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History - American — page 12
1,154 public-domain history - american books, summarised. Page 12 of 25.
The Pocahontas-John Smith Story
Pocahontas Wight Edmunds
The enduring legend of America’s most famous cross-cultural encounter is reimagined here as a tragic, star-crossed romance defined by missed connections and the weight of history.
The Cotton Kingdom, volume 1 (of 2)
Frederick Law Olmsted
A traveler’s meticulous journal reveals the economic and moral exhaustion of a society built upon forced labor. Through precise observation, the narrative exposes how human bondage stifled progress and hollowed out the prosperity it claimed to protect.
Journal history of the Twenty-ninth Ohio Veteran Volunteers, 1861-1865
J. Hamp (John Hamilton) SeCheverell
A detailed chronicle of the Twenty-ninth Ohio Veteran Volunteers, this account preserves the sacrifices of a dedicated infantry regiment through the most pivotal campaigns of the American Civil War.
Indian slavery in colonial times within the present limits of the United States
Almon Wheeler Lauber
The reality of early American history often obscures the specific, systemic exploitation of Indigenous people, a practice that existed alongside and intersected with the rise of the transatlantic slave trade.
The Norse discoverers of America
G. M. (Geoffrey Malcolm) Gathorne-Hardy
The Norse sagas describe journeys across the Atlantic centuries before Columbus, blending oral tradition with the hard realities of navigation. This scholarly work analyzes those accounts to determine where these explorers actually landed.
Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865)
Marion Gleason McDougall
The persistent struggle of the enslaved to reclaim their humanity from the machinery of state law is a defining, often overlooked, thread of American history.
Oaths of Allegiance in Colonial New England
Charles Evans
The legal instruments of seventeenth-century New England reveal the foundational tension between royal authority and the self-governing ambitions of early settlers. These documents serve as the blueprints for a nascent American political identity.
Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier
Frank H. (Frank Hayward) Severance
This collection of historical essays illuminates the Niagara Frontier, revealing a landscape defined by centuries of missionaries, soldiers, captives, and those seeking the silent promise of liberty.
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century periodical serves as a vibrant, urgent dispatch from the front lines of the American Civil War, blending literary sketches with fierce political advocacy. It captures a nation in the throes of self-definition.
The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West
Anderson, Robert E. (Robert Edward), M.A., F.A.S.
This historical survey examines the rise and fall of the great American civilizations, tracing the path from early Norse explorations to the transformative—and destructive—encounters with Spanish conquistadors.
A Historical Geography of the British Colonies, Vol. V: Canada—Part I, Historical
Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir
This account traces the transformation of New France from a string of tentative outposts into a centralized colony, culminating in the decisive shift to British rule by 1763.
Journals of Conrad Weiser (1748), George Croghan (1750-1765), Christian Frederick Post (1758), and Thomas Morris (1764)
George Croghan
The frontier is not a place, but a fragile, shifting boundary where two empires, countless nations, and competing interests collide in the silence of the woods. These accounts reveal the raw, unvarnished labor of building a continent through diplomacy, suspicion, and the constant threat of violence.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 25, April, 1873
Various
A nineteenth-century literary snapshot, this volume maps the shifting borders of American industry and global identity through a diverse collection of travelogues, social critiques, and serialized fiction.
Our Railroads To-Morrow
Edward Hungerford
The American railroad industry stands at a perilous crossroads, caught between the crushing weight of public expectations and the fraying reality of its own aging infrastructure. This analysis examines the urgent necessity for modernizing transit systems to ensure the country’s economic survival.
America, Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat
Tingfang Wu
An observant Chinese diplomat offers a candid, cross-cultural critique of early 20th-century American life, balancing admiration for democratic energy with skepticism toward Western habits and social conventions.
The Land We Live In: The Story of Our Country
Henry Mann
This broad, sweeping history of the United States traces the nation's trajectory from early colonial struggles and the quest for independence through the expansionist nineteenth century to the unified, industrial power of the post-Civil War era.
Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism
Allen Putnam
This investigation reinterprets the infamous New England witch trials not as products of pure delusion, but as early, misunderstood encounters with the natural, spiritualistic laws of mediumship and unseen forces.
A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America
S. A. (Simon Ansley) Ferrall
A young traveler ventures across the Atlantic to explore the vast, untamed landscape of the early American republic. Driven by curiosity, he documents a journey through its burgeoning cities, deep forests, and sprawling frontier territories.
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 14
Unknown
This collection of historical chronicles captures the seismic shifts of the late eighteenth century, documenting the transition from absolute monarchy to the birth of modern democratic and revolutionary states. It presents history not as a dry academic exercise, but as a series of urgent, interconnected crises that…
The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 2 (of 2): A Narrative and Critical History
George Cary Eggleston
This detailed narrative history offers a critical, retrospective look at the American Civil War from the viewpoint of a writer who emphasizes the strategic failures and moral complexities inherent in the conflict. It serves as a study of command, examining why certain leaders thrived while others faltered under the…
Uncle Sam
Albert Matthews
HOOK This study meticulously excavates the origins of an American icon, tracing how a derisive wartime nickname evolved into a permanent fixture of the national vocabulary.
A Straight Deal
Owen Wister
HOOK A century of misunderstanding between two nations rests on a foundation of myths, schoolbook biases, and petty social slights. Exploring the shared roots of the United States and Great Britain, this work argues that the two powers are, for better or worse, inseparable kin.
France and England in North America, Part VII, Vol 2: A Half-Century of Conflict
Francis Parkman
A decades-long collision of empires across the American wilderness pits strategic ambition against raw frontier survival, where French fortresses and English provincial militias fight for control of a continent.
Humours of '37, Grave, Gay and Grim: Rebellion Times in the Canadas
Robina Lizars
A colorful, anecdotal chronicle reveals how ordinary settlers, eccentric officials, and blundering militias stumbled through Upper and Lower Canada's 1837 political unrest.
Our Navy in the War
Lawrence Perry
A sweeping account of naval power in action, detailing how American sailors, gunners, and commanders mobilized to secure the high seas and protect vital transatlantic routes during World War I.
Pioneers of the Old South: A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings
Mary Johnston
The English people who crossed the Atlantic to build a new world carried the traditions, prejudices, and stubborn hopes of their home shires into a strange and untamed wilderness.
Quaint and Historic Forts of North America
John Martin Hammond
This survey of North American fortifications traces the military history of the continent through the crumbling stone and earthen ruins of its most significant outposts. It offers a measured look at the rise and fall of colonial power across a vast, evolving landscape.
The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado
Logan Marshall
A brutal early-spring storm unleashes nationwide devastation, drowning the towns of the Ohio River Valley and leveling Nebraska under a violent tornado.
The war against Germany: Europe and adjacent areas
Kenneth E. Hunter
A massive logistical machine anchors a sweeping visual record of victory, tracing the American military effort across Western Europe from base staging in Britain to total German collapse.
Florida: Past and present: together with notes from Sunland, on the Manatee River, Gulf Coast of South Florida: its climate, soil, and productions
Samuel C. (Samuel Curtis) Upham
An inviting work of promotional local history, practical agricultural advice, and personal memoir capturing the pioneering spirit of late nineteenth-century South Florida.
The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Charles Nordhoff
A firsthand exploration of America's communistic societies in the 19th century.
The Great American Canals (Volume 2, The Erie Canal)
Archer Butler Hulbert
A single engineered ditch across the New York wilderness re-routed the trade of a continent, reshaping American commerce and political geography through sheer mechanical ambition and stubborn legislative will.
The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons
William Z. Foster
A grueling twelve-hour workday, seven days a week, meets the unyielding wall of corporate monopoly in a battle for the soul of American labor.
The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 1 (of 2): A Narrative and Critical History
George Cary Eggleston
The initial attempt to bind loose states together through voluntary compact unravels into a terrifying scale of industrialized slaughter across North America.
The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886
Various
A treasure trove of New England history, culture, and literature from the late 19th century.
The Women Who Came in the Mayflower
Annie Russell Marble
Before Plymouth became a monument, it was a fragile collection of homes kept alive by ordinary women whose fortitude and practical labor shaped the survival of a new society.
A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle for Wake Island
Robert Cressman
Caught on a tiny Pacific atoll at the dawn of the Pacific War, a handful of American Marines, sailors, and civilian contractors mount a desperate, heroic defense against an overwhelming Japanese invasion force.
A Short History of the Salem Village Witchcraft Trials: Illustrated by a Verbatim Report of the Trial of Mrs. Elizabeth Howe
M. V. B. Perley
This historical study examines the mechanisms of the 1692 Salem witchcraft crisis, centering on the tragic legal entanglement of a woman accused by her neighbors of supernatural malice.
Literary New York: Its Landmarks and Associations
Charles Hemstreet
Behind New York’s modern facade of stone and steel lies a lost world of quiet lanes, shaded orchards, and bustling tavern parlors where American literature first found its voice.
Our Army at the Front
Heywood Broun
A sudden leap across an ocean turns an untried civilian nation into a decisive force on the Western Front.
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
A uncompromising collection of nineteenth-century abolitionist tracts exposes how American law, scripture, and political compromise were weaponized to sustain human bondage.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 54, April, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
Across essays, poetry, and war-era drama, this mid-nineteenth-century magazine issue captures an American republic in crisis while debating the enduring laws of literature, nature, and human society.
The Soul of John Brown
Stephen Graham
An English traveler journeys on foot through the American South to measure the living legacy of slavery against the promise of freedom.
A history of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A
George Little
A volunteer artillery company marches out of an Alabama courthouse in 1861, expecting quick glory, only to find themselves enduring four years of mud, starvation, and grueling retreats across the crumbling Confederacy.
A History, of the War of 1812-15 Between the United States and Great Britain
Rossiter Johnson
A young republic risks its survival on land and sea against the world's greatest empire, fighting internal division and desperate battles across a sprawling frontier.
Spanish America, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
Ancient empires, mountain chains, and tropical waterways unfold across a sweeping geographical survey of Spain’s sprawling American possessions. Written on the eve of Latin American independence, this compendium captures a continent in transition.
The Americans in the Great War
Unknown
Massive artillery concentrations, devastated landscapes, and tactical counter-offensives shape a definitive record of the Allied turn of fortune along the Marne in 1918.
Down South
Hardy, Duffus, Lady
In this evocative travelogue, a Victorian observer navigates the American South, tracing the delicate, lingering intersection of natural splendor and the heavy, complex legacies of a landscape transformed by conflict.