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american history

  • The history of the United States has been shaped by immigration. Historian Carl Bon Tempo provides a sweeping historical narrative told through the lives and words of the quite ordinary people who did nothing less than make the nation.
  • Best-selling author Rinker Buck’s new book, “Life on the Mississippi,” is a blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat and sails down the Mississippi, illuminating the forgotten past of America’s first western frontier.
  • There’s a common story we tell about America: that our fundamental values as a country were stated in the Declaration of Independence, fought for in the Revolution, and made law in the Constitution. But, with the country increasingly divided, this story isn’t working for us anymore—what’s more, it’s not even true.As Kermit Roosevelt argues in reinterpretation of the American story, our fundamental values, particularly equality, are not part of the vision of the Founders. Instead, they were stated in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and were the hope of Reconstruction, when it was possible to envision the emergence of the nation committed to liberty and equality.
  • John F. Kennedy entered office inexperienced but alluring, his reputation more given by an enamored public than earned through achievement. "Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency"(Dutton) is a new assessment of his time in the Oval Office. Presidential historian Mark K. Updegrove reveals how JFK’s first months were marred by setbacks: the botched Bay of Pigs invasions, a disastrous summit with the Soviet premier, and a mismanaged approach to the Civil Rights movement. But the young president soon proved that behind the glamour was a leader of uncommon fortitude and vision.
  • Does George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington's unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all thirteen former colonies. His book “Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy” is available in paperback.
  • Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys’ initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar voters. Today, we remember this iconic American family as the vanguard of wealth, power, and style rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Here at last, we meet the first American Kennedys, Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly. Her rise from housemaid to shop owner in the face of rampant poverty and discrimination kept her family intact, allowing her only son P.J. to become a successful saloon owner and businessman. P.J. went on to become the first American Kennedy elected to public office—the first of many.Written by the grandson of an Irish immigrant couple and based on first-ever access to P.J. Kennedy’s private papers, "The First Kennedys" is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance and reinvention: an American story.
  • The new book "400 Souls" is a unique one volume community history of African Americans. The editors Ibram X. Kendi and Keyshia Blaine have assembled 90…
  • For more than two centuries, historians have debated the history of the American Revolution, disputing its roots, its provenance, and above all, its meaning. These questions have intrigued Joseph J. Ellis throughout his entire career. With "The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783," he brings the story of the revolution to vivid life. Completing a trilogy of books that began with "Founding Brothers," "The Cause" returns us to the very heart of the American founding, telling the military and political story of the war for independence from the ground up, and from all sides: British and American, loyalist and patriot, white and Black.
  • The new historical documentary, “Searching for Timbuctoo,” will have its Albany premiere on November 12th at 7:00p.m. on the Downtown Campus of the University at Albany. The screening is hosted by the New York State Writers Institute, is free and open to the public.
  • Does George Washington still matter? Bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick argues for Washington's unique contribution to the forging of America by retracing his journey as a new president through all thirteen former colonies. His new book is “Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy.”