Books

Healing a Divided Nation

by Carole Adrienne

From specialized trauma care to emergency transportation to board certification of physicians, when we encounter the medical system today, we are experiencing Civil War medicine. 

Kathryn Olmsted's "Newspaper Axis" Shows Media Extremism Nothing New

by Kathryn Smith

FDR's success in promoting the New Deal and rallying Americans to the defense of Europe against fascism was a triumph over the nation's right-wing newspaper barons. 

Learning About Stalin from His Books: An Interview with Geoffrey Roberts

by Aaron J. Leonard

Researchers who access Stalin's books will find the dictator's library a source of insight into his political thinking and engagement with ideas (and his pithy marginalia), but not a Rosetta Stone for understanding his capacity for atrocity. 

The Story of the School that Defied Nazi Ideological Control

by Deborah Cadbury

Amid the intense politicization of education today, what can we learn from one remarkable story of a teacher's defiance of official ideological control? 

Excerpt: INAUGURAL BALLERS: The True Story of the First U.S. Olympic Women’s Basketball Team

by Andrew Maraniss

“Win this game,” Billie Moore told her team, “and it will change women’s sports in this country for the next twenty-five years.”

Excerpt: The Fires of Stavishche, 1919

by Lisa Brahin

Between 1917 and 1921, an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 Jews were murdered in pogroms across Ukraine. The author has worked to reconstruct this history, including her ancestors' escape from the town of Stavishche.

A History of Art for Our Times

by Charlotte Mullins

The classic works of art history tell a story of great artists, overwhelmingly European and male. The author's new history refocuses the narrative on the diverse networks of creators through which art is made – networks crossing lines of geography and including women artists and artists of color. 

Historians Disagree with Alito: Roe Didn't Create Polarization

by Adam Serwer

The idea that the 1973 Roe decision created polarized politics around the Supreme Court ignores the decades-long backlash to Brown v. Board of Education and other decisions of the Warren Court and the contested politics of abortion before Roe. 

Confronting the Erasure of Native Americans in Early American Towns and Cities

by Edward Rafferty

Colin Calloway's book explores the presence of Native Americans in early American towns and cities, demolishing the longstanding myth that they vanished with the wilderness and highlighting indigenous critiques of the settler society. 

Bringing Queer History to the Public (Excerpt)

by Marc Stein

The author of a new book of essays on writing queer public history recalls how he developed a voice for writing to the broader public – including by writing for HNN. 

Excerpt: A Late-Life Friend Shares Rosa Parks's Memory of Her (Widely Misunderstood) Refusal to Move

by H.H. Leonards

H.H. Leonards was asked in 1994 to host an elderly woman she didn't know, and didn't at first recognize as a civil rights pioneer. This spring she is publishing the lessons she learned from an unlikely friendship with Rosa Parks. 

Excerpt: George Brown and Firestone's Liberian Empire of Rubber

by Gregg Mitman

The African American intellectual George Brown confronts the brutality of Firestone's rubber plantation empire in Liberia in an excerpt from a new history of the company. 

Irwin Gellman Asks: Did JFK Steal Victory in the "Campaign of the Century"?

by Justin P. Coffey

Irwin Gellman's latest volume in his political history of Nixon argues the 1960 election returns in Illinois and Texas were rigged for Kennedy. A reviewer finds the case is intriguing but falls short of solid proof, though it does resonate with charges of stolen elections and media favoritism that are all too familiar today. 

Bridget the Grocer and the First American Kennedys

by Neal Thompson

The history of the Irish immigrant Kennedys has long focused on its prominent men. A new book looks to JFK's grandmother Bridget Murphy Kennedy as the foundation of the family and a neglected figure for understanding immigration, urban life, and the changing of American politics.

Martin Indyk Writes the Palestinians Out of the History of Kissinger's Middle East Diplomacy

by James R. Stocker

Martin Indyk’s new work offers a vivid portrait of the former Secretary of State’s Arab-Israeli diplomacy, but he completely misses one of the most important parts of this policy – the Palestinians.

Peter Richardson on Hunter S. Thompson and the Long Shadow of the Counterculture

by Aaron J. Leonard

"His historical significance, I think, lies in his willingness to challenge the nation’s political class, including the leaders of both major parties. He didn’t do that in established journals of opinion."

The Art of Swimming (Excerpt)

by Bill Hayes

Unline many recognizable modern sports, for most of human history swimming was treated as a utilitarian activity (and occasionally as a pleasure), unsuited for competition or spectatorship.

Can a New Labor Movement Grow and Win with Direct Action Instead of Collective Bargaining?

by Lawrence Wittner

"In this time of growing corporate domination of the United States and of the world, William E. Scheuerman's A New American Labor Movement illuminates a useful path forward in the long and difficult struggle for workers’ rights."

Perlstein's "Reaganland" Sheds New Light on a Familiar Story

by Ron Steinman

Rick Perlstein's "Reaganland" captures details of the 1980 campaign that weren't obvious even to political journalists covering Reagan's ultimately successful mission to take the conservative movement to the White House. 

What "Forget the Alamo" Forgets

by James W. Russell

"Forget the Alamo" is ultimately constrained by American unwillingness to fully deal with the reality that the US forcibly stole Texas and the southwest from Mexico.