American History

Great Society: A New History  by Amity Shales, Harper, 2019.

The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance,and the Minimum Wage by Kirstin Downey, Vintage, 2010.

The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe, Vintage, 2010.  Fujian ( 福 建) Province There is not much arable land in Fujian Province in China. It is mostly mountains and the coast. Its coast is opposite Taiwan. Fujianese are also called Fukienese. Many Fukinese have gone abroad for opportunity.  Little Fuzhou In the 1980s New York's Chinatown, traditionally Cantonese, became more Fukinese. Men emigrated from Fukien Pr

The Tragedy of American Compassion  by Marvin Olasky, Regnery Publishing, 1994.  Summary   The author argues that the poor of the United States have been greatly harmed by the abandonment of the Christian philosophy of human nature, which understands that human beings have free will and can improve their moral character only if charity is conditional on the recipient behaving virtuously. Christian Charity During the 18th and 19th century in America, there was no structural un

The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass , by Myron Magnet, Encounter Books, 2000. Character and Culture Good moral character causes the family to improve economically, not the reverse. Libertairans prefer economic causes; conservatives favor character and culture. The lives of the working poor, especially those with so-called menial jobs, are held in contemp by the progressive elites. These elites deny status and respect for the law-abiding and chur

The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride  by Daniel James Brown, William Morrow, 2009.

The Devil's Highway: A True Story  by Luis Alberto Urrea. Little, Brown and Company (2004)

A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico  by Amy S. Greenberg, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.  Manifest Destiny President James K. Polk started the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) in order to steal the southwest from Mexico. He needed an excuse. So he made a big deal about where exactly the border was between Texas and Mexico. Was it the Rio Grand River or the Nueces River? The Nueces River was further to the North, and the true extent of Texas, which

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York  by Robert Caro, Vintage, 1975.  Park Commissioners Robert Moses served as New York City Park Commissioner for 26 years. Alfred E. Smith, governor of the state of New York, played a major role in the ascension to power of Bob Moses. Built by Moses Van Wyck Expressway to Idlewild (JFK) Airport Gowan’s Parkway in Brooklyn Cross-Bronx Expressway West Side Highway Henry Hudson Parkway Triborough Bridge Verrazano Narrows Brid

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water , Revised Edition, by Marc Reisner, Penguin Books, 1993.  Summary The author argues that the United States dammed way too many rivers. Not only did the dam builders harm nature, they also promoted irrigation and power-generation projects that failed a cost-benefit analysis. The early dams, such as Hoover Dam, did provide great benefits for modest costs. But as the years went by, all the best sites had been built on

Lost Prophet : The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin  by John D'Emilio, Free Press, 2010.  Bayard Rustin Rustin began not in the civil-rights movement, but rather in the pacifist movement of the early twentieth century. Black American soldiers coming back from the end of World War II were upset that although they had fought for the freedom of others they themselves were not free in racist America. This was part of the genesis of the early civil rights movement.  Civil Rights Mo

Up From Slavery  by Booker T. Washington, Skyhorse Publishing, 2015.  Self-Improvement If anyone ever pulled himself up with his own bootstraps, it was Booker T. Washington. He was born a slave on a farm in Virginia in 18556, into a very poor family. He educated himself, then educated others. He founded and ran the famous Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee Alabama in 1881.  He taught students to become teachers. His educational emphasis was on technical educ

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression  by Amity Shlaes, Jonathan Cape, 2007.  Gold Confiscation One of the issues Shlaes discusses is the gold standard. During the Great Depression, the federal government took several actions to weaken the gold standard. The most famous was the order that private citizens were no longer allowed to own gold, except in very small amounts, such as jewelry. Everyone had to turn in their gold and receive paper dollars in return.

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History  by S. C. Gwynne, Scribner, 2010.  Comanches The Comanche Indians were buffalo (bison) hunters on horseback in the southern United States during the nineteenth century. The Comanche dominated the other Indians in the Southwest: Apaches, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Shawnees, Sioux, Tonkawas, Wichitas. Most of the early history of the indigenous

The Worst Hard Time  by Timothy Egan, Houghton Mifflin, 2006.  Southern Great Plains This book talks about a time in the early twentieth century when the weather turned dry and farmers in the Southern Great Plains (Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado) suffered. The author begins with a discussion of the background of the region, of how the white man and cattle displaced the bison and Indians (Comanches, Kowa, Kowa-Apache, Querecho and Cherokee). Wheat Farmers In the e

Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II by Jim Powell, Crown Forum, 1st, First Edition, Hardcover, 2005. The author contends that bringing the United States into the First World War was a terrible mistake.

The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War  by Thomas J. Dilorenzo, Foreword by Walter E. Williams, Crown Publishing, 2003.  The Right of Secession The right of the southern states to secede was part of the tradition of the United States since its founding. After all, didn’t the United States secede from the British Empire? The United States was a voluntary association. Statism versus Individualism What has happened gradually since the

Drug Crazy: How We Got into This Mess and How We Can Get Out  by Mike Gray, Routledge, 2000.  Criminalization of Narcotics The author describes the criminalization of narcotics in the United States during the early twentieth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century there were about 3 thousand opium addicts in the United States. People often took laudanum (tincture of opium). The usage of narcotics decreased after the Food and Drug Act of 1906 required labeling of in

High Cost of Good Intensions: A History of U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs   by John F. Cogan, Stanford University Press, 2017.  The author gives a detailed narrative of America’s growth and development social welfare state. It began with providing pensions to soldiers who had served in the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). It continued in the provision of pensions for disabled veterans of the War of 1812  (1812-1815), the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the Civil War (1861-

Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980  by Charles Murray, Basic Books, 1984.  The War on Poverty Charles Murray describes how American President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s failed to decrease poverty, and instead had negative, unintended consequences.  In 1965, there was a loosening of restrictions on giving government aid to poor families. Welfare benefits provided families with about the same or somewhat greater income as working for a living. Th