Books on History

The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro

By Ann Louise Bardach

As world grapples with the question of what an ailing Fidel Castro means for Cuba, comes the publication of this historic first English publication of his letters from prison.

First Amendment Felon

The Story of Frank Wilkinson, His 132,000-Page FBI File, and His Epic Fight for Civil Rights and Liberties

By Robert Sherrill

Frank Wilkinson was one of the staunchest defenders of the First Amendment. This is his story.

The End of Romance

A Memoir of Love, Sex, and the Mystery of the Violin

By Norma Barzman

The End of Romance is a riveting memoir set against the backdrop of the rise of the Red Brigades and the resurgence of fascism in Italy.

Nothing but an Unfinished Song

Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Ignited a Generation

By Denis O'Hearn

The life, resistance, and death of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands inspired millions around the world. This is his story.

A People's History of Science

Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechaniks

By Clifford D. Conner

In the traditional history of science, a few extraordinary men--Galileo, Newton, Einstein--tower over the masses. But science has always been a collective endeavor. This book turns our attention to the ordinary, working people who furthered the development of science.

Madame Dread

By Kathie Klarreich

Civil violence, mass slaughter, coups and US intervention: Kathie Klarreich saw all this up close and on a daily basis in Haiti as a reporter for NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, NBC News and Time during the past decade. This compelling chronicle of tumultuous political events is also an intensely personal memoir of her experiences throughout Haiti's turbulent years.

Persona Non Grata

A Memoir of Disenchantment with the Cuban Revolution

By Jorge Edwards

In 1970 Jorge Edwards was dispatched by socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende to break the diplomatic blockade that had sealed Cuba for over a decade. His arrival coincided with the turning point of the Revolution, when Castro began to repress the very intellectuals he once courted.

Thirty Years of Treason

Excerpts From Hearings Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938-1968

By Eric Bentley

This absorbing collection reveals with painful clarity how HUAC grew from a panel investigating potentially subversive activities in a "dignified" manner to a monstrous and unrelenting accusatory force from which no one was safe.

Mount Rushmore

An Icon Reconsidered

By Jesse Larner

Mount Rushmore, conceived in the 1920s as a tourist attraction, was quickly recast by the sculptor into an icon of democracy, freedom and hope. The history of the Black Hills and the sense of manifest destiny that haunts the monument, however, render the faces more ironic than iconic.

American Rebels

By Jack Newfield

In this anthology of original essays, leading American writers discuss individuals who reconciled authentic patriotism with original artistic creation, unpopular opinion, and real moral principles.

Backstabbing for Beginners

My Crash Course in International Diplomacy

By Michael Soussan

The Wall Street Journal listed Backstabbing for Beginners as one of the 12 best books of 2008.

The Gods that Failed

How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future

By Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson

The Man Who Sold the World

Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America

By William Kleinknecht

"'The Man Who Sold the World' is the most concise and well-thought-out argument against Reagan."
Read the entire Truthdig review

Before the Storm

Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus

By Rick Perlstein

"One of the most stylish, riveting achievements in narrative history to appear."
—Mark Greif, The Village Voice

Mirrors

Stories of Almost Everyone

By Eduardo Galeano

Order the book here.

Wandering Souls

Journeys With The Dead And The Living In Viet Nam

By Wayne Karlin

Wandering Souls was listed in the New York Post's Required Reading column.

El Monstruo

Dread and Redemption in Mexico City

By John Ross

"Monstrously entertaining and tenderhearted."
"...a brave, stirring love letter, cautionary tale and travelogue."
—Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

Reckoning at Eagle Creek

The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland

By Jeff Biggers

Set in the ruins of his family's strip-mined homestead in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, award-winning journalist and cultural historian Jeff Biggers delivers a deeply personal portrait of the largely overlooked human and environmental costs of our nation's dirty energy policy, uncovering a century of regulatory negligence and vividly describing the epic mining wars for union recognition and workplace safety and the devastating consequences of industrial strip-mining. Along the way, Biggers exposes the fallacy that lies at the heart of the Obama administration's controversial pursuit of "clean coal."

Watch Jeff Biggers on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show.

Faces and Masks

Volume Two of the Memory of Fire trilogy

By Eduardo Galeano

"A bracingly original narrative of America's 500 years of history...a mosaic of miniatures, strung together to fashion a powerful and moving portrait."
—Marie Arana, Washington Post

Faces and Masks tells the tangled, cataclysmic history of our hemisphere from the 1700s up to the dawn of our present century, told through characters as resonant and compelling as Simon Bolívar, Toussaint L’Ouverture, and Billy the Kid.

Century of Wind

Volume Three of the Memory of Fire trilogy

By Eduardo Galeano

"A book as fascinating as the history it relates...[Galeano] deserves mention alongside John Dos Passos, Bernard DeVoto, and Gabriel García Márquez."
—Los Angeles Times

The third volume of Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire trilogy, Century of the Wind offers us our own turbulent century, from the bucolic New Jersey laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison to the armies of Emiliano Zapata and Fidel Castro to the Reagan-era CIA “neutralizations” in the forests of Latin America. A brilliant work that explodes this century's most pivotal moments, Century of Wind unravels the inextricable histories of the Americas.