The Stammering Century

Written by Gilbert Seldes
Introduction by Greil Marcus

Format: Trade Paperback, 452 pages
Publisher: NYRB Classics
On Sale: November 6, 2012
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-59017-580-4 (1-59017-580-8)

Gilbert Seldes, the author of The Stammering Century, writes:

This book is not a record of the major events in Ameri­can history during
the nineteenth century. It is concerned with minor movements, with the
cults and manias of that period. Its personages are fanatics, and radicals,
and mountebanks... Read more >

See America First
Tourism and National Identity 1880-1940
Written by Marguerite Shaffer

Format: Trade Paperback, 438 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: September 17, 2001
Price: $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-56098-976-9 (1-56098-976-9)

In See America First, Marguerite Shaffer chronicles the birth of modern American tourism between 1880 and 1940, linking tourism to the simultaneous growth of national transportation systems, print media, a national market, and a middle class with money and time to spend on leisure. Focusing on the See America First slogan... Read more >

The Working Poor
Invisible in America
Written by David K. Shipler

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: January 4, 2005
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70821-3 (0-375-70821-9)

Most of the people I write about in this book do not have the luxury of rage. They are caught in exhausting struggles. Their wages do not lift them far enough from poverty to improve their lives, and their lives, in turn, hold them back. The term by which they are... Read more >

The Island at the Center of the World
The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
Written by Russell Shorto

Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: April 12, 2005
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7867-7 (1-4000-7867-9)

When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000... Read more >

Back to Our Future
How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now--Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything
Written by David Sirota

Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: March 15, 2011
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-51878-1 (0-345-51878-0)

Wall Street scandals. Fights over taxes. Racial resentments. A Lakers-Celtics championship. The Karate Kid topping the box-office charts. Bon Jovi touring the country. These words could describe our current moment—or the vaunted iconography of three decades past.

In this wide-ranging and wickedly entertaining book, New York Times bestselling journalist David Sirota takes... Read more >

Newspaper Titan
The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson
Written by Amanda Smith

Format: Hardcover, 720 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: September 6, 2011
Price: $37.50
ISBN: 978-0-375-41100-7 (0-375-41100-3)

From the author of Hostage to Fortune; The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy ("Superb" —Michael Beschloss; "Remarkable" —Arthur Schlesinger), the galvanizing story of Eleanor Medill (Cissy) Patterson, celebrated debutante and socialte, scion of the Chicago Tribune empire, and the twentieth century's first woman editor in chief and publisher of a major... Read more >

Who Stole the American Dream?

Written by Hedrick Smith

Format: Hardcover, 592 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: September 11, 2012
Price: $30.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6966-8 (1-4000-6966-1)

To read the author's essay about Who Stole the American Dream? go to http://tinyurl.com/b78df7e.

Pulitzer Prize winner Hedrick Smith’s new book is an extraordinary achievement, an eye-opening account of how, over the past four decades, the American Dream has been dismantled and we became two Americas.

In his bestselling The Russians,... Read more >

Laundromat

Afterword by D. Foy
Photographed by Snorri Bros.

Format: Hardcover, 160 pages
Publisher: powerHouse Books
On Sale: March 12, 2013
Price: $40.00
ISBN: 978-1-57687-623-7 (1-57687-623-3)

Laundromats are a quintessential part of the New York City landscape: an indispensible element to many city dwellers’ lives, they’re an ersatz utility room shared with dozens of strangers at any given time, a moist environment of humming machines and strange clothes. No other public facility gathers so many people under... Read more >

Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power
Community Organizing in Radical Times
Written by Amy Sonnie and James Tracy
Introduction by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Melville House
On Sale: September 16, 2011
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-935554-66-0 (1-935554-66-2)

The story of some of the 1960s’ most important activists–JOIN, the Young Patriots, Rising Up Angry, White Lightning, and the October 4th Organization–in a deeply sourced narrative history

The historians of the late 1960s have emphasized the work of a small group of white college activists as well as the Black Panthers... Read more >

Outcasts United
An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference
Written by Warren St. John

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
On Sale: December 1, 2009
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-52204-5 (0-385-52204-5)

Selected for Common Reading at:
Agnes Scott College
Andrew College
Baker University
Baldwin Wallace College
Bismarck State College
Butler University
Castleton State College
Central Ohio Technical College
Columbus State University
Fort Lewis College
Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia State University
Hollins University
Holy Cross High School, Burlington, NJ
Johnson and Wales University
Johnson State College
Kennesaw State University
La Jolla Country Day School
McMurry University
Middle Tennessee State University
Missouri State University
Molloy... Read more >

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer
A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania
Written by Warren St. John

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books
On Sale: May 31, 2005
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-609-80713-2 (0-609-80713-7)

A Chronicle of Higher Education Top 10 Best College-Sports Books Ever**

"St. John offers an unsurpassed blend of scholarly heft (he's gathered all of the scattered research on sports fandom), superb reporting (among those we meet is the Alabama fan so full of hate toward Tennessee that he'd root for "Notre Dame... Read more >

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer
A Journey into the Heart of Fan Mania
Written by Warren St. John

Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Crown
On Sale: August 3, 2004
Price: $24.00
ISBN: 978-0-609-60708-4 (0-609-60708-1)

A Chronicle of Higher Education Top 10 Best College-Sports Books Ever**

"St. John offers an unsurpassed blend of scholarly heft (he's gathered all of the scattered research on sports fandom), superb reporting (among those we meet is the Alabama fan so full of hate toward Tennessee that he'd root for "Notre Dame... Read more >

The Feminist Promise
1792 to the Present
Written by Christine Stansell

Format: Trade Paperback, 528 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: May 10, 2011
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7202-3 (0-8129-7202-3)

In this definitive volume, respected historian Christine Stansell tells the story of one of the great democratic movements of our times. She paints richly detailed portraits of well-known leaders—Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Betty Friedan—but others, too, appear in a new light, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Toni Morrison. Accounting for... Read more >

How the States Got Their Shapes Too
The People Behind the Borderlines
Written by Mark Stein

Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: June 7, 2011
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-314-7 (1-58834-314-6)

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... Read more >

The Souvenir
A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War
Written by Louise Steinman

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
On Sale: March 18, 2008
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-1-55643-701-4 (1-55643-701-3)

Selected by Penn State for its Freshman Year Reading Program

Louise Steinman’s American childhood in the fifties was bound by one unequivocal condition: “Never mention the war to your father.” That silence sustained itself until the fateful day Steinman opened an old ammunition box left behind after her parents’ death. In it... Read more >

Names on the Land
A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States
Written by George R. Stewart
Introduction by Matt Weiland

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: NYRB Classics
On Sale: July 1, 2008
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-59017-273-5 (1-59017-273-6)

This beloved classic about place-naming in the United States was written during World War II in a conscious effort to pay tribute to the heritage of the nation’s peoples. George R. Stewart’s love of the surprising story, and his focus not just on language but on how people interact with their... Read more >

Sarge
The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver
Written by Scott Stossel

Format: Hardcover, 704 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: May 17, 2004
Price: $32.50
ISBN: 978-1-58834-127-3 (1-58834-127-5)

Working for four presidents over six decades, R. Sargent “Sarge” Shriver founded the Peace Corps, launched the War on Poverty, created Head Start and Legal Services for the Poor, started the Special Olympics, and served as ambassador to France. Yet from the moment he married Joseph P. Kennedy’s daughter Eunice in... Read more >

Satisfaction Guaranteed
The Making of the American Mass Market
Written by Susan Strasser

Format: Trade Paperback, 348 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: October 17, 2004
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-146-4 (1-58834-146-1)

This sweeping history provides the reader with a better understanding of America’s consumer society, obsession with shopping, and devotion to brands. Focusing on the advertising campaigns of Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, Wrigley’s, Gillette, and Kodak, Strasser shows how companies created both national brands and national markets. These new brands eventually displaced generic manufacturers... Read more >

The Eleventh Day
The Full Story of 9/11
Written by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan

Format: Trade Paperback, 640 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: August 14, 2012
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7809-4 (0-8129-7809-9)

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE

Writing with access to thousands of recently released official documents, fresh interviews, and the perspective that can come only from a decade of research and reflection, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan deliver the first panoramic, authoritative look back at 9/11.

For most living Americans, September 11, 2001, is... Read more >

Culture as History
The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century
Written by Warren I. Susman

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: February 17, 2003
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-051-1 (1-58834-051-1)

With amazing creativity, clarity, and wit, Warren Susman (1927-1985) takes us on a provocative tour of the highlights of American culture. By looking at all types of 20th-century culture–highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow–Susman shows how culture itself has become a battleground for competing visions of American life. Fourteen essays include such topics... Read more >

Unto the Sons

Written by Gay Talese

Format: Trade Paperback, 592 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: April 25, 2006
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7606-9 (0-8129-7606-1)

Gay Talese, one of America's greatest living authors, employs his prodigious storytelling gifts to tell the saga of his own family's emigration to America from Italy in the years preceding World War II. Ultimately it is the story of all immigrant families and the hope and sacrifice that took them from... Read more >

Captive Passage
The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas
Edited by The Mariners Museum

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: April 17, 2002
Price: $21.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-017-7 (1-58834-017-1)

This important book considers a number of different aspects of the slave trade: its social and economic basis, why many African leaders facilitated the slave trade, and how enslaved African Americans forged their own cultures and forever changed the Americas. The physical, social, and enduring emotional meaning of the Middle Passage... Read more >

War Games
Inside the World of Twentieth-Century War Reenactors
Written by Jenny Thompson

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: July 6, 2010
Price: $25.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-280-5 (1-58834-280-8)

D-Day with beach umbrellas in the distance? Troops ordering ice cream? American and German forces celebrating Christmas together in the barracks? This could only be the curious world of 20th-century war reenactors. A relatively recent and rapidly expanding phenomenon, reenactments in the United States of World War I, World War II... Read more >

Ghost Towns
Lost Cities of the Old West
Written by Clint Thomsen

Format: Trade Paperback, 64 pages
Publisher: Shire
On Sale: April 17, 2012
Price: $9.95
ISBN: 978-0-7478-1085-8 (0-7478-1085-0)

Tombstone, Bodie, St. Elmo, Silver City. These are some of the enduring legends of the Old West- ghost towns and mining camps that dot America’s landscape and color the history of the country. Literally thousands of ghost towns are scattered throughout the West, with some states boasting hundreds of these abandoned... Read more >

Vietnamerica
A Family's Journey
Written by GB Tran

Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Villard
On Sale: January 25, 2011
Price: $30.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-50872-0 (0-345-50872-6)

A TIME Magazine Top Ten Graphic Memoir of All Time
A 2011 School Library Journal "Best Adult Book 4 Teens"
A 2011 Library Journal Best Graphic Novel

Selected for common reading at Davidson College

A superb new graphic memoir in which an inspired artist/storyteller reveals the road that brought his family to where they are... Read more >