Books

• 
• 5/8/2022
  

  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. 

• 
• 4/17/2022
  

  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. 

• 
• 4/10/2022
  

  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. 

• 
• 2/27/2022
  

  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. 

• 
• 2/27/2022
  

  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. 

• 
• 2/27/2022
  

  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.

• 
• 2/20/2022
  

  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.

• 
• 1/23/2022
  

  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."

• 
• 1/23/2022
  

  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.

• 
• 1/16/2022
  

  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."

• 
• 11/21/2021
  

  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. 

• 
• 11/14/2021
  

  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.

• 
• 11/7/2021
  

  Tom Standage on his Brief History of Motion

  by James Thornton Harris

  Author Tom Standage discusses his history of personal transportation, the future of private automobile ownership, and the power of technology as a driver of history.

• 
• 10/17/2021
  

  "The Essential Kerner Commission Report" Links Past and Present, but Abridges the Committee's Process

  by James Thornton Harris

  The Kerner Commission shocked Lyndon Johnson and much of white America by insisting that "the Negro problem" was in fact a problem of pervasive white racism. Two books are essential reading for understanding the commission's work and it's unmet demands. 

• 
• 9/26/2021
  

  The Border and the Contingent Status of Mexican Workers

  by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

  In this excerpt from her new book "Not 'A Nation of Immigrants'," Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz argues that the politics of the border and the racialization of Mexican laborers has been a longstanding and glaring exception to the American myth of welcoming immigrants. 

• 
• 9/5/2021
  

  Review: Heroes of Ireland's Great Hunger

  by Alan J. Singer

  Christine Kinealy and her co-editors enlist top scholars from both sides of the Atlantic to highlight the stories of individuals and who led efforts for hunger relief against the opposition of the British government. 

• 
• 9/5/2021
  

  The Scandalous Six Week Walk That Inspired D. H. Lawrence's Most Popular Novels (excerpt)

  by Annabel Abbs

  In 1912, Frieda von Richthofen made a six-week hike from Bavaria to northern Italy with her lover D.H. Lawrence. It was, for him, a journey of of inspiration. For her, it was a more complicated search for liberation. 

• 
• 9/5/2021
  

  Lafayette as "The Nation’s Guest" (1824-1825)

  by Mike Duncan

  When Lafayette returned to America in 1824, he found the new nation already torn between his beloved ideal of liberty and the entrenched institution of slavery. HNN presents an excerpt from Mike Duncan's new book "Hero of Two Worlds." 

• 
• 8/15/2021
  

  Children Versus Cars: The First Road Safety Campaigns (Excerpt)

  by Tom Sandage

  As outrage over road deaths gave way to laws clarifying expected behavior by street users, pedestrians surrendered much of their free access to the street to drivers. 

• 
• 8/8/2021
  

  Recessional: The WASP and God (excerpt)

  by Michael Knox Beran

  "We  may  enjoy  the  poetry  of  the  fair  sheepfold  without  believing  in  the shepherd himself. But when we come to the achievement of the WASPs, their public service, their standards of conduct, their faith in the possibility of regeneration, we find that it owed a good deal to their conviction that there is a shepherd."