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Edited With An Introduction By Dwight E. Lee

FROM THTE INTRODUCTION: “The origins of the First World War have become a major historical prob¬lem not merely because the event seemed to be of great significance as a turning point in world history, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because the question of who was responsible, raised during the war and answered in the peace settle¬ment, became a vital and passionately argued issue in both domestic and international politics. By placing the blame for the war on Germany and its allies and thereby justifying reparations, the victorious powers supplied one of the major factors utilized by Hitler in his rise to power in Germany….”

Boston. D. C. Heath And Company. Problems of European Civilization. 1958. 88p.

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Edited With An Introduction BY Philip A. M. Taylor

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “…Most English people who are not professional students have had their view of the origins of the Civil War formed, directly or indirectly, by the first chapter of Macaulay’s History. This is partly because, from the vantage point of modem constitutional history, the Parlia¬mentarians in that conflict are seen to have been on the winning side. But the lasting popularity of Macaulay derives also from his forceful style and the sweeping confi¬dence of his interpretations. He points out that James I and Charles I were far more extreme and outspoken in their claims than Elizabeth had been; yet there was no crisis of national peril to inhibit opposition. The natural enemy of royal claims, he thinks, was Puritanism inside and outside Parlia¬ment. When, in 1640, Charles was forced by financial difficulties to summon Parliament once more, its leaders, "great statesmen" as Macaulay terms them, at once devoted their energies to limiting his power. Increasingly distrustful of the king's intentions. Parliament refused him control of the armed forces needed to suppress rebellion in Ireland. Charles’ retaliation, in attempting to arrest five members of the Commons, made inevitable a war to limit the royal preroga-tive. Macaulay is sure that it would have been better to depose the king, as was done in 1688; but he admits that no one in. 1642 could face such a drastic course.

This ‘Whig interpretation" has prevailed among those interested chiefly in the growth of constitutional liberty. But, from quite a different point of view, Marxists have ascribed great importance to the Civil War which, to them, is a “bourgeois revolu¬tion," the political act by which English capitalism overthrew “feudal" society and insured for itself favorable conditions for development….”

Boston. D. C. Heath And Company. Problems In European Civilization. 1960. 125p.

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Edited With An Introduction By De Lamar Jensen

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “ In more than four hundred years of evaluation and reinterpretation, few names in European history have caused more disagreement and controversy than Machiavelli's. Nearly everyone who has written on modem European history, and particularly on the Renaissance, agrees that Machiavelli was one of the most important figures of the century, but rarely will they concur on the reason for his prominence. Why has this polemic continued so long without sign of abating or losing its vigor? Undoubtedly there can be many answers, and among them certainly is the fact that Machiavelli’s written words deal with subjects of lasting and vital interest to all ages. People of every generation must ask themselves the questions which Machiavelli aroused. What is the relationship between politics and morals? Does the end really justify the means? What is the nature and role of the state? How are liberty and order to be balanced and maintained? To the historian an infinite number of additional problems are suggested by the life and writings of this Renaissance Floren¬tine, from the question of his relationship to the humanist writers of his time to the methods and motives of his public and pri-vate life. For Machiavelli was not restricted to one career, and each of them — diplomat, secretary, statesman, military strategist, political philosopher, historian, man of letters — offers a rich and rewarding field for schol¬arly investigation…”

Boston. D. C. Heath. Problems In European Civilization. 1960. 131p.

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by Dee Brown

FROM THE COVER: “Thelast words of this revisionary history of the American West come from an anonymous Indian: ‘They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land, and they took it. They are white Americans. like the author of this damning case against our national roots i n greed, perficly, ignoranceand malice. The motive force f o rour theft of land and identity from the Indians was Alanifest Destiny, the belief that white men were ordained to rule this continent, a policy that, in Dee Vrown’s words, “lifted land hunger to a lofty plane.’ Manifest destiny was a simple instrument to operate, once we got the hang of it. We would buy or battle the indians off the land we wanted…”

NY. Bantam. 1971. 498p.

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By Lerone Bennett, Jr.

FROM THE COVER: “A full history of the American Negro, from his origins in the great empires of the Nile Valley and the western Sudan through the Negro revolt of the 1960's. Mr. Bennett clarifies the role of Negro Americans during the Colonial period, the Revolutionary War, the Slavery era, the Civil War, the years of Reconstruction, and the crucial epoch from Booker T. Washington to Martin Luther King, Jr. His account is interspersed with portraits of the great figures like Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass, W.E. B. DuBois and others, as well as with reports on the exploits and contributions of many men and women whose names generally have been forgotten in the pages of American history. In a special section of "Landmarks and Milestones," he outlines the significant dates, events, and per- sonalities of American Negro history from 1492 to 1964.”

Baltimore. Penguin. 1964.

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By Chadwick Hansen

FROM THE PREFACE: “…To begin with, witchcraft actually did exist and was widely practiced in seventeenth-century New England, as it was in Europe at that time (and still is, for that matter, among the unlearned majority of mankind). It worked then as it works now in witchcraft societies like those of the West Indies, through psychogenic rather than occult means, commonly pro- ducing hysterical symptoms as a result of the victim's fear, and sometimes, when fear was succeeded by a profound sense of hopelessness, even producing death. The behavior of the afflicted persons was not fraudulent but pathological. They were hysterics, and in the clinical rather than the popular sense of that term. These people were not merely overexcited; they were mentally ill. Furthermore, they were ill long before any clergyman got to them. The general populace did reach that state of public excitement inaccurately called "mass hysteria," but this was due to the popular fear of witchcraft rather than to the preachings of the clergy…”

NY. Signet. 1969. 323p.

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By William Manchester

FROM THE FOREWORD: “On February 5, 1964, Mrs John F. Kennedy suggested that I write an account of the tragic and historic events in Texas and Washington ten weeks earlier. That is the first breath. The second, which must quickly follow, is that neither Mrs Kennedy nor anyone else is in any way answerable for my subsequent research or this narrative based upon it. My relationships with all the principal figures were entirely professional. I received no financial assistance from the Kennedy family. I was on no government payroll. No one tried to lead me, and I believe every reader, including those who were closest to the late President, will find much here that is new and some, perhaps, that is disturbing. That is my reponsibility. Mrs Kennedy asked me but one question. Before our first taping session she said, 'Are you just going to put down all the facts, who ate what for breakfast and all that, or are you going to put yourself in the book, too?' I replied that I didn't see how I could very well keep myself out of it. 'Good, she said emphatically. And so I am here, weighing evidence and forming judgments. At times you may find my presence exasperating. You may decide in the end that I have been a poor judge. But you may not conclude that I have served as anyone's amanuensis. If you doubt me you may as well stop at the end of this paragraph….”

London. Michael Joseph Ltd. 1967. 776p.

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By William Miller

FROM THE JACKET: “William Miller's A NEW HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES illuminates the American past and future more brilliantly than any book of this generation. He begins with the world before Columbus, when Christendom had a bare foothold in the known world and Islam dominated. H e closes with the present, with the West once again on the defensive, threatened by an alien faith. Between the fifteenth and the middle of the twentieth century, America was discovered and settled, the balance ofpower shifted to the western hemisphere, and the new challenge from the East arose. Seldom in the life of man had such epochal events occurred, and seldom had there been such material and spiritual progress. One of the towering triumphs of this period of world history was the American Revolution. It is difficult to recall any books that develop the background of our Revolution with the depth and comprehensiveness of Mr. Miller's work…”

NY. George Braziller, Inc. 1958. 483p.

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By James Wilson

FROM THE COVER: “"The Earth Shall Weep is a very different history of Native America. James Wilson has written a fresh and lively account of Native American relations with Europeans and settlers. By placing Native American ideas of the world at the forefront and using native testimony and writings as well as conventional history, Wilson avoids the sense of tragic victimhood and academic ponderousness that so much of the writing on the subject is mired in. Taking us through the very diverse experiences ofNative Americans in New England, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest, the Great Plains, and the Far West, the book is a wonderfully sympathetic introduction to native predicaments from the first encounters to the casinos." -Colin Samson, director of Native American Studies, University ofEssex

NY. Grove Press. 1998. 489p.

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By Walter R. Borneman

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “England and France had been at war since--well, it seemed like forever. For more than three centuries, Europe had known far more years of warfare than of peace. But no matter what the con- flict, or how causes and alliances changed, one pairing remained constant: England and France were always on opposite sides just as surely as they sat on opposite sides of the English Channel. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, this cross-Channel feud began to take on major global dimensions, as it became evident that far more than the mastery of Europe was at stake. The colonies that half a dozen nations had established in the New World were flourishing. By 1733, thirteen English colonies stretched along the Atlantic coast. But this territory was minuscule compared with French outposts and settlements that embraced half a continent--from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, westward across the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico…”

NY. Harper. 2006. 407p.

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By Bruce Lancaster and J. H. Plumb

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “We had our American revolution nearly two centuries ago, and the years have done something to it. The legends remain, and the statues and the grassy earthworks and the great body of tradition, but a good deal of the reality has been filtered out. When we look back we see Washington crossing the Delaware on a cold winter night, or kneeling in prayer in the snow of Valley Forge; we see the Minuteman, or the lanky Virginia rifleman pictur- esquein fringed buckskin; but somehow it all seems to be out of a pageant, and neither Washington nor the men who followed him quite come alive for us. This is a pity, because the central reality in this great act that brought a nation to its birth was the living, aspiring, struggling people who were immediately involved in it. Aromantic haze has settled down over the whole affair….”

NY. Dell. 1958. 384p.

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By Kenneth C. Davis

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “Back in the early 1960s, when I was growing up, there was a silly pop song called What Did Washington Say When He Crossed the Delaware? Sung to a tarantella beat, the answer was something like "Martha, Martha, there'll be no pizza tonight." Of course, these lyrics were absurd; everybody knew Washington only ate cherry pie. On that December night in 1776, George may have told himself that if this raid on an enemy camp in Trenton, New Jersey, didn't work, he might be ordering a last meal before the British strung him up. But as the general rallied his ragged, barefoot troops across the icy Delaware, one of his actual com- ments was far more amusing than those lyrics. Stepping into his boat, Washington--the plainspoken frontiersman, not the marbleized demigod--nudged 280-pound General Henry "Ox" Knox with the tip of his boot and said, "Shift that fat ass, Harry. But slowly, or you'll swamp the damned boat.”

According to A. J. Langguth's fascinating history of the Revolution, Patriots, that is how Knox himself reported the story after the war. I certainly never heard that version of the crossing when I was in school. And that's too bad….”

NY. Avon. 1995. 489p.

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By Howard Zinn

from chapter 1: “ Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

They . . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bels. They willingly traded everything they owned. . . . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out ofignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. ... They would make fine servants. . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want…”

NY. Harper Collins. 1999. 732p.

By Nancy Shields Kollmann

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Russians from all ranks of society were bound together by a culture of honor. Here one of the foremost scholars of early modern Russia explores the intricate and highly stylized codes that made up this culture. Nancy Shields Kollmann describes how these codes were manipulated to construct identity and enforce social norms—and also to defend against insults, to pursue vendettas, and to unsettle communities. She offers evidence for a new view of the relationship of state and society in the Russian empire, and her richly comparative approach enhances knowledge of statebuilding in premodern Europe. By presenting Muscovite state and society in the context of medieval and early modern Europe, she exposes similarities that blur long-standing distinctions between Russian and European history.

Through the prism of honor, Kollmann examines the interaction of the Russian state and its people in regulating social relations and defining an individual's rank. She finds vital information in a collection of transcripts of legal suits brought by elites and peasants alike to avenge insult to honor. The cases make clear the conservative role honor played in society as well as the ability of men and women to employ this body of ideas to address their relations with one another and with the state. Kollmann demonstrates that the grand princes—and later the tsars—tolerated a surprising degree of local autonomy throughout their rapidly expanding realm. Her work marks a stark contrast with traditional Russian historiography, which exaggerates the power of the state and downplays the volition of society.

Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press, 1999. 311p.

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By Joseph E. Persico

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “ThIs sook was writen in quest of an answer. What was it chat led Americans-dairy farmers from Wisconsin and dirt farmers from Georgia, New York urchins and Richmond patricians, shop- keepers and shoemakers--to gather at a small town in Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863 and slaughter each other in fearful numbers? Do the historic roots of the Civil War provide a satisfying answer as to what motivated the ordinary soldier at Gettysburg, or on the other battlefields of that conflict? Was it slavery? Abolition? States' rights? The Union? These reasons may have sufficed for politicians and the power classes, both North and South. Perhaps for the profes- sional soldier, once he determined his loyalty to state or nation, no further motive was necessary. Battle was his craft. But what of more than three million citizen-soldiers, the over- whelming number of whom voluntarily answered the call to arms? What would induce young men today, from, say, New Jersey and California, to battle each other to such bloody effect? There is a lingering unbelievability about this American fratricide…”

NY. Da Capo Press. 1988. 284p.

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By Cadwallader Colden

From the author to His Excellency William Burnet Esq. Captain General and Governor in Chief of the Provinces of New-York, New-Jersey, and Territories thereon depending, in America, and Vice-Admiral of the same, &c. “Sir: the Indian Affairs of this Province have appear'd to your Excellency of such Importance to the Wellfare of the People here, that you have carefully apply'd your Thoughts to them, in which I hope your Excellency will have such Success, that not only the present Generation shall enjoy the Benefit of your Care, but our latest Posterity likewise may bless your Memory under their Happiness, the Foundation of which may be laid under your Excellency's Administration, if the People here, who's Interest is chiefly concern'd, do on their parts second your Endeavours, as their Duty requires, towards securing the Peace and advancing the Prosperity of their Country. The following Account of the Five Nations will show what Dangerous Neighbours the Indians have been, what Pains a Neighbouring Colony (who's Interest is Opposit to ours) has taken to withdraw their Affections from Us, and how dread- ful the Consequences may be, if that Colony should succeed in their Designs: and therefore how much we ought to be on our Guard. If we only consider the Riches which a People…”

Ithaca. Cornell Paperbacks. 1958 (1866). 198p.

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By Richard Berleth

FROM THE PREFACE: “This book is a narrative history of the Mohawk Valley and region over eight Indian Wars and battles ofthe American Revolution were critical to the foundation of New York State and the creation of a new nation. People of the Mohawk River--Native Americans, colonial settlers, officials of the Crown Colony of New York, great landowners, and patriot leaders struggled mightily during this period to impose their visions for the future on a wilderness that would some day become the cradle of the new nation's industry and ingenuity. Between the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and the signing of the Treaty of Canandaigua (1794), the boundaries of the Mohawk region took shape. French intrusions were turned back with great loss of blood and treasure, but British triumph proved temporary. In the War of Independence, patriots wrenched the valley from British interests and the Iroquois nations at fearsomecost. At the end, victors inhab- ited a valley of ashes, while the defeated lost friends, homes, and tribal lands forever…”

NY. Black Dome. 2009. 383p.

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By David McCullough

FROM THE COVER: “In this stirring book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which al hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted tolittle more than words on paper. Based on extensive researchi n both American and British archives, 1776 si apowerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no- accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known. Here also is the Revolution as experienced by American Loyalists, Hessian mercenaries, politicians, preachers, traitors, spies, men and women of all kinds caught in the paths of war. At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than whaat they had read in books—Nathaniel Greene, a Quaker who was made general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of winter.”

NY. Simon and Schuster. 2005. 423p.

Edited by John Jennings: 

The cowboy, as perhaps no other figure, has captured the imagination of North Americans for over a century. Before Owen Wister's publication of The Virginian in 1902, the image of the cowboy was essentially that of the dime novel - a rough, violent, one-dimensional drifter, or the stage cowboy variety found in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show. Wister's novel was to transform, almost overnight, this image of the cowboy. Soon after its publication, Wister sent a copy, inscribed "To the hero from the author," to Everett Johnson, a cowboy from Virginia who had been a friend of Wister's in Wyoming in the 1880s. Johnson had migrated to Alberta by the 1890s, eventually settling in the Calgary area. Before his death in 1946, his daughter-in-law, Jean Johnson, transcribed Everett's stories of the old west and collected them into a manuscript, now on deposit in the Glenbow Archives. In The Cowboy Legend, John Jennings, building on Jean Johnson's work, details the evidence that Everett Johnson was the initial and prime inspiration for Wister's cowboy, and in the process shows that Johnson led a fascinating life in his own right. His memories of both the Wyoming and Alberta cattle frontiers provide insight into ranch life on both sides of the border, and the compelling parallel biographies of Johnson and Wister feature vignettes of legendary period figures such as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, and Butch Cassidy, not to mention the best man at Johnson's wedding, Henry Longabaugh, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid. With an impressive range of scholarship and archival research, Jennings melds this realistic study of the cowboy frontier with an intriguing account of Wister's subsequent creation of the cowboy mystique, aided by two close friends and perhaps somewhat unexpected collaborators, Frederic Remington and Theodore Roosevelt. As compulsively readable as it is informative, this unique contribution to western history and literature will be welcomed by fans and scholars alike.

Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2015. 448p.

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By S. T. Bindoff

FROM THE PROLOGUE: “The battle was over. On a stretch of high ground in the midland heart of the kingdom twenty thousand men had met in fierce, clumsy combat, and the day had ended in the decisive defeat of the stronger army. Its leader, the King, had been killed fighting heroically, and men had seen his naked corpse slung across his horse's back and borne away to an obscure grave. His captains were dead, captured, or in flight, his troops broken and demoralized. But in the victor's army all was rejoicing. In following the claimant to the throne his supporters had chosen the winning side, and when they saw the golden circlet which had fallen from the King's head placed upon their leader's, their lingering doubts fed before the conviction that God had blessed his cause, and they hailed him joyously as their sovereign.”

London. Penguin. 1969. 323p.