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America's War in Vietnam: A Short Narrative History
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This book has been long needed: a concise, complete and dispassionate survey of the Vietnam War.... Best of all, the no-nonsense approach answers questions as soon as they arise in the reader's mind." --Kliatt If there is such a thing as an objective account [of the Vietnam War], this is it.... If you want to read one book about Vietnam, read this one." --New York Review of Books A short, narrative history of the origins, course, and outcome of America's military involvement in Vietnam by an experienced guide to the causes and conduct of war, Larry H. Addington. He begins with a history of Vietnam before and after French occupation, the Cold War origins of American involvement, the domestic impact of American policies on public support, and the reasons for the ultimate failure of U.S. policy.
America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11: The Misunderstood Years Between the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Start of the War on Terror
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On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall collapsed, taking the Cold War down with it. The next twelve years passed in a haze of self-congratulation, Republican confusion, and angst, and economic prosperity--until they ended abruptly with a stunning catastrophe on September 11, 2001. In America Between The Wars, Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier blend deep expertise with broad access to both parties' political and policy establishments to find out how--and why--America failed to recognize that when we became the sole superpower with responsibility for the world's oversight, we overlooked how the new world actually worked.
Fog of War: The Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement
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It is well known that World War II gave rise to human rights rhetoric, discredited a racist regime abroad, and provided new opportunities for African Americans to fight, work, and demand equality at home. It would be all too easy to assume that the war was a key stepping stone to the modern civil rights movement. But Fog of War shows that in reality the momentum for civil rights was not so clear cut, with activists facing setbacks as well as successes and their opponents finding ways to establish more rigid defenses for segregation. While the war set the scene for a mass movement, it also narrowed some of the options for black activists. This collection is a timely reconsideration of the intersection between two of the dominant events of twentieth-century American history, the upheaval wrought by the Second World War and the social revolution brought about by the African American struggle for equality.
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945
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Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. Freedom From Fear tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities. The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As David Kennedy vividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before 1929, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, wastefully consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike. Nor was the fabled prosperity of the 1920s as uniformly shared as legend portrays. Countless Americans, especially if they were farmers, African Americans, or recent immigrants, eked out thread bare lives on the margins of national life. For them, the Depression was but another of the ordeals of fear and insecurity with which they were sadly familiar. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal wrung from the trauma of the 1930s a lasting legacy of economic and social reform, including the Social Security Act, new banking and financial laws, regulatory legislation, and new opportunities for organized labor. Taken together, those reforms gave a measure of security to millions of Americans who had never had much of it, and with it a fresh sense of having a stake in their country. Freedom From Fear tells the story of the New Deal's achievements, without slighting its shortcomings, contradictions, and failures. It is a story rich in drama and peopled with unforgettable personalities, including the incandescent but enigmatic figure of Roosevelt himself. Even as the New Deal was coping with the Depression, a still more fearsome menace was developing abroad--Hitler's thirst for war in Europe, coupled with the imperial ambitions of Japan in Asia. The same generation of Americans who battled the Depression eventually had to shoulder arms in another conflict that wreaked world wide destruction, ushered in the nuclear age, and forever changed their own way of life and their country's relationship to the rest of the world. Freedom From Fear explains how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could. Freedom From Fear is a comprehensive and colorful account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War--a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed. The Oxford History of the United States The Atlantic Monthly has praised The Oxford History of the United States as "the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship," a series that "synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge into one literally state-of-the-art book. Who touches these books touches a profession." Conceived under the general editorship of one of the leading American historians of our time, C. Vann Woodward, The Oxford History of the United States blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military history into coherent and vividly written narrative. Previous volumes are Robert Middlekauff's The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution; James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (which won a Pulitzer Prize and was a New York Times Best Seller); and James T. Patterson's Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974 (which won a Bancroft Prize).
The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the Origins of the Cold War
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It was forty-two years ago that Winston Churchill made his famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he popularized the phrase "Iron Curtain." This speech, according to Fraser Harbutt, set forth the basic Western ideology of the coming East-West struggle. It was also a calculated move within, and a dramatic public definition of, the Truman administration's concurrent turn from accommodation to confrontation with the Soviet Union. It provoked a response from Stalin that goes far to explain the advent of the Cold War a few weeks later. This book is at once a fascinating biography of Winston Churchill as the leading protagonist of an Anglo-American political and military front against the Soviet Union and a penetrating re-examination of diplomatic relations between the United States, Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R. in the postwar years. Pointing out the Americentric bias in most histories of this period, Harbutt shows that the Europeans played a more significant part in precipitating the Cold War than most people realize. He stresses that the same pattern of events that earlier led America belatedly into two world wars, namely the initial separation and then the sudden coming together of the European and American political arenas, appeared here as well. From the combination of biographical and structural approaches, a new historical landscape emerges. The United States appears at times to be the rather passive object of competing Soviet and British maneuvers. The turning point came with the crisis of early 1946, which here receives its fullest analysis to date, when the Truman administration in a systematic but carefully veiled and still widely misunderstood reorientation of policy (in which Churchill figured prominently) led the Soviet Union into the political confrontation that brought on the Cold War.
Truman, Congress, and Korea: The Politics of America's First Undeclared War
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Three days after North Korean premier Kim Il Sung launched a massive military invasion of South Korea on June 24, 1950, President Harry S. Truman responded, dispatching air and naval support to South Korea. Initially, Congress cheered his swift action; but, when China entered the war to aid North Korea, the president and many legislators became concerned that the conflict would escalate into another world war, and the United States agreed to a truce in 1953. The lack of a decisive victory caused the Korean War to quickly recede from public attention. However, its impact on subsequent American foreign policy was profound. In Truman, Congress, and Korea: The Politics of America's First Undeclared War, Larry Blomstedt provides the first in-depth domestic political history of the conflict, from the initial military mobilization, to Congress's failed attempts to broker a cease-fire, to the political fallout in the 1952 election. During the war, President Truman faced challenges from both Democratic and Republican legislators, whose initial support quickly collapsed into bitter and often public infighting. For his part, Truman dedicated inadequate attention to relationships on Capitol Hill early in his term and also declined to require a formal declaration of war from Congress, advancing the shift toward greater executive power in foreign policy. The Korean conflict ended the brief period of bipartisanship in foreign policy that began during World War II. It also introduced Americans to the concept of limited war, which contrasted sharply with the practice of requiring unconditional surrenders in previous conflicts. Blomstedt's study explores the changes wrought during this critical period and the ways in which the war influenced US international relations and military interventions during the Cold War and beyond.
When America Became Suburban
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In the decades after World War II, the United States became the most prosperous nation in the world and a superpower whose dominance was symbolized by the American suburbs. Spurred by the decline of its industrial cities and by mass suburbanization, people imagined a new national identity--one that emphasized consumerism, social mobility, and a suburban lifestyle. The urbanity of the city was lost. In When America Became Suburban, Robert A. Beauregard examines this historic intersection of urban decline, mass suburbanization, domestic prosperity, and U.S. global aspirations as it unfolded from 1945 to the mid-1970s. Suburban expansion and the subsequent emergence of sprawling Sunbelt cities transformed every aspect of American society. Assessing the global implications of America's suburban way of life as evidence of the superiority of capitalist democracy, Beauregard traces how the suburban ideology enabled America to distinguish itself from both the Communist bloc and Western Europe, thereby deepening its claim of exceptionalism on the world-historical stage. Placing the decline of America's industrial cities and the rise of vast suburban housing and retail spaces into a cultural, political, and global context, Beauregard illuminates how these phenomena contributed to a changing notion of America's identity at home and abroad. When America Became Suburban brings to light the profound implications of de-urbanization: from the siphoning of investments from the cities and the effect on the quality of life for those left behind to a profound shift in national identity. Robert A. Beauregard is a professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. He is the author of Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of U.S. Cities and editor of Economic Restructuring and Political Response and Atop the Urban Hierarchy.
Why War? : The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez
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Why did America invade Iraq? Why do nations choose to fight certain wars and not others? How do we bring ourselves to believe that the sacrifice of our troops is acceptable? For most, the answers to these questions are tied to struggles for power or resources and the machinations of particular interest groups. Philip Smith argues that this realist answer to the age-old "why war?" question is insufficient. Instead, Smith suggests that every war has its roots in the ways we tell and interpret stories. Comprised of case studies of the War in Iraq, the Gulf War, and the Suez Crisis, "Why War?" decodes the cultural logic of the narratives that justify military action. Each nation, Smith argues, makes use of binary codes good and evil, sacred and profane, rational and irrational, to name a few. These codes, in the hands of political leaders, activists, and the media, are deployed within four different types of narratives mundane, tragic, romantic, or apocalyptic. With this cultural system, Smith is able to radically recast our "war stories" and show how nations can have vastly different understandings of crises as each identifies the relevant protagonists and antagonists, objects of struggle, and threats and dangers. The large-scale sacrifice of human lives necessary in modern war, according to Smith, requires an apocalyptic vision of world events. In the case of the War in Iraq, for example, he argues that the United States and Britain replicated a narrative of impending global doom from the Gulf War. But in their apocalyptic account they mistakenly made the now seemingly toothless Saddam Hussein once again a symbol of evil by writing him into the story alongside al Qaeda, resulting in the war's contestation in the United States, Britain, and abroad. Offering an innovative approach to understanding how major wars are packaged, sold, and understood, "Why War?" will be applauded by anyone with an interest in military history, political science, cultural studies, and communication. "
World War One: A Short History
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The First World War was the overwhelming disaster from which everything else in the twentieth century stemmed. Fourteen million combatants died, four empires were destroyed, and even the victors' empires were fatally damaged. World War I took humanity from the nineteenth century forcibly into the twentieth--and then, at Versailles, cast Europe on the path to World War II as well. In World War One, Norman Stone, one of the world's greatest historians, has achieved the almost impossible task of writing a terse and witty short history of the war. A captivating, brisk narrative, World War One is Stone's masterful effort to make sense of one of the twentieth century's pivotal conflicts.
Worshipping the Myths of World War II: Reflections on America's Dedication to War
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Is any war a "good war"? In Worshipping the Myths of World War II, the author takes a critical look at what he sees is America's dedication to war as panacea and as Washington's primary method for leading the world. Articulating why he believes the lessons of World War II are profoundly relevant to today's events, Edward W. Wood, Jr., reflects on such topics as the killing of innocents, which became increasingly accepted during the war; on how actual killing is usually ignored in war discussions and reporting; on the lifetime impact of frontline duty, which he knew firsthand; on the widely accepted concept of "the Greatest Generation"; on present criteria for judging war memoirs and novels; on the fallacy that the United States won the war largely on its own; and on the effect that the Holocaust had on our national concepts of evil and purity. His final chapter centers on how the "war on terror" is different from World War II--and why the myths created about the latter hide that reality. 2007 Outstanding Academic Title selection from Choice Magazine
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America in the 20th Century
A series of documentary films spanning from the early 1900's to the World Wars to the Civil Rights movement.
The Pity Of War
In this fascinating and fresh take on the Great War, Harvard historian Professor Niall Ferguson argues that much of the responsibility for the scale of the conflict lies with the British. He suggests that Britain's decision to enter the war in 1914 was not merely tragic for the those who lost their lives, it was also a catastrophic error that unleashed an era of totalitarianism and genocide around the world.
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America at War Since 1945: Politics and Diplomacy in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War
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Focusing primarily on politics and foreign policy, America at War Since 1945 analyzes America's involvement in three wars since the end of World War II: Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. The main questions asked are: How did the U.S. become involved in these wars? How were the wars conducted? And how did the U.S. get out of these wars? In Korea and Vietnam, the U.S. fought to show the world that it would stand up to the evils of communism; that it could be counted on (with money, advisors, or even a major military effort if necessary) to halt the advance of communism. But in both wars, the U.S. showed itself to be militarily vulnerable. The Gulf War--against tyranny, not communism--restored the U.S. to its position of prominence in the world, reaffirming its role as a world leader and a defender of freedom.
America in 1900
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Many of the key issues concerning the United States as we enter the 21st century were already taking shape as we entered the 20th century. Business mergers, U.S. military intervention (in the Philippines), trade disputes with China and Europe, racial violence, high levels of crime, rising income gaps between rich and poor, volatile stock market prices, homelessness in the cities, the dangers of immigration, and the domination of money in elections -- all these major national issues in 1900 are familiar in some form to Americans today. The nation grappled for the first time with a series of complex new challenges: distribution of wealth and economic opportunity; the form race and ethnic relations should take in a country of increasing diversity; the relationship between big business and government; how the United States, as a new world power, should act overseas; and a host of others. Written in a fluid and highly readable style, Kent's ten chapters comprise a colorful narrative history of the major events of this pivotal year that continues to resonate a century later.
Discontented America: The United States in the 1920's
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It was a decade of great heroes like Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh, and of passive leaders like Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. The exuberant freedom of flappers drinking bathtub gin and dancing the Charleston did little to counter such powers of oppression as the rapidly rising Ku Klux Klan. Only the fictional wealth of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby survived the stock market crash unscathed; by the end of the decade, the comic adventures of Charlie Chaplin's "little tramp" bore faint resemblance to the grim realities faced by countless destitute Americans. Too often, notes historian David Goldberg, the mythic allure of the "Roaring Twenties" has deafened our ears to the real voices of those who lived through the decade. In Discontented America, he integrates social and political history to provide a new take on the 1920s—an account deeply rooted in the perspectives of that time. Goldberg argues that this contentious and fascinating decade should be viewed now as it was viewed then, as a distinctive postwar period, during which many of the conflicts generated by World War I continued to reverberate throughout American society. As America sought to step back from the leadership role it had taken in the Great War, Goldberg explains, the nation faced internal battles over women's suffrage, prohibition of the sale of "intoxicating beverages," the specter of communism, and the declining power of labor unions. Large numbers of African Americans migrated from the southern states to the north in search of employment and a better life, and at the same time, there was another heavy wave of newcomers from overseas. These, Goldberg concludes, were the issues that preoccupied serious Americans, and their concern is reflected in the federal legislation of the period, from constitutional amendments providing for prohibition and women's suffrage to the National Origins Act, meant to curtail immigration from nonwestern European countries. "The 1920s involved a time of confronting (or sometimes, ignoring) profound social problems, fears, and anxieties that had nagged the national consciousness for decades. David Goldberg very properly calls it a time of discontent, and in this work he thoroughly probes much of the underside of life that pitted Americans of differing classes, ethnicity, and religion against one another... As Goldberg notes, the Great Depression exposed underlying fallacies and weaknesses in the economy and provided the occasion for the great political and social transformation of the twentieth century. The achievements of the 1920s are long behind us, but the lessons of unbridled capitalism, intolerance, and the clashes between traditionalism and modernism very much remain. From the foreword by Stanley I. Kutler
Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century
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The definitive version of the Spanish-American War as well as a dramatic account of America's emergence as a global power.
Freedom Bound: A History of America's Civil Rights Movement
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A history of the American civil rights movement. It describes the crusades of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Baynard Rustin, Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X as well as the efforts of ordinary people like Fannie Lou Hamer.
The Gilded Age: A History in Documents
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When many Americans think of the Gilded Age, they picture the mansions at Newport, Rhode Island, or the tenements of New York City. Indeed, the late 19th century was a period of extreme poverty thinly veiled by fabulous wealth. However, we should not remember the era only for the strides made by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie or social reformer Jane Addams. All Americans had to adjust to the dynamic social and economic changes of the Gilded Age--the booming industries, growing cities, increased ethnic and cultural diversity. African American W. E. B. Du Bois, Native American Sitting Bull and Chinese American Saum Song Bo spoke out against racial injustice. European immigrants Mary Antin and Robert Ferrari suffered the pitfalls and praised the opportunities found in their new country. Pioneer Phoebe Judson lamented the loneliness of making a life out West. And workers at Homestead Steel lost their lives in an attempt to improve labor conditions. Drawing from the letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, journals, and speeches of Gilded Age Americans, author Janette Greenwood arranges all of these voices to tell a story more vibrant and textured than the simple tale of robber baron versus starving poor. In addition to these voices, visuals--such as advertisements, maps, political cartoons, and a picture essay on Jacob Riiss urban photographs--create a kaleidoscopic view of the quarter century when diverse Americans struggled for the same goal: a better way of life, with more justice and democracy for each and all. PAGES FROM HISTORY General Editors: Sarah Deutsch, University of Arizona, Carol Karlsen, University of Michigan, Robert G. Moeller, University of California, Irvine, and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Indiana University, Bloomington Textbooks may interpret history, but the books in the Pages from History series are history. Each title, compiled and edited by a prominent historian, is a collection of primary sources relating to a particular topic of historical significance. Documentary evidence including news articles, government documents, memoirs, letters, diaries, fiction, photographs, and facsimiles allows history to speak for itself and turns every reader into a historian. Headnotes, extended captions, sidebars, and introductory essays provide the essential context that frames the documents. All the books are amply illustrated and each includes a documentary picture essay, chronology, further reading, source notes, and index.
The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction
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The New Deal shaped our nation's politics for decades, and was seen by many as tantamount to the "American Way" itself. Now, in this superb compact history, Eric Rauchway offers an informed account of the New Deal and the Great Depression, illuminating its successes and failures. Rauchway first describes how the roots of the Great Depression lay in America's post-war economic policies--described as "laissez-faire with a vengeance"--which in effect isolated our nation from the world economy just when the world needed the United States most. He shows how the magnitude of the resulting economic upheaval, and the ineffectiveness of the old ways of dealing with financial hardships, set the stage for Roosevelt's vigorous (and sometimes unconstitutional) Depression-fighting policies. Indeed, Rauchway stresses that the New Deal only makes sense as a response to this global economic disaster. The book examines a key sampling of New Deal programs, ranging from the National Recovery Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the Public Works Administration and Social Security, revealing why some worked and others did not. In the end, Rauchway concludes, it was the coming of World War II that finally generated the political will to spend the massive amounts of public money needed to put Americans back to work. And only the Cold War saw the full implementation of New Deal policies abroad--including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Today we can look back at the New Deal and, for the first time, see its full complexity. Rauchway captures this complexity in a remarkably short space, making this book an ideal introduction to one of the great policy revolutions in history.
Opposing Viewpoints in American History
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This volume will help students and readers to understand the rich history of disputation that has formed and informed American history, from the Reconstruction to present time. America's history is filled with controversy, whether it relates to how an event was chronicled, or the truth of the events themselves, the historical timeline of America is never without debate. This volume presents carefully selected conflicting essays with primary and secondary source quotations to allow students to debate the questions that come to mind with each event. Study questions for each section provide excellent starting points for research and discussion.
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
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A landmark history -- the sweeping story of the enslavement of tens of thousands of Indians across America, from the time of the conquistadors up to the early 20th century Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andrés Reséndez illuminates in his myth-shattering The Other Slavery, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors, then forced to descend into the "mouth of hell" of eighteenth-century silver mines or, later, made to serve as domestics for Mormon settlers and rich Anglos. Reséndez builds the incisive case that it was mass slavery, more than epidemics, that decimated Indian populations across North America. New evidence, including testimonies of courageous priests, rapacious merchants, Indian captives, and Anglo colonists, sheds light too on Indian enslavement of other Indians -- as what started as a European business passed into the hands of indigenous operators and spread like wildfire across vast tracts of the American Southwest. The Other Slavery reveals nothing less than a key missing piece of American history. For over two centuries we have fought over, abolished, and tried to come to grips with African-American slavery. It is time for the West to confront an entirely separate, equally devastating enslavement we have long failed truly to see.
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! : Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America
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This book explores a widely lived yet little remembered facet of America's cultural and political history: the Cold War as experienced at the grassroots level. Here, Fried traces the cresting of modern patriotic observance during World War II and then shows how patriotic and civic activists afterwards labored to recreate a remembered unity and commitment in the tension-filled Cold War era. A variety of national and local entities mounted campaigns "to sell America to the Americans" through "rededication" celebrations like Know Your America Week and Freedom Week. The American Heritage Foundation wheeled out the Freedom Train, which carried seminal documents of the nation's past to railroad depots across the US. Fried revisits the 1950 "Communist invasion" of Mosinee, Wisconsin, when ersatz Stalinists harassed and bullied citizens and the town's eateries served only potato soup and black bread. He also depicts the creation and inauguration of new patriotic events like Loyalty Day and Armed Forces Day. Meticulously researched, this book recreates a colorful, sometimes comical, and always revealing dimension of our history.
United States History From 1865
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The Collins College Outline for United States History from 1865 follows the key moments and players in American history from the Civil War Reconstruction period to the record high gas prices and low presidential poll numbers of 2006, with information on politics, disasters, crimes and scandals, social issues, pop culture, and more. This guide also contains appendixes on the territorial expansion and admission of states into the Union, the population of the United States, and a timeline of presidents and secretaries of state. Completely revised and updated by Dr. John Baick, this book includes a test yourself section with answers and complete explanations at the end of each chapter. Also included are bibliographies for further reading, as well as numerous vocabulary lists, exercises, and examples. The Collins College Outlines are a completely revised, in-depth series of study guides for all areas of study, including the Humanities, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Science, Language, History, and Business. Featuring the most up-to-date information, each book is written by a seasoned professor in the field and focuses on a simplified and general overview of the subject for college students and, where appropriate, Advanced Placement students. Each Collins College Outline is fully integrated with the major curriculum for its subject and is a perfect supplement for any standard textbook.
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The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates
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"Here, in one handy volume, are more than 15,000 facts, dates, and events that trace and illuminate all facets of the American experience from early exploration to modern technology, sports to science, fashion to politics, religion to the arts. Covering more than 1,000 years of U.S. history, The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates records everything from the Norse explorers of 986 to Bill Clinton's election in November 1992." "Uniquely arranged in four parallel columns for each year, the book covers: I. Exploration and Settlement, Wars, Government, Civil Rights, Statistics; II. Publishing, Arts and Music, Popular Entertainment, Architecture, Theater; III. Business and Industry, Science, Education, Philosophy and Religion; IV. Sports, Social Issues and Crime, Folkways, Fashion, Holidays." "When you read down the columns you learn about events in chronological order in a single area. When you read across the columns you get a picture of all the important events in all areas for any given year. This dual method of providing information is further supplemented by a superbly detailed and fully cross-referenced index." "Containing a wealth of information - including key dates, vital statistics, important firsts, and more - the Encyclopedia provides, in short, all the details of American life. Most important, it doesn't only give you the facts; it also provides the important background information needed to place those facts in perspective." "The Encyclopedia of American Facts & Dates has been a standard work of American history since it was first published in 1956. Now in its ninth edition, it remains the only chronologically arranged book of American history with both encyclopedic detail and comprehensive coverage. It is the book to turn to for information on all aspects of American life."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Encyclopedia of the Cold War
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This work offers A to Z information on the political struggle that has dominated East-West relations since 1945 and which, until the last few years, has seemed irrevocable. The rivalry between the superpowers is delineated, particularly in terms of the potential effects of thermonuclear weapons.
Encyclopedia of the Persian Gulf War
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Between January 17 and February 28, 1991, an international military coalition sanctioned by the United Nations and led by the United States defeated a large, well-equipped Iraqi army and forced it to withdraw from occupied Kuwait, in what is now known as the Persian Gulf War. As the first major military action after the end of the Cold War, many view the Gulf War as the precursor of a new military doctrine for conflicts in the 21st century; ground troops from 19 countries around the globe participated in the operation, reflecting the ever-changing environment in post-Cold War politics. From Al Firdos Bunker, a hardened bunker that U.S. intelligence believed was the Iraqi Internal Security Directorate, to Lieutenant General John Yeosock, commander of the U.S. 3rd Army in the Gulf War, this is a comprehensive reference work to the people, places, events, weapons, operations, and other matters in the Persian Gulf War. A chronology is also provided, covering the major events from 1958 through 1991 that led to the rise of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, his invasion of Kuwait, and the rousting of Iraqi forces from that country.
Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War
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Vietnam was the most controversial and diverse war in 20th-century American History. Its legacy of confusion and contention continues to mar our understanding of what happened and why - and what Vietnam means for future generations. This volume sets out to shed light on the people, events and actions involved in the war. It contains three types of articles: brief, dictionary-like entries (50 to 1000 words) for easy reference to personalities, military units, and battles; longer articles (1000 to 2500 words) on major figures such as John F. Kennedy, Ho Chi Minh and Henry Kissinger; and extended essays (5000 to 10,000 words) that describe and interpret major themes including The Land and the People of Vietnam, Diplomacy, The Search for Peace The War at Home and The Media. The encyclopedia is well illustrated with more than 200 maps, photographs and drawings that add important visual information to this text. For ease of use, the encyclopedia is in alphabetical order with extensive cross-references, blind entries, and bibliographies.
Historic Landmarks of Black America
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His reference is meant for students or travelers seeking information on sites throughout the US (plus Ontario) that are relevant to African-American history. A brief review of that history is followed by information about some 300 sites, arranged by region and then by state, with location and visitation data and discussion of each site's historical significance. Includes regional site-location maps, photos, a timeline, a bibliography, and an index.
Modern America, 1914 to 1945
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Features essays, statistical data, period photographs, maps, advertisements, and documents.
Twentieth-Century America: Politics and Power in the United States, 1900-2000
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Coined in 1941 by Time magazine publisher Henry Luce, the twentieth century has been called "America's Century" in anticipation that American values would continue to dominate and spread throughout the world stage as it had in the first part of the century. This title is a comprehensive analysis of the U.S. political system from 1900 to 2000, a period of unprecedented growth and power and one punctuated by crises and division. Part One focuses on the "Progressive Order" which emerged with the progressive movement at the beginning of the century and lasted until the stock market crash that lead to the Great Depression. Part Two begins in 1933 when President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal ushered in a era of big government liberalism which lasted until the late 1960s when it was undermined by dissension over Vietnam and racial and political turmoil. Part Three is called "Divided Order" and captures the last third of the century when the U.S. political system was characterized by hyper-partisanship, particularly when the White House and Congress were controlled by opposing parties. The issues of class, gender and race are explored as important formative influences in the course of American history, as was the role of American workers, immigrants, women, and African-Americans.
The United States in the Middle East: A Historical Dictionary
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This historical dictionary brings together information about the people, institutions, and events that brought the United States in contact with the Middle East and have played a significant role in shaping our relations with the area from the eighteenth century to the present time. The author's introduction presents an historical review of the role Americans and American institutions have played in the region. Entries include persons who have actually been in the Middle East, particularly those who left notable written or visual records; organizations and institutions that operated in the Middle East; and events that occurred in the area. Following a descriptive essay, each entry lists books and articles written about the subject, and where relevant, general biographical dictionaries in which the subject appears. Lists of abbreviations and place names, as well as separate bibliography and an index, are provided.
World War I: The Essential Reference Guide
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With its authoritative reference entries, multiple introductory and perspective essays, primary source documents, detailed chronology, and bibliography, this single-volume reference provides all the key information readers need to understand this monumental conflict. * Includes perspective essays on such widely debated topics as what was the primary cause of World War I and whether the conflict made World War II inevitable * Supplies important primary source documents--such as the Balfour Declaration and the Zimmermann Telegram--that serve to put historical events into clearer context for students * Provides essential reference material for students, including entries on all the key events, people, and organizations, as well as a detailed chronology, key images, and maps
DVDs must be viewed in the library. Search for more videos using the SC4 Library Catalog.
FDR
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Learn the story of one of America's most beloved Presidents. Includes rare archival footage and home movies as well as fascinating interviews with family members, friends, biographers, and eyewitnesses to the Roosevelt saga.
Last Days in Vietnam
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"April 1975. During the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War, as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon, the South Vietnamese resistance crumbled. The United States had only a skeleton crew of diplomats and military operatives still in the country. With the lives of thousands of South Vietnamese hanging in the balance, those in control faced an impossible choice -- who would go and who would be left behind to face brutality, imprisonment or even death. At the risk of their careers and possible court-martials, a handful of individuals took matters into their own hands. Engaging in unsanctioned and often makeshift operations, they waged a desperate effort to evacuate as many South Vietnamese as possible"--Container.
The Men Who Built America
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Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Ford, and the men who built America. Meet the titans who forged the foundation of modern America and created the American Dream. The miniseries shines a spotlight on the influential builders, dreamers, and believers whose feats transformed the United States.
Prohibition
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This videodisc explores the extraordinary story of what happens when a freedom-loving nation outlaws the sale of intoxicating liquor, and the disastrous unintended consequences that follow. The utterly relevant cautionary tale raises profound questions about the proper role of government and the limits of legislating morality. When the country goes dry in 1920, after a century of debate, millions of law-abiding Americans become lawbreakers overnight.
The Sixties: The Years That Shaped a Generation
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This documentary features revealing interviews with the prominent figures of the era including: Barbara Ehrenreich, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesse Jackson, Tom Hayden, Arlo Guthrie, Henry Kissinger, Norman Mailer, Robert McNamara, Ed Messe III and Bobby Seale.
Sputnik Mania
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On Oct. 4, 1957, the USSR announced to an unsuspecting world that it had launched the first man-made object ever to successfully orbit earth. Americans were stunned and then terrified. Americans asked themselves what had happened to our academic and technological superiority; could the Soviets overtake us; could their satellites be used as weapons of mass destruction? Recalls the impact the satellite had on the American psyche, and how the shock catapulted the nation from complacency into action.
United States of Secrets
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Frontline investigates the secret history of the unprecedented surveillance program that began in the wake of September 11th and continues today. As big technology companies encouraged users to share more and more information about their lives, they created a trove of data that could be useful not simply to advertisers, but also to the government. The revelations of NSA contractor Edward Snowden would push Silicon Valley into the center of a debate over privacy and government surveillance.
The War
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Tells the story of ordinary people in four quintessentially American towns - Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and Luverne, Minnesota - and examines the ways in which the Second World War touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America.
Full text eJournals are searchable through the library catalog or on the eJournals page.
