The Best Americas History Books 2025

1. America: The Last Best Hope (Volume II): From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom, (Paperback)

Respected scholar William Bennett reacquaints America with its heritage in the second volume of America: The Last Best Hope (Volume II). This engaging narrative slices through the cobwebs of time, memory, and prevailing cynicism to reinvigorate America with an informed patriotism. While national test scores reveal that American students know startlingly little about their history, former U.S. Education Secretary William J. Bennett offers one of the most gripping and memorable versions of the American story in print. Bennett brings American history to life with stories such as: when Time magazine named Hitler man of the year Eisenhower's bold actions documenting the horrors of the Holocaust Nixon's comic opera uniforms for White House guards Reagan's most famous example of just saying "No" From upheavals of the Great Depression and WWII to the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, from the high drama of the Space Race to the gut-wrenching tension of the Cold War, Bennett slices through the cobwebs of time, memory, and prevailing cynicism to reinvigorate America with an informed patriotism. Praise for America: The Last Best Hope "This is the American history that Abraham Lincoln has long awaited." -Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided "Bennett has a gift for choosing the pithy, revealing anecdote and for providing fresh character sketches and critical analyses of the leading figures. This is an American history that adults will find refreshing and enlightening and that younger readers will find a darn good read." -Michael Barone, US News & World Report "A worthy and necessary book for our time." -Michael J. Lewis, Commentary "Bennett ... has a strong sense of narrative, a flair for anecdote and a lively style. And the American story really is a remarkable one, filled with its share of brilliant leaders and tragic mistakes. Bennett brings that story to life." -Alan Wolfe, The Washington Post "The role of history is to inform, inspire, and sometimes provoke us, which is why Bill Bennett's wonderfully readable book is so important. He puts our nation's triumphs, along with its lapses, into the context of a narrative about the progress of freedom. Every now and then it's useful to be reminded that we are a fortunate people, blessed with generations of leaders who repeatedly renewed the meaning of America." -Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life&

America: The Last Best Hope (Volume II): From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom, (Paperback) Author: Thomas Nelson ISBN: 9781595550873 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 2008-04-06 Page Count: 608

2. Everything® Series: The Everything American History Book : People, Places, and Events That Shaped Our Nation (Paperback)

Starting with the first Viking explorations and continuing to the present day, The Everything American History Book, 2nd Edition takes you on a thrilling tour through history. It's packed with facts and vivid details of events that shaped the United States, including: Wars, battles, and famous generals Outstanding American inventions--from the cotton gin to the Internet Key political figures--presidents, peacekeepers, visionaries And much, much more!The Everything American History Book, 2nd Edition covers all the major incidents and key players--from the Boston Tea Party to 9/11, and Lewis and Clark to Martin Luther King, Jr. This extraordinary retelling makes learning history fun for the whole family

Starting with the first Viking explorations and continuing to the present day, The Everything American History Book, 2nd Edition takes you on a thrilling tour through history. It's packed with facts and vivid details of events that shaped the United States, including: Wars, battles, and famous generals Outstanding American inventions--from the cotton gin to the Internet Key political figures--presidents, peacekeepers, visionaries And much, much more!The Everything American History Book, 2nd Edition covers all the major incidents and key players--from the Boston Tea Party to 9/11, and Lewis and Clark to Martin Luther King, Jr. This extraordinary retelling makes learning history fun for the whole family.

3. New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones : History in the Landscape (Paperback)

New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones presents a culturally diverse account of New Jersey’s historic burial places from High Point to Cape May and from the banks of the Delaware to the ocean-washed Shore, to explain what cemeteries tell us about people and the communities in which they lived.

From the earliest memorials used by Native Americans to the elaborate structures of the present day, Richard Veit and Mark Nonestied use grave markers to take an off-beat look at New Jersey’s history that is both fascinating and unique. New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones presents a culturally diverse account of New Jersey’s historic burial places from High Point to Cape May and from the banks of the Delaware to the ocean-washed Shore, to explain what cemeteries tell us about people and the communities in which they lived. The evidence ranges from somber seventeenth-century decorations such as hourglasses and skulls that denoted the brevity of colonial life, to modern times where memorials, such as a life-size granite Mercedes Benz, reflect the materialism of the new millennium. Also considered are contemporary novelties such as pet cemeteries and what they reveal about today’s culture. To tell their story the authors visited more than 1,000 burial grounds and interviewed numerous monument dealers and cemetarians. This richly illustrated book is essential reading for history buffs and indeed anyone who has ever wandered inquisitively through their local cemeteries.

4. Greatest Emancipations: How the West Abolished Slavery (Hardcover) by Jim Powell

9780230605923. New condition. Hard cover. Language: English. Pages: 284. Glued binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 284 p. For thousands of years, slavery went unchallenged in principle. Then in a single century, slavery was abolished and more than seven million slaves were freed. Greatest Emancipation tells this amazing story, focusing on Haiti, the British Caribbean, the United States, Cuba and Brazil, which accounted for the vast majority of slaves in the west. Jim Powell offers some surprising insights and shows that while the abolition of slavery was essential to any free society, it wasn't the sole determing factor, since some societies that abolished slavery later embraced dictatorships. Jim Powell reveals the process and tremendous influence that slavery's eradication had on individual societies in the west.

ISBN: 9780230605923 Condition: New Hard cover Language: English Pages: 284 Glued binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 284 p. For thousands of years, slavery went unchallenged in principle. Then in a single century, slavery was abolished and more than seven million slaves were freed. Greatest Emancipation tells this amazing story, focusing on Haiti, the British Caribbean, the United States, Cuba and Brazil, which accounted for the vast majority of slaves in the west. Jim Powell offers some surprising insights and shows that while the abolition of slavery was essential to any free society, it wasn't the sole determing factor, since some societies that abolished slavery later embraced dictatorships. Jim Powell reveals the process and tremendous influence that slavery's eradication had on individual societies in the west.

5. Immigration at the Golden Gate: Passenger Ships, Exclusion, and Angel Island, (Hardcover)

Perhaps 200,000 immigrants passed through the Angel Island Immigration Station during its lifetime, a tiny number compared to the 17 million who entered through New York's Ellis Island. Nonetheless, Angel Island's place in the consciousness of Americans on the West Coast is large, out of all proportion to the numerical record. This place is not conceded fondly or with gratitude. Angel Island's Immigration Station was not, as some have called it, the Ellis Island of the West, built to facilitate the processing and entry of those welcomed as new Americans. Its role was less benign: to facilitate the exclusion of Asians-first the Chinese, then Japanese, Koreans, Indians, and all other Asians. This was the era when a rampant public hostility to newcomers posed grave threats to the liberties of all immigrants, especially those from Asia. The phrase Angel Island connotes more than a rocky outpost rearing up inside the mouth of San Francisco Bay, more, even, than shorthand for the various government outposts-military, health, and immigration--that guarded the Western Gate. Angel Island reminds us of an important chapter in the history of immigration to the United States, one that was truly a multicultural enterprise long before that expression was even imagined. With the restoration of the Immigration Station and the creation of a suitable museum/learning center, Angel Island may well become as much part of the American collective imagination as Ellis Island-but with its own, quite different, twist. This book shows how natives and newcomers experienced the immigration process on the west coast. Although Angel Island's role in American immigration was greatest at the dawn of the previous century, the process of immigration continues. The voices of a century ago--of exclusion, of bureaucratic and judicial nightmares, of the interwoven interests of migrants and business people of the fear of foreigners and their diseases, of moral ambiguity and uncertainty--all echo to the present day.

Immigration at the Golden Gate: Passenger Ships, Exclusion, and Angel Island, (Hardcover) Author: Praeger ISBN: 9780313347825 Format: Hardcover Publication Date: 2008-03-01 Page Count: 304

6. Historians in Public : The Practice of American History, 1890-1970 (Paperback)

From lagging book sales and shrinking job prospects to concerns over the discipline's "narrowness," myriad factors have been cited by historians as evidence that their profession is in decline in America. Ian Tyrrell's Historians in Public shows that this perceived threat to history is recurrent, exaggerated, and often misunderstood. In fact, history has adapted to and influenced the American public more than people--and often historians--realize. Tyrrell's elegant history of the practice of American history traces debates, beginning shortly after the profession's emergence in American academia, about history's role in school curricula. He also examines the use of historians in and by the government and whether historians should utilize mass media such as film and radio to influence the general public. As Historians in Public shows, the utility of history is a distinctive theme throughout the history of the discipline, as is the attempt to be responsive to public issues among pressure groups. A superb examination of the practice of American history since the turn of the century, Historians in Public uncovers the often tangled ways history-makers make history-both as artisans and as actors.

From lagging book sales and shrinking job prospects to concerns over the discipline's "narrowness," myriad factors have been cited by historians as evidence that their profession is in decline in America. Ian Tyrrell's Historians in Public shows that this perceived threat to history is recurrent, exaggerated, and often misunderstood. In fact, history has adapted to and influenced the American public more than people—and often historians—realize. Tyrrell's elegant history of the practice of American history traces debates, beginning shortly after the profession's emergence in American academia, about history's role in school curricula. He also examines the use of historians in and by the government and whether historians should utilize mass media such as film and radio to influence the general public. As Historians in Public shows, the utility of history is a distinctive theme throughout the history of the discipline, as is the attempt to be responsive to public issues among pressure groups. A superb examination of the practice of American history since the turn of the century, Historians in Public uncovers the often tangled ways history-makers make history-both as artisans and as actors.

7. The Essential Jefferson (Paperback)

This extraordinary primer offers a superb survey of Jeffersonian thought. It features writings on political and economic philosophy, morals and religion, intellectual freedom and progress, education, secession, slavery, and more.

An idealist with unshakable faith in his fellow citizens, Thomas Jefferson viewed the will of the people as the moral foundation of government. This trust in common sense and reason is prominent among Jefferson's contributions to young America and its growing traditions. In this collection of his writings, the founding father articulates his thoughts on issues of moral and political philosophy — including the basis, aim, and structure of government — as well as a wider range of subjects, from economics and religion to intellectual freedom, education, secession, and slavery. Jefferson frequently voices his firm belief in scientific advances as the means to popular enlightenment and social progress. "His curiosity was insatiable," notes editor and distinguished educator John Dewey. "He occupied practically every possible position of American public life, serving in each not only with distinction but with marked power of adaptability to the new and unexpected." Dewey selected these extracts from public and private letters and documents, an abundant trove that extends over 60 active years. Modern readers will find this volume a treasury of ever-relevant ideas and observations.