This book describes twelve inventions that transformed the United States from a rural and small-town community to an industrial country of unprecedented power. These inventions demonstrate that no one person is ever responsible for technological advances and that the culture produces a number of people who work together to create each new invention. The book also shows the influences of technology on society and examines the beliefs and attitudes of those who partake in technological advances. The book is both a sociological analysis and a history of technology in the United States in the past two hundred years.

Eugene Windchy lays bare the tricks, errors and secret plans that have led the American people into avoidable wars. In order to prevent wars in the future, we need to know how they have come about in the past. A harsh light is thrown on our wars with Muslim nations. Did a “policy coup” in Washington demand regime changes in seven countries, as alleged by retired four-star General Wesley Clark? Our greatest national catastrophe was the Civil War, which began with Southerners firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. Why did the Southerners reject an opportunity to take the fort peacefully? We learn who opened fire and why. America’s entering World War I saved the Allies from defeat. Why in 1936 did Winston Churchill say the Americans ought to have stayed home and minded their own business? Did Germany start World War I? Triggering the war, according to our textbooks, was a young Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, who shot Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand. Was he a lone wolf? He was not. At trial sixteen men were convicted of participating in the crime. They were part of an international conspiracy that did not include Germany.

A leading advocate for social justice excavates the history of forced migration in the twelve American towns she’s called home, revealing how White supremacy has fundamentally shaped the nation. “At a time when many would rather ban or bury the truth, Ali-Khan bravely faces it in this bracing and necessary book.”—Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Homeland Elegies Sofia Ali-Khan’s parents emigrated from Pakistan to America, believing it would be a good country. With a nerdy interest in American folk history and a devotion to the rule of law, Ali-Khan would pursue a career in social justice, serving some of America’s most vulnerable communities. By the time she had children of her own—having lived, worked, and worshipped in twelve different towns across the nation—Ali-Khan felt deeply American, maybe even a little extra American for having seen so much of the country. But in the wake of 9/11, and on the cusp of the 2016 election, Ali-Khan’s dream of a good life felt under constant threat. As the vitriolic attacks on Islam and Muslims intensified, she wondered if the American dream had ever applied to families like her own, and if she had gravely misunderstood her home. In A Good Country, Ali-Khan revisits the color lines in each of her twelve towns, unearthing the half-buried histories of forced migration that still shape every state, town, and reservation in America today. From the surprising origins of America’s Chinatowns, the expulsion of Maroon and Seminole people during the conquest of Florida, to Virginia’s stake in breeding humans for sale, Ali-Khan reveals how America’s settler colonial origins have defined the law and landscape to maintain a White America. She braids this historical exploration with her own story, providing an intimate perspective on the modern racialization of American Muslims and why she chose to leave the United States. Equal parts memoir, history, and current events, A Good Country presents a vital portrait of our nation, its people, and the pathway to a better future.

How Lincoln Learned to Read tells the American story from a fresh and unique perspective: how do we learn what we need to know? Beginning with Benjamin Franklin and ending with Elvis Presley, author Daniel Wolff creates a series of intimate, interlocking profiles of notable Americans that track the nation's developing notion of what it means to get a "good education." From the stubborn early feminism of Abigail Adams to the miracle of Helen Keller, from the savage childhood of Andrew Jackson to the academic ambitions of W.E.B. Du Bois, a single, fascinating narrative emerges. It connects the illiterate Sojourner Truth to the privileged Jack Kennedy, takes us from Paiute Indians scavenging on western deserts to the birth of Henry Ford's assembly line. And as the book traces the education we value - both in and outside the classroom - it becomes a history of key American ideas. In the end, How Lincoln Learned to Read delivers us to today's headlines. Standardized testing, achievement gaps, the very purpose of public education - all have their roots in this narrative. Whether you're a parent trying to make sure your child is prepared, a teacher trying to do the best possible job, or a student navigating the educational system, How Lincoln Learned to Read offers a challenge to consider what we need to know and how we learn it. Wide-ranging and meticulously researched, built mostly on primary sources, this is an American story that begins and ends with hope.

Why would a successful American physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity? To find out, writer and activist William Powers visited Dr. Jackie Benton in rural North Carolina. No Name Creek gurgled through Benton’s permaculture farm, and she stroked honeybees’ wings as she shared her wildcrafter philosophy of living on a planet in crisis. Powers, just back from a decade of international aid work, then accepted Benton’s offer to stay at the cabin for a season while she traveled. There, he befriended her eclectic neighbors — organic farmers, biofuel brewers, eco-developers — and discovered a sustainable but imperiled way of life. In these pages, Powers not only explores this small patch of community but draws on his international experiences with other pockets of resistance. This engrossing tale of Powers’s struggle for a meaningful life with a smaller footprint proposes a paradigm shift to an elusive “Soft World” with clues to personal happiness and global healing.

The president is not the messiah, the Constitution is not the Bible, and the United States is not a city on a hill or the hope for the world. Jonathan Walton exposes the cultural myths and misconceptions about America's identity, showing how our notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are at odds with the call to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Discover how the kingdom of God offers true freedom and justice for all.

Documents the generations of Native peoples who for twelve millennia have moved through and eventually settled along the rocky coast, rivers, lakes, valleys, and mountains of a region now known as Maine.

Long overshadowed by the American Civil War, the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) has received significantly less attention from historians partly because of its questionable origin and controversial outcome. Rather than treat the conflict with a form of historical amnesia, the contributors to this volume argue that the Mexican-American War was a formative experience for the more than three hundred future Civil War generals who served in it as lower-grade officers. The Mexican War was the first combat experience for many of them, a laboratory that equipped a generation of young officers with practical lessons in strategy, tactics, logistics, and interpersonal relationships that they would use later to command forces during the Civil War.