American History

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The Historic Woodstock Art Colony

Explores the remarkable range of artists who have worked in Woodstock, New York for over a century.

Class-Conscious Coal Miners

Multifaceted study of Pennsylvania's coal miners during the post-World War One era.

The Algonquin Round Table

The facts and legends of New York's famed artistic hub told by one of its key participants.

The Life and Death of Buffalo's Great Northern Grain Elevator

A stunning visual memorial to Buffalo's architectural and industrial history.

Progressive New York

The exciting story of New York in the progressive era told by the reformers and visionaries who shaped its history,

Growing Strong, Growing Apart

Explores the role of democracy in NATO expansion decisions throughout the organizations history and looking forward into the future.

Emerging from the Shadows

First-of-its-kind study offering a model for understanding vice-presidential influence in the modern era.

Catholics across Borders

Illuminates the cross-border migration and settlement of Catholics from Canada to northern New York.

The Great Murdering-Heir Case

Uncovers the facts behind the celebrated 1889 case of Riggs v. Palmer and shows how they transform our understanding of the decision.

Alton B. Parker

Provides a fascinating and in-depth look into the life, career and legacy of one of the most important New Yorkers of the Gilded Age.

America's Forgotten Poet-Philosopher

Illuminating study of the ideas and influences of a near-forgotten American philosopher.

Downstate New York Rock Walks

An explorer’s walking guide to downstate New York’s awesome boulders and rock formations.

Land of the Oneidas

Presents the history of central New York State from the Ice Age to the present day.

Nooks and Corners of Old New York

A detailed, historic guide to the rich physical history of New York City, from its founding by Dutch settlers to the turn of the twentieth century.

The Livingstons of Livingston Manor

The complete history of one of New York State's—and the nation's—founding families.

Haight-Ashbury, Psychedelics, and the Birth of Acid Rock

Illuminates the beginnings, downfall, and legacy of the acid-inspired, spontaneous, and playful approach to life and music in Haight-Ashbury from 1964–1967.

Tourists and Trade

How two roadside craft shops in upstate New York transformed American crafts into a fine art.

Casseroles, Can Openers, and Jell-O

An “all-you-can-eat” tour of American life in the postwar period, told through the foods we loved.

The Sea Lions

An exciting adventure tale of sealers caught in the Antarctic ice in the early nineteenth century and forced to winter over in extreme conditions.

In Local Hands

The first comprehensive study of village government formation and dissolution in New York State.

New York

A classic work on the history of New York City written by one of America's greatest politicians.

The Manors and Historic Homes of the Hudson Valley

A classic guide to the history and architecture of the historic manors and homes of the Hudson River Valley

From Binghamton to the Battlefield

An annotated collection of over one hundred Civil War letters that trace a Union soldier's transformation from eager recruit to war-weary, battle-tested veteran.

Hopewell Junction: A Railroader's Town

Reveals the life and lore of a vanished era of railroad history.

Ladies' Day at the Capitol

First history of New York's women legislators within the larger story of New York State politics.

Notable Civil War Veterans of Oswego County, New York

Recounts the compelling stories of Civil War soldiers and sailors who lived in Oswego County, New York.

Voices from Death Row, Second Edition

A searing, personal look at conditions on Texas's Death Row—told in the words of the prisoners themselves.

Primary Elections and American Politics

Argues that Progressive Era reforms had the counterintuitive effect of weakening political parties and their role in representative government.

The First Chief Justice

Chronicles the efforts of the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court to establish a federal court system during the country's uncertain early years.

The Hard Sell of Paradise

Traces the complex and contradictory representations of Hawai’i in popular film and television programs from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Replanting Cultures

Provides a theoretical and practical guide to community-engaged scholarship with Indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada.

Dear Uncles

Edited by Rick Barram
Subjects: New York/regional
Series: Excelsior Editions

A New York soldier's eyewitness account of life in the first year of the Civil War, from the campgrounds to the battlefields.

Home as Found

A novel of manners set in the drawing rooms, ballrooms, and Wall Street offices in 1830s New York, dramatizing conflicts that we are still grappling with nearly two hundred years later.

Empire Imagined

Examines the deep roots of the American way of war.

Resist, Organize, Build

Juxtaposes feminist and queer activism in Britain and the United States in the face of resurgent conservatism during the 1980s.

History of Delaware County and Border Wars of New York

A classic history of Delaware County and the border wars written by none other than prominent Gilded Age "Robber Baron" Jay Gould.

In the Catskills and My Boyhood

Classic works by naturalist John Burroughs on his beloved Catskill region.

Out-Doors at Idlewild; or, The Shaping of a Home on the Banks of the Hudson

Chronicles the creation of a picturesque home and landscape on the Hudson River by one of the nineteenth century's leading authors.

FDR's Budgeteer and Manager-in-Chief

First study of Harold D. Smith, FDR’s budget director from 1939 to 1945.

Smooth Operating and Other Social Acts

An engaging homage to African American resilience and resourcefulness in US literature and culture.

Signs of Distinction

Fifty-one unique New York towns with great stories to tell, from L. Frank Baum's and Jello's hometowns to the birthplace of the Women's Rights Movement.

Truly Blessed and Highly Favored

An intimate and moving account of how the author rose from poverty to become a major Black political figure in New York State.

The Toltec Cup

A gripping tale of conspiracy and a love triangle set against the background of 19th century New York City.

Sharkey

The incredible, true story of the twentieth century's greatest performing sea lion and the man who trained him.

The Haunted History of Pelham, New York

A fascinating fusion of New York history and local folklore sure to send shivers up your spine!

The Spirit of New York, Second Edition

A celebration of New York State's history through 19 key events from the state's founding to today.

Lionel Jobert and the American Civil War

Tells the exciting tale of a highly ambitious Frenchman who commanded a New York Regiment during the American Civil War.

Blacks in Niagara Falls

A detailed study of the history of African Americans in a small upstate New York city from the days of the Underground Railroad to the deindustrialization of the 1980s.

Imagining the Fed

Traces the six-decade struggle for power within the Federal Reserve System from the perspective of the central bankers who shaped the Fed.

The Other American Dilemma

Examines how Mexican Americans experienced “unofficial” Jim Crow inside and outside the American education system, and how they used the courts, Mexican Consul, and other resources to challenge that discrimination.

Dutch and Indigenous Communities in Seventeenth-Century Northeastern North America

Edited by Lucianne Lavin
Subjects: American Studies

Examines the significant impact of Dutch traders and settlers on the early history of Northeastern North America, and their relationships with its Indigenous peoples.

"Our Relations…the Mixed Bloods"

Articulates the relationships between kinship, racial ideology, mixed blood treaty provisions, and landscape transformation in the Great Lakes region.

More Than Our Pain

Covering rage and grief, as well as joy and fatigue, examines how Black Lives Matter activists, and the artists inspired by them, have mobilized for social justice.

The Water-Witch

An exciting tale of nautical adventure on the waters of colonial New York Harbor.

Leadership and Legacy

Applies a variety of scholarly approaches to analyze the long-term impact of President Obama as a leader and policymaker.

From the Bayou to the Bay

The intellectual autobiography of a leading scholar in the field of African American Studies.

The Hebrew Orient

Examines the role that images of Palestine played in the construction of prewar Jewish American identity.

An Unfinished Revolution

The story of the suffrage movement and the ongoing struggle for women’s rights through the lens of one family’s history.

The Politics of Presidential Impeachment

Argues that impeachment may no longer be an effective check on overreach by American presidents.

The Historical Mind

Timely and provocative asessment of various cultural, moral, and political problems in "post-constitutional" America.

Freedom in Laughter

Analyzes the dynamic period in which Dick Gregory and Bill Cosby moved African American professional stand-up comedy from the chitlin’ circuit to the mainstream.

Angel on a Freight Train

By Peter C. Baldwin
Subjects: History

The story of a nineteenth-century New Yorker’s struggle to reconcile his same-sex erotic desires with his commitment to a Christian life.

Racial Inequality in New York City since 1965

A comprehensive exploration of racial inequality in New York City since 1965.

Authorized Agents

Examines the relation between Indian diplomacy and nineteenth-century Native American literature.

A Most Glorious Ride

Edited by Edward P. Kohn
Subjects: History
Series: Excelsior Editions

Encompasses key years and important events in Theodore Roosevelt’s early life and career.

Reconciling Nature

Reveals how classic American novels embodied the tensions embedded in American views of the natural world from the Centennial until the end of the Second World War.

African Americans and the First Amendment

The first detailed examination of African Americans and First Amendment rights, from the colonial era to the present.

The Great War in Hollywood Memory, 1918-1939

Assesses how America's film industry remembered World War I during the interwar period.

What Remains

Text by Ilan Stavans
Photographs by Jon Crispin
Subjects: New York/regional
Series: Excelsior Editions

Combining photography and essay, presents a speculative portrait of a Jewish immigrant living out the end of his days in New York's midcentury mental health system.

From El Dorado to Lost Horizons

Investigates how musicals, war films, sex comedies, and Westerns dealt with contentious issues during a time of change in Hollywood.

The Politics of Paradigms

Uncovers long-ignored political themes—ideology, propaganda, mind-control, and Orwellian history—at work within the pages of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

The Revolution Will Not Be Theorized

Studies the revolutionary theory of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s through ʼ70s, placing it within the broader social theory of black revolution in the United States since the nineteenth century.

One America?

Reveals how presidents deploy a rhetoric that attempts to attract many racial and ethnic groups, but ultimately directs itself to an archtypal white, Middle-American swing voter.

Facing toward the Dawn

Examines the history of the Italian anarchist movement in New London, Connecticut.

The Architecture of Downtown Troy

Tells the forgotten but surprising stories of the many handsome and significant buildings in downtown Troy, New York.

The New Welfare Consensus

Discusses the conservative ideological and political attack on welfare in the United States.

Welcome to Fear City

Analyzes how location-shot crime films of the 1970s reflected and influenced understandings of urban crisis.

The US Supreme Court and the Centralization of Federal Authority

Traces the US Supreme Court’s effect on federal government growth from the founding era forward.

Get Things Moving!

Recounts the forgotten but important work of Wayne Coy, the Office for Emergency Management's Liaison Officer, during the early years of World War II.

Forest and Crag

A compelling story of our ever-evolving relationship with mountains and wilderness.

Energy, the Modern State, and the American World System

Examines political authority in the modern era as a function of specific energy politics.

Our War Paint Is Writers' Ink

Explores a little-known history of exchange between Anishinaabe and American writers, showing how literature has long been an important venue for debates over settler colonial policy and indigenous rights.

Overcoming Niagara

Analyzes the nineteenth century canal age in the Niagara-Great Lakes borderland region as a transnational phenomenon.

Cities of Refuge

Contrasts the experiences of German Jewish refugees from the Holocaust who fled to London and New York City.

Rx Hollywood

How films of the 1960s and early 1970s framed therapeutic issues as problems of human communication, and individual psychological problems as social ones.

Battling Editor

Recounts the transformation of two daily newspapers in the face of economic downturns and sweeping technological change.

We Are Going to Be Lucky

Edited by Elizabeth L. Fox
Notes by Elizabeth L. Fox
Subjects: History
Series: Excelsior Editions

Tells the story of a young couple in love during World War II, and the difficulties they faced both at war and on the home front.

Race, Nation, and Refuge

By Doug Coulson
Subjects: History

Explores the role of rhetoric and the racial classification of Asian American immigrants in the early twentieth century.

Ethics and Accountability on the US Supreme Court

Examines the causes and consequences of recusal behavior on the US Supreme Court.

Adriaen van der Donck

The first comprehensive biography of an important yet understudied figure in the Dutch colony of New Netherland.

Ronald W. Walters and the Fight for Black Power, 1969-2010

Combines history and biography to interpret the last half century of black politics in America as represented in the life and work of a pivotal African American public intellectual.

The History of Here

How the Pine Hills neighborhood in Albany, New York, changed and grew, as reflected in the history of one house and the lives of its residents.

The Politics of Persuasion

Examines how the US media covers high-profile public policy issues in the context of competing claims about media bias.

After Katrina

Argues that post-Katrina New Orleans is a key site for exploring competing narratives of American decline and renewal at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Radical Imagination, Radical Humanity

Provides firsthand accounts of militant Puerto Rican activists in 1970s New York City.

Over a Barrel

How a small family company in the Finger Lakes became one of the most important wine producers in the United States, only to be taken down by corporate greed and mismanagement.

Herbert H. Lehman

The definitive biography of New York State's four-term Governor, US Senator, humanitarian, and Jewish liberal political reformer.

Rebels on the Niagara

Offers a detailed account of the political and military history of the Irish American Fenian Brotherhood in the nineteenth century.

Votes for Women

Chronicles the history of the women’s rights and suffrage movements in New York State and examines the important role the state played in the national suffrage movement.

The Suffragents

The story of how and why a group of prominent and influential men in New York City and beyond came together to help women gain the right to vote.