American historical fiction
Discover the best American historical fiction and timeless classics, from Dickens' Hard Times to Sherman's March. Explore curated books on U.S. history, drama, and adventure—perfect for history buffs and literary fans alike.
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The Tainos
by Irving Rouse
Tells the story of the Taino people from their ancestral days in South America through their migration to the northern Caribbean islands where they were the first natives to interact with Columbus, to their rapid and immediate decline under the European gifts of forced labor, malnutrition, disease, and dispersal. Includes a glossary without pronunciation. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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Sons of Yocahu
by Gloria Bond
"When Christopher Columbus landed on the island known as Hispaniola, he discovered the magnificent culture of the Tainan people, a people who believed in peace because of the teachings of their great zemie, Yocahu. Many of the arriving Europeans brought with them brutal assumptions of superiority. Would the Taino tradition of peace be destroyed by that brutality? Or would the Europeans who claimed to worship the 'Prince of Peace' learn from those they conquered?"--P. [4] of cover.
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Migrations in Prehistory
by Irving Rouse
In this book, Irving Rouse evaluates research on prehistoric migrations, from successfully tested hypotheses explaining the origins of the Polynesians, Eskimos, Japanese, and Tainos, to the more fanciful postulations by authors such as Thor Heyerdahl and Barry Fell. Rouse's work demonstrates not only the viability of the inference of population movements from archaeological evidence but also the effectiveness of collaboration and communication between branches of archaeology and anthropology.
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An Introduction to the Study of Southwestern Archaeology
by Alfred Vincent Kidder
No summary available.
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A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens
'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...' Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities portrays a world on fire, split between Paris and London during the brutal and bloody events of the French Revolution. After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille the aging Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There, two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil lanes of London, they are all drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror and soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine. This edition uses the text as it appeared in its first serial publication in 1859 to convey the full scope of Dickens's vision, and includes the original illustrations by H.K. Browne ('Phiz'). Richard Maxwell's introduction discusses the intricate interweaving of epic drama with personal tragedy. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
Dickens' account of the rises and relapses of an orphan whose expectations and ambitions are greatly shaped and transformed by a mysterious benefactor.
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Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
This story of class conflict in Victorian England serves as a powerful critique of the social injustices that plagued the Industrial Revolution. THIS ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: • A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information • A chronology of the author's life and work • A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context • An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's own interpretations • Detailed explanatory notes • Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work • Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction • A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
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Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens
A gripping portrayal of London's dark criminal underbelly, published in Penguin Classics with an introduction by Philip Horne. The story of Oliver Twist - orphaned, and set upon by evil and adversity from his first breath - shocked readers when it was published. After running away from the workhouse and pompous beadle Mr Bumble, Oliver finds himself lured into a den of thieves peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the Artful Dodger, vicious burglar Bill Sikes, his dog Bull's Eye, and prostitute Nancy, all watched over by cunning master-thief Fagin. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery. This Penguin Classics edition of Oliver Twist is the first critical edition to faithfully reproduce the text as its earliest readers would have encountered it from its serialisation in Bentley's Miscellany, and includes an introduction by Philip Horne, a glossary of Victorian thieves' slang, a chronology of Dickens's life, a map of contemporary London and all of George Cruikshank's original illustrations. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens
'The most perfect of all the Dickens novels' Virginia Woolf David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy school-friend James Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora Spenlow; and the magnificently impecunious Wilkins Micawber, one of literature's great comic creations. In David Copperfield - the novel he described as his 'favourite child' - Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of the most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure. This edition uses the text of the first volume publication of 1850, and includes updated suggestions for further reading, original illustrations by 'Phiz', a revised chronology and expanded notes. In his new introduction, Jeremy Tambling discusses the novel's autobiographical elements, and its central themes of memory and identity. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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The Pickwick Papers
by Charles Dickens
'One of my life's greatest tragedies is to have already read Pickwick Papers - I can't go back and read it for the first time' Fernando Pessoa Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as The Pickwick Papers - a comic masterpiece that catapulted its twenty-four-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle and, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, and his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtors' prison, characters and incidents spring to life from Dickens's pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour and literary invention. This edition is based on the first volume edition of 1837, and includes the original illustrations. In his introduction, Mark Wormald discusses the genesis of The Pickwick Papers and the emergence of its central characters. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls
by Chris Morton
Secrets revealed of the legends of thirteen life size crystal skulls, said to hold information about our purpose & destiny.
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Captains Courageous
by Rudyard Kipling
The only one of Kipling's novels to be cast in an American setting, Captains Courageous endures as one of literature's most cherished and memorable sea adventures. Harvey Cheyne, spoiled millionaire's son, tumbles overboard from a luxury liner--only to be rescued by the crew of a Gloucester schooner. Thus begins the boy's second voyage into the rugged rites and ways of sailors. Like all Kipling's masterworks, Captains Courageous is an interweaving of art and moral purpose. Angus Wilson has said that it shows "delicacy of craft and violence of feeling, exactitude and wile impressionism, subtlety and true innocence." A popular favorite since its first publication in 1897, the novel remains a classic story of youthful initiation--and a lively tribute to the author's famous code of bravery, loyalty, and honor among men.
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Sherman's March
by Burke Davis
Sherman's March is the vivid narrative of General William T. Sherman's devastating sweep through Georgia and the Carolinas in the closing days of the Civil War. Weaving together hundreds of eyewitness stories, Burke Davis graphically brings to life the dramatic experiences of the 65,000 Federal troops who plundered their way through the South and those of the anguished -- and often defiant -- Confederate women and men who sought to protect themselves and their family treasures, usually in vain. Dominating these events is the general himself -- "Uncle Billy" to his troops, the devil incarnate to the Southerners he encountered. "What gives this narrative its unusual richness is the author's collation of hundreds of eyewitness accounts...The actions are described in the words, often picturesque and often eloquent, of those who were there, either as participants -- Union soldiers, Confederate soldiers -- in the fighting and destruction or as victims of Sherman's frank vow to 'make Georgia howl.' Mr. Davis intercuts these scenes with closeups of the chief actors in this nightmarish drama, and he also manages to give us a coherent historical account of the whole episode. A powerful illustration of the proposition put forth in Sherman's most famous remark." -- The New Yorker
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Pea Ridge
by William L. Shea
The first definitive study of a Civil War battle in the Trans-Mississippi shows how the battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas dramatically altered the balance of power and helped ensure Union victory
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The Long March and In the Clap Shack
by William Styron
Two extraordinary works about soldiers in a time of dubious peace by a writer of vast eloquence and moral authority. With stylistic panache and vitriolic wit, William Styron depicts conflicts between men of somewhat more than average intelligence and the military machine. In The Long March, a novella, two Marine reservists fight to retain their dignity while on a grueling exercise staged by a posturing colonel. The uproariously funny play In the Clap Shack charts the terrified passage of a young recruit through the prurient inferno of a Navy hospital VD ward. In both works, Styron wages a gallant defense of the free individual--and serves up a withering indictment of a system that has no room for individuality or freedom.
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Marching Through Georgia
by Lee B. Kennett
In this engrossing work of history, Lee Kennett brilliantly brings General Sherman's 1864 invasion of Georgia to life by capturing the ground-level experiences of the soldiers and civilians who witnesses the bloody campaign. From the skirmish at Buzzard Roost Gap all the way to Savannah ten months later, Kennet follows the notorious, complex Sherman, who attacked the devastated the heart of the Confederacy's arsenal. Marching Through Georgia describes, in gripping detail, the event that marked the end of the Old South.
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When Sherman Marched North from the Sea
by Jacqueline Glass Campbell
Home front and battle front merged in 1865 when General William T. Sherman occupied Savannah and then marched his armies north through the Carolinas. Although much has been written about the military aspects of Sherman's March, Jacqueline Campbell reveals
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Doniphan's Epic March
by Joseph G. Dawson
In 1846-1847, a ragtag army of 800 American volunteers marched 3,500 miles across deserts and mountains, through Indian territory and into Mexico. There they handed the Mexican army one of its most demoralizing defeats and helped the United States win its first foreign war. Their leader Colonel Alexander Doniphan, also a volunteer, was a "natural soldier" of towering stature who became a national hero in the wake of his wartime exploits. Doniphan was a small-town Missouri lawyer untrained in military matters when he answered President Polk's call for volunteers in the war with Mexico. Working from a host of primary sources, Joseph Dawson focuses on Doniphan's extraordinary leadership and chronicles how the colonel and his 1st Missouri Mounted Regiment helped capture New Mexico and went on to invade Chihuahua. Contending with wildfires, sandstorms, poor provisions, and the threat of attack from Apaches, they eventually came face-to-face with the formidable cannon and cavalry of a much larger Mexican force. Yet, at the Battle of Sacramento, these hardy volunteers outflanked General Jose Heredia's army and claimed a stunning American victory on foreign soil. Dawson explores and analyzes the many facets of Doniphan's exploits, from the decision to proceed to Chihuahua in the wake of the Taos Revolt to the tactics that shaped his victory at Sacramento, describing that battle in heart-stopping detail. He tells how Doniphan's legal expertise enabled him to supervise America's first military government administering a conquered land at Santa Fe and highlights Doniphan's remarkable cooperation with U.S. Army officers at a time when antagonism typified relationships between volunteers and regulars. He also introduces readers to other key personalities of the campaign, from fellow officers Stephen W. Kearny and Meriwether L. Clark to James Kiker, the controversial scout whom Doniphan reluctantly trusted. Dawson's thorough account captures the expansionist mood of America in the mid-nineteenth century and helps us understand how American soldiers were motivated by the idea of Manifest Destiny. His portrait of Doniphan and his troops reinforces the importance of the citizen-soldier in American history and provides a new window on the war that changed forever the hopes and dreams of our border nations.
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Kinfolk
by Pearl Sydenstricker Buck
Scenes are modern Manhattan and China. The story stresses Biracial problems and Binational cultures.
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The Crucible
by Arthur Miller
A haunting examination of groupthink and mass hysteria in a rural community A Penguin Classic "I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote in an introduction to The Crucible, his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing: "Political opposition...is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Undaunted Courage
by Stephen E. Ambrose
From the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Ambrose has pieced together previously unknown information about weather, terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to provide a vivid backdrop for the expedition. Lewis is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters, first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest in exploring and acquiring the American West went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched Jefferson’s. There are numerous Indian chiefs, and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition, along with the French-Indian hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more leading political, scientific, and military figures of the turn of the century. High adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and diplomacy combine with high romance and personal tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship as readable as a novel.
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Farewell Summer
by Ray Bradbury
In a summer that refuses to end, in the deceiving warmth of earliest October, civil war has come to Green Town, Illinois. It is the age-old conflict: the young against the elderly, for control of the clock that ticks their lives ever forward. The first cap-pistol shot heard 'round the town is dead accurate, felling an old man in his tracks, compelling town elder and school board despot Mr. Calvin C. Quartermain to marshal his graying forces and declare total war on the assassin, thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding, and his downy-cheeked cohorts. Doug and his cronies, however, are most worthy adversaries who should not be underestimated, as they plan and execute daring campaigns—matching old Quartermain's experience and cunning with their youthful enthusiasm and devil-may-care determination to hold on forever to childhood's summer. Yet time must ultimately be the victor, with valuable revelations for those on both sides of the conflict. And life waits in ambush to assail Doug Spaulding with its powerful mysteries—the irresistible ascent of manhood, the sweet surrender to a first kiss . . . One of the most acclaimed and beloved of American storytellers, Ray Bradbury has come home, revisiting the verdant landscape of one of his most adored works, Dandelion Wine. More than fifty years in the making, the long-awaited sequel, Farewell Summer, is a treasure—beautiful, poignant, wistful, hilarious, sad, evocative, profound, and unforgettable . . . and proof positive that the flame of wonder still burns brightly within the irrepressible imagination of the incomparable Bradbury.