The fierce battle over identity and patriotism within Cherokee culture that took place in the years surrounding the Trail of TearsThough the tragedy of the Trail of Tears is widely recognized today, the pervasive effects of the tribe's uprooting have never been examined in detail. Despite the Cherokees' efforts to assimilate with the dominant white culture—running their own newspaper, ratifying a constitution based on that of the United States—they were never able t...

The History Plays is a series of five two-hander plays by Vent author Nigel Smith, which are imagined conversations at key moments in recent history, moments that have permanently changed the British psyche.Starting with Mick Jagger's conviction for drug possession; through the fragmented morality of John Stonehouse; the Indian summer of patriotism over the Falklands; the death of Diana; and the end of the Blair years. The History Plays are a satirical an...

The incredible true story of how Wilmot Collins fled his war-torn African homeland to make a new home in America, becoming a community activist, a political leader, and an inspiration for hope in a time of rising anti-immigration sentiment.Run tells the inspiring story of Wilmot Collins, who fled the brutal and bloody Liberian Civil War in the early 1990s—where over 250,000 Liberians were killed, including two of Collins’s brothers—and managed to make it to Helena,...

"A rip-snortin' story of shipwreck, intrigue, horror, courage, risk, luck and will . . . The authors have brought the drama in the Chesapeake alive." — Publishers WeeklyThe English had long dreamed of colonizing America, especially after Sir Francis Drake brought home Spanish treasure and dramatic tales from his raids in the Caribbean. Ambitions of finding gold and planting a New World colony seemed within reach when in 1606 Thomas Smythe extended overseas...

"[A] wonderfully entertaining account of an often-overlooked oddity of America's history: how the jigsaw-puzzle layout of the United States emerged." —VogueThe New York Times BestsellerWhy does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!...

**Finalist for the Pulitzer PrizeA compelling, fresh account of the first great transit of people from Britain, Europe, and Africa to British North America, their involvements with each other, and their struggles with the indigenous peoples of the eastern seaboard.**The immigrants were a mixed multitude. They came from England, the Netherlands, the German and Italian states, France, Africa, Sweden, and Finland, and they moved to the western hemisphere for different reasons,...

"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...

A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail.The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century, some of their leaders believe...

Today, a fraction of the Cherokee people remains in their traditional homeland in the southern Appalachians. Most Cherokees were forcibly relocated to eastern Oklahoma in the early nineteenth century. In 1830 the U.S. government shifted its policy from one of trying to assimilate American Indians to one of relocating them and proceeded to drive seventeen thousand Cherokee people west of the Mississippi.The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears recounts this moment in Amer...

This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even...

The president who served the shortest term—just a single month—but whose victorious election campaign rewrote the rules for candidates seeking America's highest office.William Henry Harrison died just thirty-one days after taking the oath of office in 1841. Today he is a curiosity in American history, but as Gail Collins shows in this entertaining and revelatory biography, he and his career are worth a closer look. The son of a signer of the Declaration of Independ...

Was Roger Williams too pure for the Puritans, and what does that have to do with Rhode Island? Why did Augustine Herman take ten years to complete the map that established Delaware? How did Rocky Mountain rogues help create the state of Colorado? All this and more is explained in Mark Stein's new book.How the States Got Their Shapes Too follows How the States Got Their Shapes looks at American history through the lens of its borders, but, while How The States Got Their Shapes told ...