The story of the longest and most complex legal challenge to slavery in American historyFor over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George's County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation's capital.Piecing to...

How railroads both united and divided us: "Integrates military and social history…a must-read for students, scholars and enthusiasts alike."— Civil War MonitorBeginning with Frederick Douglass's escape from slavery in 1838 on the railroad, and ending with the driving of the golden spike to link the transcontinental railroad in 1869, this book charts a critical period of American expansion and national formation, one largely dominated by t...

Each killing event was unique, but all were fueled by forces that seemed to guide the hands of the perpetrators: alcohol, fear, greed, hate, ignorance, revenge, passion, self-righteousness. Often the murderers were disenfranchised, disassociated, or disgruntled. . . .Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., fervent discussions about guns, religion, terrorism, national security, privacy, and immigration have become common, not just in news media and public forums...

Interpreting The Amistad Trials traces the signal importance of interpreters and translators in the famous 19th-century Amistad case and discusses how race, ethnicity, slavery, and colonialism shaped this story.From the recruitment process to the various oral to sign languages that mediated linguistically in the Africans' life inside and outside the courtroom, and from evidentiary documents to fraudulent translations to credible testimoni...

Revised and updated, this long-awaited second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to what the most thoughtful Americans have said about the American experience from the colonial period to the present. The book examines the political thought of the most important American statesmen, activists, and writers across era and ideologies, helping another generation of students, scholars, and citizens to understand more fully the meaning of America.This new second edition of the b...

The story of the longest and most complex legal challenge to slavery in American historyFor over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George's County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation's capital...

*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award**A New York Times Notable Book**Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award*This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revela...

A quiet, haunted man, Paul Cable walked away from a lost cause hoping to pick up where he left off. But things have changed in Arizona since he first rode out to go fight for the Confederacy. Two brothers—Union men—have claimed his spread and they're not about to give it back, leaving Cable and his family no place to settle in peace. It seems this war is not yet over for Paul Cable. But no one's going to take away his land and his future—not with their laws, their lies, or their guns.

" A lively, enlightening history of one of the oldest, most esteemed law-enforcement agencies in America." — BooklistStarting in 1821 with just a handful of men, the Rangers' first purpose was to keep settlers safe from the feared and gruesome Karankawa Indians, a cannibalistic tribe that wandered the Texas territory. As the influx of settlers grew, the attacks increased and it became clear that a much larger, better trained force was necessary.From ...

"William C. Davis's Three Roads to the Alamo is far and away the best account of the Alamo I have ever read. The portraits of Crockett, Bowie, and Travis are brilliantly sketched in a fast-moving story that keeps the reader riveted to the very last word." — Stephen B. OatesThree Roads to the Alamois the definitive book about the lives of David Crockett, James Bowie and William Barret Travis—the legendary frontiersmen and fighters who met their des...

This newest volume in Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments series offers an unforgettable portrait of the Nez Perce War of 1877, the last great Indian conflict in American history. It was, as Elliott West shows, a tale of courage and ingenuity, of desperate struggle and shattered hope, of short-sighted government action and a doomed flight to freedom. To tell the story, West begins with the early history of the Nez Perce and their years of friendly relations with white settlers. In an initia...

A major one-volume history of the Oregon Trail from its earliest beginnings to the present, by a prize-winning historian of the American West.Starting with an overview of Oregon Country in the early 1800s, a vast area then the object of international rivalry among Spain, Britain, Russia, and the United States, David Dary gives us the whole sweeping story of those who came to explore, to exploit, and, finally, to settle there.Using diaries, journals, company and expedition r...