History.

With striking visuals from the Library of Congress' unparalleled archive, The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War is an authoritative and engaging narrative of the domestic conflict that determined the course of American history. A detailed chronological timeline of the war captures the harrowing intensity of 19th-century warfare in firsthand accounts from soldiers, nurses, and front-line journalists. Readers will be enthralled by speech drafts in Lincoln's own hand, quotes from the likes of Frederick Douglass and Robert E. Lee, and portraits of key soldiers and politicians who are not covered in standard textbooks. The Illustrated Timeline's exciting new source material and lucid organization will give Civil War enthusiasts a fresh look at this defining period in our nation's history.

An indispensable reference on World War II produced by the Library of Congress and edited by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy. With hundreds of illustrations and quotations from contemporary documents, this will be the most authoritative popular reference on World War II. The noted historian John Keegan called World War II "the largest single event in human history." More than sixty years after it ended, that war continues to shape our world. Going far beyond accounts of the major battles, The Library of Congress World War II Companion examines, in a unique and engaging manner, this devastating conflict, its causes, conduct, and aftermath. It considers the politics that shaped the involvement of the major combatants; military leadership and the characteristics of major Allied and Axis armed services; the weaponry that resulted in the war's unprecedented destruction, as well as debates over the use of these weapons; the roles of resistance groups and underground fighters; war crimes; daily life during wartime; the uses of propaganda; and much more. Drawn from the unparalleled collections of the institution that has been called "America's Memory," The Library of Congress World War II Companion includes excerpts from contemporary letters, journals, pamphlets, and other documents, as well as first-person accounts recorded by the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. The text is complemented by more than 150 illustrations. Organized into topical chapters (such as "The Media War," "War Crimes and the Holocaust," and two chapters on "Military Operations" that cover the important battles), the book also include readers to navigate through the rich store of information in these pages. Filled with facts and figures, information about unusual aspects of the war, and moving personal accounts, this remarkable volume will be indispensable to anyone who wishes to understand the World War II era and its continuing reverberations.

Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year for 2017 "A uniquely colorful chronicle of this dramatic and convulsive chapter in American--and world--history. It's an epic tale, and here it is wondrously well told." --David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of FREEDOM FROM FEAR From August 1914 through March 1917, Americans were increasingly horrified at the unprecedented destruction of the First World War. While sending massive assistance to the conflict's victims, most Americans opposed direct involvement. Their country was immersed in its own internal struggles, including attempts to curb the power of business monopolies, reform labor practices, secure proper treatment for millions of recent immigrants, and expand American democracy. Yet from the first, the war deeply affected American emotions and the nation's commercial, financial, and political interests. The menace from German U-boats and failure of U.S. attempts at mediation finally led to a declaration of war, signed by President Wilson on April 6, 1917. America and the Great War commemorates the centennial of that turning point in American history. Chronicling the United States in neutrality and in conflict, it presents events and arguments, political and military battles, bitter tragedies and epic achievements that marked U.S. involvement in the first modern war. Drawing on the matchless resources of the Library of Congress, the book includes many eyewitness accounts and more than 250 color and black-and-white images, many never before published. With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy, America and the Great War brings to life the tempestuous era from which the United States emerged as a major world power.

Until recently, Rosa Parks’s personal papers were unavailable to the public. In this compelling new book from the Library of Congress, where the Parks Collection is housed, the civil rights icon is revealed for the first time in print through her private manuscripts and handwritten notes. Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words illumines her inner thoughts, her ongoing struggles, and how she came to be the person who stood up by sitting down. At the height of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as Parks was both pilloried and celebrated, she found a catharsis in her writing. Her precise descriptions of her arrest, the segregated South, and her recollections of childhood resistance to white supremacy document a lifetime of battling inequality. Parks expressed her thoughts on paper using whatever was available—meeting agendas, event programs, drugstore bags. The book features one hundred color and black-and-white photographs from the Parks collection, many appearing in print for the first time, along with ephemera from the long life of a private person in the public eye.

Written under the direction of two distinguished historians, The World War II Desk Reference explains in clear prose, backed by rosters of statistics, time lines, and maps, the global cataclysm that was World War II. But this volume is not a typical almanac. With material ranging from battlefronts to important military commanders to armaments, among the backdrop of all the necessary political, social, and economic factors, Douglas Brinkley and Michael E. Haskew’s reference will prove invaluable to readers. Photographs, lists, time lines, tables, glossaries, and maps encapsulate many pieces of complicated information, making The World War II Desk Reference immensely browsable. The book also includes a helpful resource on national World War II monuments, organizations, and museums. The book contains oral histories culled from several sources, including the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, which holds the world’s largest repository of valuable letters, journals, and other war-related records. Excerpted from those who fought on both sides, these accounts add a deeply touching, profoundly personal dimension seldom found in other books on World War II. For Word War II enthusiasts, history buffs, and anyone interested in our nation’s history, this is the one book to own.

John Newman Edwards was a soldier, a father, a husband, and a noted author. He was also a virulent alcoholic, a duelist, a culture warrior, and a man perpetually at war with the modernizing world around him. From the sectional crisis of his boyhood and the battlefields of the western borderlands to the final days of the Second Mexican Empire and then back to a United States profoundly changed by the Civil War, Oracle of Lost Causes chronicles Edwards's lifelong quest to preserve a mythical version of the Old World--replete with aristocrats, knights, damsels, and slaves--in North America. This odyssey through nineteenth-century American politics and culture involved the likes of guerrilla chieftains William Clarke Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, notorious outlaws Frank and Jesse James, Confederate general Joseph Orville Shelby, and even Emperor Maximilian I and Empress Charlotte of Mexico. It is the story of a man who experienced Confederate defeat not once but twice, and how he sought to shape and weaponize the memory of those grievous losses. Historian Matthew Christopher Hulbert ultimately reveals how the Civil War determined not only the future of the vast West but also the extent to which the conflict was part of a broader, international sequence of sociopolitical uprisings.

This title examines the period the following the Civil War, in which the nation's leadership, former slaves, and veterans of the conflict grappled with the changes of the postwar era. Gripping narrative text, historic photographs, and primary sources make the book perfect for report writing. Features include a glossary, additional resources, source notes, and an index, plus a timeline and essential facts. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

An argument settler--and starter--for Civil War buffs who want to know which side had the better soldiers: Armies South, Armies North definitively compares the military forces of both sides. Civil War buffs are always arguing over which side had the better soldiers. Armies South/Armies North by Alan Axelrod helps readers reconsider their understanding of America’s most harrowing war. Axelrod is the author of more than one hundred books with a passion for military history and leadership. Each chapter of his new book compares the military forces with both quantitative and qualitative measures. Axelrod analyzes the equipment, the leadership and strategies, and the men who fought in each army, with additional focus on lesser known flash points during the war.