In this fresh survey of foreign relations in the early years of the American republic, William Earl Weeks argues that the construction of the new nation went hand in hand with the building of the American empire. Mr. Weeks traces the origins of this initiative to the 1750s, when the Founding Fathers began to perceive the advantages of colonial union and the possibility of creating an empire within the British Empire that would provide security and the potential for commercial and territorial expansion. After the adoption of the Constitution and a far stronger central government than had been...

This is the story of the drive to free the American South from the shackles of legally sanctioned racial segregation. In a lively and compact narrative, John Salmond sets the scene with the first stirrings of revolt prompted by the New Deal and the experiences of blacks in World War II. He then concentrates on the years between the 1954 Supreme Court decision overturning segregated public schools and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the last of the civil rights statutes. Martin Luther King, Jr., plays a central role in the book, for as Mr. Salmond notes, he came to symbolize the moral trajectory...

This history of jazz, spanning the twentieth century, is the first to place it within the broad context of American culture. Burton Peretti argues persuasively that this distinctive American music has been a key thread in the tapestry of the nation s culture. The music itself, its players and its audience, and the critical debates it has prompted, tell us much about changes in American life since 1910. Mr. Peretti traces the emergence of jazz out of ragtime during a time of tumultuous growth of cites and industries. In the 1920s jazz flourished and symbolized the cultural struggle between...

For many years historians of the Cuban missile crisis have concentrated on those thirteen days in October 1962 when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. Mark White s study adds an equally intense scrutiny of the causes and consequences of the crisis. Missiles in Cuba is based on up-to-date scholarship as well as Mr. White s own findings in National Security Archive materials, Kennedy Library tapes of ExComm meetings, and correspondence between Soviet officials in Washington and Havana all newly released. His more rounded picture gives us a much clearer understanding of the policy...

Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was the most ambitious and controversial American reform effort since the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt. Conceived in a time of prosperity rather than devastating depression, it sought to forge a consensus that rested on ideals rather than harsh economic realities. In this narrative analysis, John Andrew examines the underlying ideas and principal objectives of Great Society legislation in the areas of civil rights, poverty, health, education, urban life, and consumer issues--legislation that addressed some of the most important and complex problems facing...

A narrative account of the fight to regulate alcohol, from roughly 1800 to the repeal of national prohibition in 1933. An intriguing tale of social reform and of the limits of government-imposed morality. The best short history available of the politics and practices of American temperance reform....Highly recommended. Library Journal. American Ways Series."