"The Underground Railroad" provides the richest portrayal yet of the first large scale act of interracial collaboration in the United States, mapping out the complex network of routes and safe stations that made escape from slavery in the American South possible.

Kerry Walters' stirring account ranges from the earliest acts of slave resistance and the rise of the Abolitionist movement, to the establishment of clandestine "liberty lines" through the eastern and then-western regions of the Union and ultimately to Canada. Separating fact from legend, Walters draws extensively on...

The Cold War not only comprised the dominant theme in American foreign policy during the second half of the 20th century; its influence was also imbedded into American culture. The half-century duration of the Cold War was an extended learning period during which the United States found that it could no longer remain an isolationist nation in a complex, quickly evolving, and dangerous world. This book covers the entire scope of the Cold War, from its background and origins before and after World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, providing coverage of key...

The progressive impulse that energized the United States between 1890 and 1920 forever altered the nature of American government and its relation to its citizens. This book was written to reveal the challenges Americans faced during the Progressive Era and to show how their responses helped transform the nation. Combining a narrative on the era with biographies of key participants, significant primary sources, and an annotated bibliography, the topically organized volume offers a lively contextual guide to one of the great turning points in American history.

In addition to covering the...

In this chronological examination of the Democratic Party's origins, award-winning author Mark R. Cheathem traces the development of both the Democratic Party and the second American party system from its roots in the Jeffersonian Republicans in the 1790s to its maturation during Andrew Jackson's presidency in the 1830s. The book explores the concept of politics and its effects on the national government of the early American republic.

This historical reference is filled with fascinating facts and anecdotes about 19th-century politics in the United States, most notably how...

"Reconstruction: A Reference Guide" covers the entire period of Reconstruction (1863 1877) with a special emphasis on the struggle for social and political equality in the post-Civil War South. The book's analytical essays, selection of primary documents, and biographies of key participants give readers an understanding of social, political, and economic changes that occurred during this important period as well as provide opportunities to explore more specific issues and debates.

Synthesizing and building on the work of recent scholars, the book documents how the central struggles of...

Without the War for Independence and its successful outcome for the patriots, the course of American development our institutions, culture, politics, and economics would have run in radically different directions. From any perspective, the War for Independence was one of the seminal events of national history. This book offers a clear, easy-to-read, and complete overview of the origins of the imperial crisis, the course of the war, and the ultimate success of the movement for independence. It also emphasizes the human cost of the struggle: the ferocity of the fighting that stemmed from the...

Suffragists often endured ridicule, vitriol, and violence as they sought full citizenship. These women, and the men who supported them, demonstrated a deeply rooted commitment to their cause over the course of many decades of effort spent for discouraging results, and in spite of the dangers faced in undertaking political protest.

Votes for Women provides an updated consideration of the questions raised by the mass movement to gain equality and access to power in our democracy. It interprets the campaigns for woman suffrage from the 1830s until 1920, analyzes the...