Here are 100 books that To Begin the World Anew fans have personally recommended if you like
To Begin the World Anew.
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I was born on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin. Raised during the often troubled, often wonderful decade of the 1960s, I learned to stand up for what I thought was right. I joined forces with my beautiful wife during our high school years, and together, we ran away to build our own life aided by the Oneida principle of “looking ahead seven generations.” Encountering many obstacles along the way, including a poetry professor who said that what I wrote wasn’t poetry and a theater professor who said that if what I wrote was any good it was already being done. Still, I continue to write.
I loved this book because the author was able to share the racist encounters that she had to deal with and the racist encounters all minorities deal with at one time or another. This book puts a new intellectual perspective on those types of happenings. They also illustrated many racist encounters that are all too common and yet hard to believe. A must-read for all.
THE TIME NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR | #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Powerful and timely ... I cannot recommend it strongly enough" - Barack Obama
From one of America's most celebrated and insightful writers, the moving, eye-opening bestseller about what lies hidden under the surface of ordinary lives
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human…
My interest in the topic of these books has grown across four decades of teaching about cities and urban planning at Harvard, and in active practice as an architect and urban designer. At any moment a city’s very physicality reflects both a culture’s aspirations and the limitations of that culture to achieve those aspirations. Cities are, in a way, compromises in time: among efforts to preserve a past, overcome the challenges of the present, and pursuit of plans for the future. My book focuses on the role of American ideals especially in city and community building, while the five I recommend offer crucial counterpoints about the difficulties and setbacks encountered in reaching for national ideals.
For starters an absolutely brilliant book title: beautifully capturing the complexities of American culture, at once compelled by soaring social aspirations while tending to act out of pure individualism often with disdain for social impact. The narrative abounds in identifying seemingly contradictory national impulses – imported vs. Indigenous traditions, socialism vs. libertarianism, utopian vs. prosaic undertakings, the welcoming of and resisting of others – with the author arguing that through the interaction of such opposite impulses over time the particular genius of American society evolved. Kammen delights in reminding Americans of our “unstable pluralism,” and supports William James’ conclusion that “Americanism” continues to be a “volatile mixture of hopeful good and curable bad.” Overall impressive scholarship and a delightful read.
From the beginning, what has given our culture its distinctive texture, pattern, and thrust, according to Michael Kammen, is the dynamic interaction of the imported and the indigenous. He shows how, during the years of colonization, some ideas and institutions were transferred virtually intact from Britain, while, simultaneously, others were being transformed in the New World. As he unravels the tangled origins of our culture, he makes us see that unresolved contradictions in the American experience have created our national style. Puritanical and hedonistic, idealistic and materialistic, peace-loving and war-mongering: these opposing strands go back to the genesis of our…
My interest in the topic of these books has grown across four decades of teaching about cities and urban planning at Harvard, and in active practice as an architect and urban designer. At any moment a city’s very physicality reflects both a culture’s aspirations and the limitations of that culture to achieve those aspirations. Cities are, in a way, compromises in time: among efforts to preserve a past, overcome the challenges of the present, and pursuit of plans for the future. My book focuses on the role of American ideals especially in city and community building, while the five I recommend offer crucial counterpoints about the difficulties and setbacks encountered in reaching for national ideals.
The book explores the complicated historic interaction among what for many are understood to be opposing tendencies of American life. On the one hand, the promise of the ‘American Dream,’ long held as an ethos of America and associated with expectations of liberty, equality, and access to opportunity. While the phrase ‘America First’ is more often associated with isolationist and nativist campaigns, intolerance of others, and even supremacist ideology.
Yet, as Churchwell reveals, during times of economic, social, or international crisis the appeal of demagoguery would enable the twisting of the meaning of these two phrases for particular and sometimes less noble purposes.
A GUARDIAN AND A SMITHSONIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER AND I-PAPER SUMMER READ
'Enormously entertaining' Sunday Times 'Fascinating' New Statesman 'An enthralling book' Guardian
'The American dream is dead,' Donald Trump said when announcing his candidacy for president in 2015. How would he revive it? By putting 'America First'.
The 'American Dream' and 'America First' are two of the most loaded phrases in America today, and also two of the most misunderstood. The American Dream began as a pledge for equality rather than as a dream of supremacy and 'making it big'. America First has not…
It didn’t begin with Donald Trump. When the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections during the 1930s and 1940s, three things happened: (1) Republicans came to believe that presidential elections are rigged; (2) Conspiracy theories arose and were believed; and (3) The presidency was elevated to cult-like status.
For much of my career as a sociologist and professor of social welfare, I’ve focused my research and teaching on the issue of economic and social inequality in America. Why should the United States have both great wealth and yet at the same time extreme poverty and inequities? This question has motivated much of my scholarly and popular writing over the years. For me, this represents the fault line of America. We profess the importance that all are created equal, and yet our actions undermine such a belief. Why should this be the case, and how can we change the reality to reflect the ideal?
This is a very powerful book that takes the city of St. Louis as a case study to illustrate the amount of violence, discrimination, and inequities that have happened across a 300-year period, particularly with respect to race.
Johnson develops the idea of racial capitalism throughout the book, and notes that “the red thread that runs through this entire book is the historical relationship between imperialism and anti-Blackness.” At the same time, the city has also been home to both communist and Black radical organizing into the 20th century.
A highly interesting and important case study of American inequality and exploitation.
A searing and "magisterial" (Cornel West) history of American racial exploitation and resistance, told through the turbulent past of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in The Broken Heart of America, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor Black residents, from slavery through redlining and…
I love history in all forms. I enjoy first-person memoirs, and I also love historical biographies if they are well-written. Native American history is one of my areas of fascination, and the founding of our country is another. World War two is another area that I have delved into in the last few years, and it's so complex. Ultimately, all of the books I recommended are connected to important historical events, but their real strength is the people whom they are about. Looking through my list, I see that all of the books are about underdogs or figures who ultimately did not prevail in terms of their specific situations.
We are probably familiar with the hit musical Hamilton, but the historical biography on which it was based is equally compelling. Chernow really makes Alexander Hamilton come to life as a fully rounded, complex person, not just a cardboard cutout of a founding father.
His myriad clashes with Thomas Jefferson, his service under General Washington in the Revolutionary War, and his involvement in one of the first public sex scandals are all fascinating parts of this amazing tome. I've re-read it a number of times, I find it so gripping and tragic.
The #1 New York Times bestseller, and the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton!
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.
"Grand-scale biography at its best-thorough, insightful, consistently fair, and superbly written . . . A genuinely great book." -David McCullough
"A robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all." -Joseph Ellis
Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton.…
Joseph D’Agnese grew up in the Bicentennial-fueled excitement of the 1970s, and spent 1976 fake-playing a fife and sporting a tricorn hat in various school events. Besides teaching him how to get in and out of Revolutionary-period knickers, this experience awakened in him a love for the Founding Era of American history. He has since authored three history titles with his wife, The New York Times bestselling author Denise Kiernan.
The men who signed the Declaration of Independence are universally referred to as “Signers.”
In family trees and genealogies, you’ll often find this word appended to their names as a badge of honor, delineating them from later and earlier relations who bore the same name. The men who signed the Constitution, however, or typically referred to as Framers or Founders; that’s the reason behind Fradin’s title.
This is a great book for kids, grades 4 to 7. The maps and etchings by illustrator Michael McCurdy are charming, and help set the scene and mood of each man’s story. I think it can be a helpful book for teachers and homeschoolers looking for short readings to help bring the Constitution to life in the classroom.
The stories behind the Constitution are as powerful as the nation it created.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
After the American Revolution, the thirteen united states were joined, barely, by an almost powerless government. The federal army was too weak to defend the nation; there was no national currency; and there was no…
Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…
The first biographer, Plutarch, wrote that “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." Biographies help kindle this flame by presenting a person who displayed such character and attempted such noble deeds that the reader should follow their example. The biographer narrates the events of a life well-lived and draws out examples for the reader of the virtues and vices, strengths and foibles, of the person whose life is on display. In this way, biographies help us to be better people by showing us either a model to follow or an example to avoid.
Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin ranks among the top of Isaacson’s excellent biographies.
He provides thorough detail and background of Franklin’s life, examining him through the eyes of the quintessential American: an entrepreneur, a writer, a small businessman, a cosmopolitan, and a statesman (albeit lacking the higher offices).
Isaacson briefly treats Franklin’s religious views and the reasons why Franklin moved away from the Puritan faith of his forebearers and embraced a creed more akin to deism.
During his 84-year life Benjamin Franklin was America's best scientist, inventor, publisher, business strategist, diplomat, and writer. He was also one of its most practical political thinkers. America's first great publicist, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public and polished it for posterity. In this riveting new biography Walter Isaacson provides readers with a full portrait of Franklin's public and private life - his loyal but neglected wife, his bastard son with whom he broke over going to war with England, his endless replacement families and his many amorous, but probably unconsummated, liaisons. But this is not…
Professor Elie Wiesel was instrumental in my translating and researching my mother’s journals. My awakening to the dark period in the chapter of the Jewish history happened between 1971-1974 at CCNY, when our paths crossed while I was taking his classes at the department of Jewish studies. It was in his classes that the things that bewildered me as a child growing up in communist Poland in the shadows of the Holocaust aftermath started to make sense. I asked my mother to commit to paper the painful memories, she buried deep inside her. She and the next generations have an obligation to bear witness, to be this history's keepers.
When determination, vision, and the necessity to survive forced a small country, Israel, perform miracles. No matter the difficulties and challenges, from draining the swamps and turning the desert green, the vision for a better tomorrow, to be free and self-determined people made this country and her citizens rise above fear and embrace hope.
In 1934, eleven-year-old Shimon Peres emigrated to the land of Israel from his native Poland, leaving behind an extended family who would later be murdered in the Holocaust. Few back then would have predicted that this young man would eventually become one of the towering figures of the twentieth century. Peres would indeed go on to serve the new state as prime minister, president, foreign minister, and the head of several other ministries. He was central to the establishment of the Israeli Defense Forces and the defense industry that would provide the young state with a robust deterrent power. He…
More than 40 years ago, I first started writing a book on great ‘Tory’ leaders throughout history, several of whom were inexorably tied to this Regency period. Having never lost interest in the topic I continued to study the period and its political life and found a way to parlay experience from my career in finance and international business into a biography of the most economically proficient Prime Minister Britain has ever had. Research for that biography as well as for future Industrial Revolution-related books on which I am currently working has resulted in a broad and fruitful list of books on the period's politics.
John Bew’s biography of Clement Attlee is superb, this biography of Castlereagh, “perhaps the greatest of all Britain’s foreign secretaries” (Andrew Roberts) is even better. Castlereagh is a Regency politician’s Regency politician; he fought a duel against the devious Canning and when informed he was popular, replied that unpopularity was “more convenient and gentlemanlike.” He also, with Liverpool’s help and support, designed a peace settlement that lasted in essentials for 100 years, based on principles of legitimacy and lack of vengefulness that his successors at the 1919 Congress of Versailles would have done well to follow. Bew writes beautifully; this is a great biography of a very great man.
No British statesman of the nineteenth century reached the same level of international fame as Lord Castlereagh, or won as much respect from the great powers of Europe or America. Yet no British statesman has been so maligned by his contemporaries or hated by the public. His career took him from the brutal suppression of a bloody rebellion in Ireland to the splendour of Vienna and Paris. He imprisoned his former friends, abolished the Irish parliament, created the biggest British army in history, and redrew the map of Europe. At a time when the West turns from idealism to realism…
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…
I am a historian who focuses on the political history of the United States during the 20th century. My particular interest focuses on the history of the Republican Party & the American presidency. I am curious about how individuals acquire political power and their use of it. I was drawn to write a book about the friendship between Roosevelt and Lodge because of my fascination with the friendship among Eastern elites and how Lodge served as a mentor to Roosevelt in helping him achieve prominence in United States politics. Despite the many books on T.R. no one has ever written a narrative about his relationship with Lodge.
A wonderful biography of the journalist, poet, and diplomat.
Taliaferro’s narrative gives the reader a broad understanding of the political and diplomatic events which shaped the United States and the Republican Party from 1838-1905. Hay, like his close friend Henry Adams was a prolific letter writer and a man of strong opinions.
Within the text one gets a detailed description of not only what Hay’s relationship was like with Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, but also his complex relationship with Henry Cabot Lodge and others within the political and diplomatic circles of Washington, D.C.
From secretary to Abraham Lincoln to secretary of state for Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay remained a major figure in American history for more than half a century. His private life was as glamorous and romantic as it was privileged. This first full-scale biography since 1934 is a reflection of American history from the Civil War to the emergence of the nation as a world power as Woodrow Wilson is about to take office.
If Henry James or Edith Wharton had written a novel describing the accomplished and glamorous life and times of John Hay, it would have been thought implausible—a…
