History of the Americas
Showing all 15 results
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A promised land
£18.99A promised land
In the first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency – a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.
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All that she carried
£12.99All that she carried
A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a deeply layered and insightful testament to people who are left out of the archives
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Black Ghost of Empire
£10.99Black Ghost of Empire
To understand why the shadow of slavery still haunts our society today, we must look at the unfinished way it ended. We celebrate the abolition of slavery – in Haiti after the revolution, in the British Empire in 1833, in the United States during the Civil War. Yet in Black Ghost of Empire, acclaimed historian Kris Manjapra reveals how during each of these supposed emancipations, Black people were in fact dispossessed by the moves that were meant to free them. Ranging across the Americas, Europe and Africa, Manjapra unearths the uncomfortable truths about the Age of Emancipations, 1780-1880. In Britain, reparations were given to wealthy slave owners, not the enslaved, in vast sums that were only paid off in 2015. In Jamaica, Black people were freed only to enter into an apprenticeship period harsher than slavery itself.
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Civilisations: How Do We Look / The Eye of Faith
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Colonial America
£10.49Colonial America
In this Very Short Introduction, Alan Taylor presents the current scholarly understanding of colonial America to a broader audience. He focuses on the transatlantic and a transcontinental perspective, examining the interplay of Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the flows of goods, people, plants, animals, capital, and ideas.
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Great expectations
£10.99Great expectations
When David first hears the Senator from Illinois speak, he feels deep ambivalence. Intrigued by the Senator’s idealistic rhetoric, David also wonders how he’ll balance the fervent belief and inevitable compromises it will take to become the United States’s first Black president. ‘Great Expectations’ is about David’s eighteen months working for the Senator’s presidential campaign.
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Haunted states
£12.99Haunted states
A fusion of travel literature and cultural criticism investigating the darkhistory of the US and exploring how past horrors – from witch trials to slavery and genocide- continue to haunt the national consciousness.
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Ours was the shining future
£14.99Ours was the shining future
Two decades into the twenty-first century, the stagnation of living standards has become the defining trend of American life. Life expectancy has declined, economic inequality has soared, and, after some progress, the Black-white wage gap is once again as large as it was in the 1950s. How did this happen in the world’s most powerful country? And what happened to the ‘American dream’ – the promise of a happier, healthier, more prosperous future – which was once such an inextricable part of our national identity? Drawing on decades of writing about the economy for The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Leonhardt examines the past century of American history, from the Great Depression to today’s Great Stagnation, in search of an answer.
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Patria
£25.00Patria
‘Lost Countries of South America’ is an adventurous, ambitious and dazzlingly original study of South America’s past that bridges travel writing, history and rich literary narrative.
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The American Revolution
£8.99The American Revolution
Between 1760 and 1800, the people of the United States created a new nation, based on the idea that all people have the right to govern themselves. This Very Short Introduction recreates the experiences that led to the Revolution; the experience of war; and the post-war creation of a new political society.
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The CIA
£25.00The CIA
As World War II ended, the United States stood as the dominant power on the world stage. In 1947, to support its new global status, it created the CIA to analyse foreign intelligence. But within a few years, the Agency was engaged in other operations: bolstering pro-American governments, overthrowing nationalist leaders, and surveilling anti-imperial dissenters in the US. The Cold War was an obvious reason for this transformation – but not the only one. Intelligence historian Hugh Wilford draws on decades of research to show the Agency as part of a larger picture, the history of Western empire. While young CIA officers imagined themselves as British imperial agents like T.E. Lawrence, successive US presidents used the covert powers of the Agency to hide overseas interventions from postcolonial foreigners and anti-imperial Americans alike.
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The Civil rights movement
£8.99The Civil rights movement
The Civil Rights Movement was among the most important historical developments of the twentieth century and one of the most remarkable mass movements in American history. In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas C. Holt provides an informed and nuanced understanding of the origins, character, and objectives of the mid-twentieth-century freedom struggle, re-centering the narrative around the mobilization of ordinary people.
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The fire next time
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The Mexican revolution
£8.99The Mexican revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a ‘great’ revolution, decisive for Mexico, important within Latin America, and comparable to the other major revolutions of modern history. Alan Knight offers a succinct account of the period, from the initial uprising against Porfirio Dìaz and the ensuing decade of civil war, to the enduring legacy of the Revolution.
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Tripped
£18.99Tripped
First used as a drug capable of treating mental illnesses, then as a ‘truth serum’ by the CIA, this book reveals how the fortuitous discovery of LSD in April 1943 led to a mass exploitation of this promising hallucinogen. Using archival material, Norman Ohler brings to light the often misguided interaction between scientific research, state authorities and hedonistic drug culture that shaped drug policy in the twentieth century.
£18.99