gateway Arch is one of the world's most widely recognized structures and attracts millions of tourists to St. Louis every year. Envisioned in 1947 but not completed until the mid-1960s, its story is one of innovation and greed; civic pride and backroom dea...

**NPR's Books We Love 2023Glamour's "The 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023, So Far"*Vogue's "*Best Books of 2023 (So Far)"*Town & Country's "*The Best Books of 2023"A "heartening inspiration"(The New York Times), the untold story of the people who have helped spark America’s most transformative social movements throughout history: teenage girls**Nine months before Rosa Parks kicked off the bus boycotts, Claudette Colvin was arrested ...

Los Angeles came of age in the 1920s. The great boom of that decade gave shape to the L.A. of today: its vast suburban sprawl and reliance on the automobile, its prominence as a financial and industrial center, and the rise of Hollywood as the film capital of the world. This collection of original essays explores the making of the Los Angeles metropolis during this remarkable decade. The authors examine the city's racial, political, cultural, and industrial dynamics, making this volume an ...

Since their inception with New York's Crystal Palace Exhibition in the mid-nineteenth century, world's fairs have introduced Americans to “exotic” pleasures such as belly dancing and the Ferris Wheel; pathbreaking technologies such as telephones and X rays; and futuristic architectural, landscaping, and transportation schemes. Billed by their promoters as “encyclopedias of civilization,” the expositions impressed tens of millions of fairgoers with model environments and utopian visions.

At its most basic, historic preservation is about keeping old places alive, in active use, and relevant to the needs of communities today. As cities across America experience a remarkable renaissance, and more and more young, diverse families choose to live, work, and play in historic neighborhoods, the promise and potential of using our older and historic buildings to revitalize our cities is stronger than ever.This urban resurgence is a national phenomenon, boosting cities from C...

Since the end of the nineteenth century, city planners have aspired not only to improve the physical living conditions of urban residents but also to strengthen civic ties through better design of built environments. From Ebenezer Howard and his vision for garden cities to today's New Urbanists, these visionaries have sought to deepen civitas, or the shared community of citizens.In Civitas by Design, historian Howard Gillette, Jr., takes a critical look at this planning tr...