The Shooting Salvationist
J. Frank Norris and the Murder Trial that Captivated America
Written by David R. Stokes
Foreword by Bob Schieffer

Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Publisher: Steerforth
On Sale: July 12, 2011
Price: $27.00
ISBN: 978-1-58642-186-1 (1-58642-186-7)

The Shooting Salvationist chronicles what may be the most famous story you have never heard. In the 1920’s, the Reverend J. Frank Norris railed against vice and conspiracies he saw everywhere to a congregation of more than 10,000 at First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, the largest congregation in America... 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 >

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 >

1898
The Birth of the American Century
Written by David Traxel

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: December 7, 1999
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-77671-0 (0-679-77671-0)

In this remarkable evocation of the American past, David Traxel chronicles the extraordinary events of 1898--a year without rival in United States history for its extravagant adventure and far-reaching significance. Displaying a rare combination of graceful writing and authoritative scholarship, 1898 examines the lives of politicians and homemakers, outlaws and reformers... Read more >

Crusader Nation
The United States in Peace and the Great War: 1898-1920
Written by David Traxel

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: January 9, 2007
Price: $21.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-72465-7 (0-375-72465-6)

In this absorbing history of the first two decades of the twentieth century, David Traxel paints a vivid picture of a transformative period in the United States, when many remarkable individuals fought to decide which path the country would follow. Victorian restraint was being cast aside by men and women testing... Read more >

Mark Twain's Other Woman
The Hidden Story of His Final Years
Written by Laura Skandera Trombley

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: March 8, 2011
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-47494-0 (0-307-47494-1)

Laura Skandera Trombley, the preeminent Twain scholar at work today, reveals the never-before-read letters and daily journals of Isabel Lyon, Mark Twain’s last personal secretary.

For six years, Isabel Lyon was responsible for running the aging Man in White’s chaotic household, nursing him through several illnesses and serving as his adoring... Read more >

Zimmermann Telegram

Written by Barbara W. Tuchman

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: March 12, 1985
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-32425-2 (0-345-32425-0)

In January of 1917, the war in Europe was, at best, a tragic standoff. Britain knew that Europe would be saved only if the U.S. joined the war. President Wilson was unshakable in his neutrality and in his efforts to mediate peace. Then, with a single stroke, the tool to propel... Read more >

Satchel
The Life and Times of an American Legend
Written by Larry Tye

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: May 4, 2010
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7797-4 (0-8129-7797-1)

A 2009 New York Times Notable Book
A 2009 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

He is that rare American icon who has never been captured in a biography worthy of him. Now, at last, here is the superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy “Satchel” Paige.

Few reliable records... Read more >

Louis D. Brandeis
A Life
Written by Melvin Urofsky

Format: Hardcover, 976 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: September 22, 2009
Price: $40.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-42366-6 (0-375-42366-4)

Winner of the Erwin Griswold Prize

The first full-scale biography in twenty-five years of one of the most important and distinguished justices to sit on the Supreme Court–a book that reveals Louis D. Brandeis the reformer, lawyer, and jurist, and Brandeis the man, in all of his complexity, passion, and wit.

Louis... Read more >

The First Fall Classic
The Red Sox, the Giants, and the Cast of Players, Pugs, and Politicos Who Reinvented the World Series in 1912
Written by Mike Vaccaro

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: September 21, 2010
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-7679-2968-4 (0-7679-2968-3)

In this wonderful page-turner, veteran sports journalist Mike Vaccaro brings to life a bygone era in cinematic and intimate detail—and re-creates the magic and suspense of the world’s first classic series.

Despite a major presidential election, the near-assassination of Teddy Roosevelt, and the most sensational trial of the young century, baseball dominated... Read more >

Mustang Designer
Edgar Schmued and the P-51
Written by Ray Wagner

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: April 17, 2000
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-994-3 (1-56098-994-7)

Mustang Designer tells the story of American wartime fighter development, including engines and armaments, as part of a nationwide program of aircraft builders and fliers, focusing on Edgar Schmued, the designer of the Mustang. The P-51 Mustang is widely regarded as the best propeller-driven fighter that ever flew. What many might... Read more >

America Reborn
A Twentieth-Century Narrative in Twenty-six Lives
Written by Martin Walker

Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 10, 2001
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70364-5 (0-375-70364-0)

The people Martin Walker has chosen to portray are presidents, industrialists, artists, thinkers, entertainers, soldiers, spies, criminals, and evangelists, among others. These are individuals who provide the framework for a discussion of the nation as a whole in a century when it was reinventing itself.

Walker explores America's ambition, idealism, triumph and... Read more >

A Disposition to Be Rich
Ferdinand Ward, the Greatest Swindler of the Gilded Age
Written by Geoffrey C. Ward

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: April 23, 2013
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-80469-3 (0-345-80469-4)

A New York Times Notable Book

The compelling behind-the-scenes story of the greatest swindler of the Gilded Age, whose villainy bankrupted Ulysses S. Grant and stunned the world of finance—told by his great-grandson, award-winning historian Geoffrey C. Ward.

Ferdinand Ward, the son of a Protestant missionary and small-town pastor, moved to New York... Read more >

A Disposition to Be Rich
How a Small-Town Pastor's Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash, and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States
Written by Geoffrey C. Ward

Format: Hardcover, 432 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: May 1, 2012
Price: $28.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-44530-2 (0-679-44530-7)

Ferdinand Ward was the greatest swindler of the Gilded Age. Through his unapologetic villainy, he bankrupted Ulysses S. Grant and ran roughshod over the entire world of finance. Now, his compelling, behind-the-scenes story is told—told by his great-grandson, award-winning historian Geoffrey C. Ward.

Ward was the Bernie Madoff of his day, a... Read more >

Mark Twain

Written by Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan

Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: November 13, 2001
Price: $40.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-40561-7 (0-375-40561-5)

Ernest Hemingway called Huckleberry Finn “the best book we’ve ever had. There was nothing before. There’s been nothing as good since.” Critical opinion of this book hasn’t dimmed since Hemingway uttered these words; as author Russell Banks says in these pages, Twain “makes possible an American literature which would otherwise not... Read more >

Unforgivable Blackness
The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
Written by Geoffrey C. Ward

Format: Trade Paperback, 544 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: January 3, 2006
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-71004-9 (0-375-71004-3)

Winner of the 2005 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-fiction

He was the first black heavyweight champion in history, the most celebrated–and most reviled–African American of his age. In Unforgivable Blackness, the prizewinning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to vivid life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex and compelling than... Read more >

The War
An Intimate History, 1941-1945
Written by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

Format: Hardcover, 480 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: September 11, 2007
Price: $50.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-26283-7 (0-307-26283-9)

The vivid voices that speak from these pages are not those of historians or scholars. They are the voices of ordinary men and women who experienced—and helped to win—the most devastating war in history, in which between 50 and 60 million lives were lost.

Focusing on the citizens of four towns— Luverne... Read more >

Medical Apartheid
The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
Written by Harriet A. Washington

Format: Trade Paperback, 528 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: January 8, 2008
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-7679-1547-2 (0-7679-1547-X)

Winner, 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award
Pen Oakland-Josephine Miles 17th Annual National Literary Award
Honor Book, Black Caucus of The American Library Association
2007 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award

Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western... Read more >

The People's Tycoon
Henry Ford and the American Century
Written by Steven Watts

Format: Trade Paperback, 656 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 10, 2006
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70725-4 (0-375-70725-5)

How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography.

The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He... Read more >

The Clarks of Cooperstown

Written by Nicholas Fox Weber

Format: Hardcover, 448 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: May 8, 2007
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-26347-6 (0-307-26347-9)

Nicholas Fox Weber, author of the acclaimed Patron Saints (“Exhilarating avant-garde entertainment”—Sam Hunter, The New York Times Book Review) and Balthus (“The authoritative account of his life and work”—Michael Ravitch, Newsday), gives us now the idiosyncratic lives of Sterling and Stephen Clark—two of America’s greatest art collectors, heirs to the Singer... Read more >

Harry Houdini
A Graphic Novel
Written by CEL Welsh
Illustrated by Lalit Singh

Format: Trade Paperback, 80 pages
Publisher: Campfire
On Sale: July 27, 2010
Price: $9.99
ISBN: 978-93-80028-25-5 (93-80028-25-3)

This is the life story of Ehrich Weiss. If you don’t recognize this man’s name, that is because the world came to know him as the one and only Harry Houdini.

George Bernard Shaw once remarked that Harry Houdini is the third most famous name in history after Jesus Christ and... Read more >

Why We Fought
Forging American Obligations in World War II
Written by Robert B. Westbrook

Format: Trade Paperback, 166 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: July 6, 2010
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-295-9 (1-58834-295-6)

Why We Fought is a timely and provocative analysis that examines why Americans really chose to sacrifice and commit themselves to World War II. Unlike other depictions of the patriotic “greatest generation,” Westbrook argues that, strictly speaking, Americans in World War II were not instructed to fight, work, or die for... Read more >

Huey Long

Written by T. Harry Williams

Format: Trade Paperback, 944 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 12, 1981
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-394-74790-3 (0-394-74790-9)

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the National Book Award

He was one of the most extraordinary figures in American political history—a great natural politician who looked, and often seemed to behave, like a caricature of the red-neck Southern politico, and yet had become at the time of his assassination a... Read more >

The Hard Way Around
The Passages of Joshua Slocum
Written by Geoffrey Wolff

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 29, 2011
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-74545-3 (0-307-74545-7)

In 1895 Joshua Slocum set sail from Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the Spray, a thirty-seven-foot sloop. More than three years later, he became the first man to circumnavigate the globe solo, and his account of that voyage, Sailing Alone Around the World, made him internationally famous. But scandal soon followed, and a... Read more >