Books like The Unfinished Nation by Alan Brinkley

A compelling overview of American history through the eyes and experiences of its women, workers, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and the working poor.

A chilling memoir detailing Solomon Northup's harrowing experience as a captive on a Louisiana plantation for twelve years, from 1841 to 1853.

A comprehensive chronicle of American history from colonization to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, viewed through a multicultural lens.

In thid book the author shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven are sugar's origins as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with its use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat. Finally, he considers how sugar has altered work patterns, eating habits, and our diet in modern times.

Used by over one million students, America: A Narrative History is one of the most successful American history textbooks ever published. Offering a comprehensive introduction to the history of the United States, this work provides wide coverage of social and cultural history. The authors look at how colonial taverns not only served as places to socialize but also became hotbeds for political action before the American Revolution; they explore how the rise of baseball served to equalize whites of different classes but exacerbated racial tension through segregated leagues; and they explore the rise of rock and roll and the "youth culture" of the 1950s as a reaction to the conservative culture.

"This established introductory text provides a lucid, authoritative account of the course of American history, discussing political, social, economic and cultural developments. In this revised and updatednew edition, Jenkins discusses the Obama presidency, the economic crisis and recent environmental issues"--

Queering the Color Line transforms previous understandings of how homosexuality was “invented” as a category of identity in the United States beginning in the late nineteenth century. Analyzing a range of sources, including sexology texts, early cinema, and African American literature, Siobhan B. Somerville argues that the emerging understanding of homosexuality depended on the context of the black/white “color line,” the dominant system of racial distinction during this period. This book thus critiques and revises tendencies to treat race and sexuality as unrelated categories of analysis, showing instead that race has historically been central to the cultural production of homosexuality. At about the same time that the 1896 Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson decision hardened the racialized boundary between black and white, prominent trials were drawing the public’s attention to emerging categories of sexual identity. Somerville argues that these concurrent developments were not merely parallel but in fact inextricably interrelated and that the discourses of racial and sexual “deviance” were used to reinforce each other’s terms. She provides original readings of such texts as Havelock Ellis’s late nineteenth-century work on “sexual inversion,” the 1914 film A Florida Enchantment, the novels of Pauline E. Hopkins, James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, and Jean Toomer’s fiction and autobiographical writings, including Cane. Through her analyses of these texts and her archival research, Somerville contributes to the growing body of scholarship that focuses on discovering the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality. Queering the Color Line will have broad appeal across disciplines including African American studies, gay and lesbian studies, literary criticism, cultural studies, cinema studies, and gender studies.

The inside story of American history. One of the most popular American history texts ever written, The American Pageant combines colorful anecdotes, first-person quotations, and the authors' trademark wit to engage students like no other text. This revised edition includes in-depth explorations of the cultural innovations, artistic movements, and intellectual doctrines that have engaged and inspired Americans and shaped the course of American history. New in-text features present primary sources, scholarly debates, and key historical figures, and offer context for the major periods in American history -- giving you the tools you need to analyze key events and eras like a historian! - Back cover.