In October 1965, nearly 800 young people attempted to march from their churches in Natchez to protest segregation, discrimination and mistreatment by white leaders and elements of the Ku Klux Klan. As they exited the churches, local authorities forced the would-be marchers onto buses and charged them with "parading without a permit," a local ordinance later ruled unconstitutional. For approximately 150 of these young men and women, this was only the beginning. They were taken to the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, where prison authorities subjected them to days of abuse, humiliation and punishment under horrific conditions. Most were African Americans in their teens and early twenties. Authors G. Mark LaFrancis, Robert Morgan and Darrell White reveal the injustice of this overlooked dramatic episode in civil rights history.

Fifteen countries have emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Freedom's Ordeal recounts the struggles of these newly independent nations to achieve freedom and to establish support for fundamental human rights. Although history has shown that states emerging from collapsed empires rarely achieve full democracy in their first try, Peter Juviler analyzes these successor states as crucial and not always unpromising tests of democracy's viability in postcommunist countries. Taking into account the particularly difficult legacies of Soviet communism, Freedom's Ordeal is distinguished by its careful tracing of the historical background, with special attention to human rights before, during, and after communism. Juviler suggests that the culture and practices of despotism may wither wherever modernization conflicts with tyranny and with the curtailment or denial of democratic rights and freedoms.

"Thoughtful, suggestive and highly readable."—New York Times Book Review In the American Revolution, Virginians were the most eloquent spokesmen for freedom and quality. George Washington led the Americans in battle against British oppression. Thomas Jefferson led them in declaring independence. Virginians drafted not only the Declaration but also the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; they were elected to the presidency of the United States under that Constitution for thirty-two of the first thirty-six years of its existence. They were all slaveholders. In the new preface Edmund S. Morgan writes: "Human relations among us still suffer from the former enslavement of a large portion of our predecessors. The freedom of the free, the growth of freedom experienced in the American Revolution depended more than we like to admit on the enslavement of more than 20 percent of us at that time. How republican freedom came to be supported, at least in large part, by its opposite, slavery, is the subject of this book. American Slavery, American Freedom is a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America. Morgan finds the keys to this central paradox, "the marriage of slavery and freedom," in the people and the politics of the state that was both the birthplace of the Revolution and the largest slaveholding state in the country.

A classic biography of Jefferson. Among the many contributions of this authoritative study was Malone's inclusion in each volume of a detailed timeline of Jefferson's activities and frequent travels in his life. Malone's volumes were widely praised for their lucid and graceful writing style, for their rigorous and thorough scholarship, and for their attention to Jefferson's evolving constitutional and political thought. Later, however, some reviewers faulted Malone, believing he had a tendency to adopt Jefferson's own perspective and thus to be insufficiently critical of his occasional political errors, faults, and lapses. Some said that he was biased in favor of Jefferson and against his principal adversaries Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and John Marshall. Also, during the period in which this was being written, historical studies of slavery and its influences in the United States expanded dramatically. Some academics said that Malone did not adequately treat Jefferson's life as a slaveowner and the paradoxes inherent in his views on liberty and slavery.--Adapted from Wikipedia, 11/2016.

In this provocative new book, sociologist Orlando Patterson takes on the intractable dilemma of race in late 20th-century America. Using current demographic research, Patterson exposes common misperceptions about the lives and experiences of black and white Americans, misperceptions that are hampering the success of integration.

Ordeal of the Reunion: A New History of Reconstruction

The paradoxical and tragic story of America's most prominent Loyalist - a man caught between king and country.

The great tragedy of the twenty-eighth President as witnessed by his loyal lieutenant, and the thirty-first President.

The true story of Chi An, a young Chinese woman from Manchuria who experienced the horror of China's one couple, one child policy. Told in the first person, this book recounts a life lived under the shadow of an intrusive regime.

Written by a leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, this text describes the social, economic, political, and ideological conflicts that led to a unique, tragic, and transitional event in American history. The third edition incorporates recent scholarship and addresses renewed areas of interest in the Civil War/Reconstruction era including the motivations and experiences of common soldiers and the role of women in the war effort.