History, Americas

In this magisterial history of the continent, Kathleen DuVal traces the power of Native nations from the rise of ancient cities more than 1000 years ago to the present. She reframes North American history, noting significantly that Indigenous civilizations did not come to a halt when a few wandering explorers or hungry settlers arrived, even when the strangers came well-armed. A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size, but following a period of climate change and instability DuVal shows how numerous nations emerged from previously centralized civilizations. From this urban past, patterns of egalitarian government structures, complex economies and trade, and diplomacy spread across North America. And, when Europeans did arrive in the 16th century, they encountered societies they did not understand and whose power they often underestimated. For centuries, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. In Native Nations, we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch--and influenced global trade patterns--and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists. With the American Revolution, power dynamics shifted, but Indigenous people continued to control the majority of the continent. The Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa built alliances across the continent and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions. The Cherokees created new institutions to assert their sovereignty to the U.S. and on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their preponderance of power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory. The definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Indigenous nations has been a constant--

A sweeping yet personal overview of the Latino population of America, drawn from hundreds of interviews and prodigious research that emphasizes the diversity and little-known history of our largest and fastest-growing minority. LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana's life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise 20 percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage. But Latinos are not a monolith. They do not represent a single group. The largest numbers are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and Cubans. Each has a different cultural and political background. Puerto Ricans, for example, are US citizens, whereas some Mexican Americans never immigrated because the US-Mexico border shifted after the US invasion of 1848, incorporating what is now the entire southwest of the United States. Cubans came in two great waves: those escaping communism in the early years of Castro, many of whom were professionals and wealthy, and those permitted to leave in the Mariel boat lift twenty years later, representing some of the poorest Cubans, including prisoners. As LatinoLand shows, Latinos were some of the earliest immigrants to what is now the US--some of them arriving in the 1500s. They are racially diverse--a random fusion of White, Black, Indigenous, and Asian. Once overwhelmingly Catholic, they are becoming increasingly Protestant and Evangelical. They range from domestic workers and day laborers to successful artists, corporate CEOs, and US senators. Formerly solidly Democratic, they now vote Republican in growing numbers. They are as varied culturally as any immigrants from Europe or Asia. Marie Arana draws on her own experience as the daughter of an American mother and Peruvian father who came to the US at age nine, straddling two worlds, as many Latinos do. LatinoLand unabashedly celebrates Latino resilience and character and shows us why we must understand the fastest-growing minority in America--

Koreatown, Los Angeles, tells the story of an American ethnic community often equated with socioeconomic achievement and assimilation, but whose experiences as racial minorities and immigrant outsiders illuminate key economic and cultural developments in the United States since 1965. Beginning with the early development of LA's Koreatown and culminating with the 1992 Los Angeles riots and their aftermath, Shelley Sang-Hee Lee demonstrates how Korean Americans' lives were shaped by patterns of racial segregation and urban poverty, and legacies of anti-Asian racism and orientalism. More than a dot on a map, Koreatown holds profound emotional significance for Korean immigrants across the nation as a symbol of their shared bonds and place in American society--Back cover.

This collection arose out of a 2019 conference to commemorate the completion of the fourteen-volume Correspondence of James K. Polk. Its scholarship--which pays tribute to the Polk Project itself, as well as to the controversial nature of the Polk legacy--will result in a significant reinterpretation of the eleventh US president. Contributors include John F. Polk, who examines the ways history has mischaracterized almost the entire Polk family tree, and Kelly Houston Jones, who investigates the family's investments in slave-based agriculture. The fascinating life of Elias Polk, a man enslaved by the president, is compellingly related by Zacharie W. Kinslow. Asaf Almog analyzes the persistence of labels: Polk and fellow Democrats labeled their Whig opponents Federalists, he argues, with both rhetorical and substantive aims. Michael Gunther analyzes Polk's authorization of the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of the Interior, seemingly at odds with his devotion to small government. Taken together, the twelve essays unveil a more complex James K. Polk than the narrowly focused Jackson protégé and proponent of Manifest Destiny we often hear about. He was politically partisan but inspired by history and grounded in principle. His family's long reliance on nonwhite Americans' losses of freedom and land informed his policies on slavery and Indian removal, and the nature of the legislation at hand determined when he promoted a larger or a smaller federal government. James K. Polk and His Time helps us to understand not only Polk himself and those who influenced him, but also those who felt the impact of his actions--back cover.

This volume offers a panoramic view of Black feminist politics through the stories of Black women who attended the 1977 National Women's Conference, placing the diversity of Black women's experiences and their leadership at the center of the history of the women's movement--

The term Heartland in American cultural context conventionally tends to provoke imageries of corn-fields, flat landscape, hog farms, and rural communities, along with ideas of conservatism, homogeneity, and isolation. But as the Midwestern and Southern states experienced more rapid population growth than that in California, Hawaii, and New York in the recent decades, the Heartland region has emerged as a growing interest of Asian American studies. Focused on the Heartland cities of Chicago, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri, this book draws rich evidences from various government records, personal stories and interviews, and media reports, and sheds light on the commonalities and uniqueness of the region, as compared to the Asian American communities on the East and West Coast and Hawaii. Some of the poignant stories such as the Three Moy Brothers, Alla Lee, and Save Sam Wah Laundry told in the book are powerful reflections of Asian American history--

Tens of thousands of Filipino soldiers and sailors fought and died under the American flag in the Pacific during the Second World War. Yet Americans know little about these casualties, because they know little about America's long history in the Philippines -- or about Filipinos' long history in the US armed forces. Since US Marines first occupied the islands in 1898, war and military service have created an enduring, often-fraught bond between Americans and Filipinos: the axis on which America's first Pacific Century turned. In Bound by War, award-winning historian Christopher Capozzola offers a revelatory new portrait of twentieth-century American foreign relations by following the generations of Filipinos and Americans who crossed the Pacific in military uniforms in the century after America's ships first steamed into Manila Bay. Whether in steel ships or nuclear subs, it is from the Philippines that the United States has faced a series of Pacific rivals since the late 1800s. The Philippine islands were where American forces built the first of their overseas military bases, where they learned to use napalm, and where they mastered waterboarding. Capozzola reveals how the islands were a proving ground for pivotal American figures, including William Howard Taft, John J. Pershing, Dwight Eisenhower, Paul Wolfowitz, and John McCain. And all along, from the first Philippine Scouts in 1899 to third-country contract workers in Afghanistan, Filipino soldiers have been crucial partners in the exercise of U.S. power in Asia. Investigating the uneven partnership between America and the Philippines over many decades, Capozzola recounts the violence, exploitation, and racial discrimination that Filipino service members experienced at the hands of Americans, while also showing how military service offered Filipinos steady wages, immigration visas, and other opportunities. The Pacific Century was not only a rhetorical strategy of U.S. foreign policy but a lived reality that shaped migration, work, and family life. Epic in scope and rich in detail, Bound by War retells the history of the United States from a Pacific perspective, revealing the United States as a colonizing and occupying power, a longstanding and formidable military presence in the Pacific, and an intensely ambivalent nation of immigrants. It is a fresh and definitive portrait of two nations and their decades of fateful entanglement.--

A master historian's retrieval of the spiritual visions and vitalisms that animate American life and the possibilities they offer today--

While Black women's intellectual history continues to grow as an important subfield in historical studies, there remains a gap in scholarship devoted to the topic. To date, major volumes on American intellectual history tend to exclude the words, ideas, and contributions of these influential individuals. A Seat at the Table: Black Women Public Intellectuals in US History and Culture seeks to fill this void, presenting essays on African American women within the larger context of American intellectual history. Divided into four parts, the volume considers women in politics, art, government, journalism, media, education, and the military. Essays feature prominent figures such as Shirley Chisholm, Oprah Winfrey, journalist Charlotta Bass, and anti-abortion activist Mildred Fay Jefferson, as well as lesser-known individuals. The anthology begins with a discussion of the founders in Black women's public intellectualism, providing a framework for understanding the elements, structure, and concerns central to their lives and work in the nineteenth century. The second section focuses on leaders in the Black Christian intellectual tradition, the civil rights era, and modern politics. Part three examines Black women in society and culture in the twentieth century, with essays on such topics as artists in the New Negro era; Joycelyn Elders, a public servant and former surgeon general; and America's foremost Black woman influencer, Oprah. Lastly, part four concerns Black women and their ideas about public service-particularly military service-with essays on service members during World War II and the post-WWII military. Taken as a whole, A Seat at the Table is an important anthology that helps to establish the validity and existence of heretofore neglected intellectual traditions in the public square--