american history

Journalist Eugene Robinson has spent decades chronicling American democracy. In his new book, 'Freedom Lost, Freedom Won,' Robinson blends sweeping history with personal narrative, grounding the national struggle for civil rights in his own family’s story.

Journalist Eugene Robinson has spent decades chronicling American democracy. In his new book, 'Freedom Lost, Freedom Won,' Robinson blends sweeping history with personal narrative, grounding the national struggle for civil rights in his own family’s story.

Walter Isaacson is a biographer of geniuses like Benjamin Franklin and in his new book he reveals the origins of the most genius revolutionary line in the Declaration of Independence. He does so in his book “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.”

"There Are NO Black Shakers" is a contemporary folk opera re-interpreting traditional Shaker hymns to tell the very true story of Prime Lane, a free Black man who joined the Shaker Society in Albany in 1802. It is a debut opera written and directed by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak with Musical Direction by Gwen Laster and will be performed at The Yard in Beacon, NY on Thursday, July 24 at 7 p. m.

In 2004, Historian Russell Shorto published “The Island at the Center of the World,” a book about Manhattan and the role of the Dutch in making New York (and America) what it is today. His new book, “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America,” continues the story.

Harvard History professor Joyce Chaplin’s new book, "The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution," is the story of this singular invention, and a revelatory new look at Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father we thought we knew.

Steve Inskeep is a cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio program in the United States. His new book, "Differ We Must," is an exploration of Abraham Lincoln’s political acumen, illuminating a great politician’s strategy in a country divided—and lessons for our own disorderly present.

Amy Godine’s new book, "The Black Woods,"- chronicles the history of Black pioneers in New York's northern wilderness.Amy Godine has been writing and speaking about ethnic, migratory, and Black Adirondack history for more than three decades. Exhibits she has curated include "Dreaming of Timbuctoo" at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba, New York.

Steve Inskeep is a cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio program in the United States. His new book, "Differ We Must," is an exploration of Abraham Lincoln’s political acumen, illuminating a great politician’s strategy in a country divided—and lessons for our own disorderly present.

In "The Women of NOW," the historian Katherine Turk chronicles the growth and enduring influence of this foundational group through three lesser-known members who became leaders: Aileen Hernandez, a federal official of Jamaican American heritage; Mary Jean Collins, a working-class union organizer and Chicago Catholic; and Patricia Hill Burnett, a Michigan Republican, artist, and former beauty queen. From its bold inception through the tumultuous training ground of the 1970s, NOW’s feminism flooded the nation, permanently shifted American culture and politics, and clashed with conservative forces, presaging our fractured national landscape.