For the People is a historical docutext that examines the evolution of the struggle for peace and justice in America's past, from pre-colonial times to the present. Each chapter begins with a brief historical introduction followed by a series of primary source documents and questions to encourage student comprehension. Sample photographs illustrate the range of peace activists' concerns, while the list of references, focused on the most important works in the field of U.S. peace history, points students toward opportunities for further research. This is the only historical docutext specifically devoted to peace issues. The interpretive analysis of American peace history provided by the editors makes this more than just an anthology of collected documents. As such, the docutext is an extension and a complement to the editors' recently published popular scholarly survey, A History of the American Peace Movement from Colonial Times to the Present. A central idea in this work is that peace is more than just the absence of war. The documents, and the analysis that accompanies them, offer fresh perspectives on the ways in which the peace movement became transformed from one simply opposing war to one proclaiming the importance of social, political, and economic equality. The editors' premise is that the peace movement historically has been a collective attempt by numerous well-intentioned people to improve American society. The book illuminates the ways in which peace activists were often connected to larger reform movements in American history, including those that fought for the rights of working people, for women's equality, and for the abolition of slavery, to name just a few. With a focus on those who spoke out for peace, this docutext is designed to call to students' attention one of the least discussed classroom subjects in American education today. Students in secondary school Social Studies and American history classes as well as those taking college level courses in U.S. history, American Studies, or Peace Studies will find this work an excellent supplementary reader.

This revised and updated book is a guide for the listener, collector, singer, player and devotee of folk music. It covers music from string band to bluegrass, Canadian, Creole, Zydeco, jug bands, ragtime and the many kinds of blues. The book evaluates, reviews and recommends on such subjects as where to buy records and instruments and places where folk music flourishes.

Aimee Semple McPherson was the most flamboyant and controversial minister in the United States between the world wars, building a successful megachurch, a mass media empire, and eventually a political career to resurrect what she believed was America's Christian heritage. Sutton's definitive study reveals the woman as a trail-blazing pioneer, her life marking the beginning of Pentecostalism's advance to the mainstream of American culture.

Films possess virtually unlimited power for crafting broad interpretations of American history. Nineteenth-century America has proven especially conducive to Hollywood imaginations, producing indelible images like the plight of Davy Crockett and the defenders of the Alamo, Pickett’s doomed charge at Gettysburg, the proliferation and destruction of plantation slavery in the American South, Custer’s fateful decision to divide his forces at Little Big Horn, and the onset of immigration and industrialization that saw Old World lifestyles and customs dissolve amid rapidly changing environments. Balancing historical nuance with passion for cinematic narratives, Writing History with Lightning confronts how movies about nineteenth-century America influence the ways in which mass audiences remember, understand, and envision the nation’s past. In these twenty-six essays—divided by the editors into sections on topics like frontiers, slavery, the Civil War, the Lost Cause, and the West—notable historians engage with films and the historical events they ostensibly depict. Instead of just separating fact from fiction, the essays contemplate the extent to which movies generate and promulgate collective memories of American history. Along with new takes on familiar classics like Young Mr. Lincoln and They Died with Their Boots On, the volume covers several films released in recent years, including The Revenant, 12 Years a Slave, The Birth of a Nation, Free State of Jones, and The Hateful Eight. The authors address Hollywood epics like The Alamo and Amistad, arguing that these movies flatten the historical record to promote nationalist visions. The contributors also examine overlooked films like Hester Street and Daughters of the Dust, considering their portraits of marginalized communities as transformative perspectives on American culture. By surveying films about nineteenth-century America, Writing History with Lightning analyzes how movies create popular understandings of American history and why those interpretations change over time.