Free summaries
History — page 3
111 public-domain history books, summarised. Page 3 of 3.
Scottish chapbook literature
William Harvey
The humble chapbook served as a vital, noisy, and often irreverent thread connecting the lives of the Scottish commonalty to the broader world of literature, print, and social history.
A sketch of the early days of the woolen industry in North Andover, Massachusetts
Nathaniel Stevens
A century of grit, homespun enterprise, and water-powered survival along a Massachusetts brook traces the birth of a lasting industrial community.
Knickerbocker's history of New York, vol. 2 (of 2)
Washington Irving
Beneath the shadow of cocked hats and stone pottles, a stubborn Dutch governor fights a comical war to preserve his beloved colony from encroaching neighbors and wandering spirits.
Walled towns
Ralph Adams Cram
Faced with the wreckage of industrial civilization and the false promises of modernism, humanity must choose a third alternative: withdrawing to build intentional, spiritually grounded communities of a human scale.
Leaves from the notebook of a tamed cynic
Reinhold Niebuhr
A young minister grapples with the absurdities of parish life, the compromises of modern war, and the quiet failures of a church struggling to meet the demands of a complex industrial world.
The brave little maid of Goldau
Mary Elizabeth Jennings
Beneath a towering Swiss mountain, a devastating landslide shatters an idyllic valley, testing the endurance and loyalty of a young household servant through a terrifying night.
The twin seven-shooters
Charles F. (Charles Frederick) Manderson
The twin seven-shooters serve as the silent, steel-bound witnesses to a nation’s fracture and its eventual, uneasy reconciliation. They are not merely weapons, but talismans of a soldier’s memory, tracing a path through the bloody fields of the Civil War.
A brief outline of the history of libraries
Justus Lipsius
This classic inquiry into the origins of book collections offers an intimate window into the classical world’s reverence for learning, serving as both a historical record and a spirited call to intellectual patronage.
The book of a naturalist
W. H. (William Henry) Hudson
A seasoned observer of the natural world invites readers to set aside the gun and the collector’s cabinet in favor of patient, quiet communion with the creatures of the field and wood. This collection serves as a meditation on the life, character, and intelligence of animals, rooted in the belief that true natural…
Powder River invasion
A. S. (Asa Shinn) Mercer
An armed invasion of Wyoming by wealthy cattlemen becomes a struggle for the state's soul, pitting the power of corporate interests against the rights of individual settlers. This account exposes a violent, orchestrated attempt to seize land and silence opposition through murder and political manipulation.
The story of a national crime
P. H. (Peter Henderson) Bryce
The health of Canada’s Indigenous population was systematically neglected by a government that prioritized administrative convenience over the lives of its treaty wards. This record exposes the lethal consequences of that indifference.
Upton Sinclair
Floyd Dell
The story of an American writer who sought to dismantle social injustice, this work examines how a penniless, rebellious youth transformed into a global literary figure by documenting the harsh realities of modern industrial life.
A woman's war record, 1861-1865
Septima M. (Septima Maria) Collis
A resilient woman navigates the chaos of the American Civil War, moving between the social whirl of high-ranking officers and the somber, visceral realities of the front line.
When Canada was New France
George H. (George Herbert) Locke
Forged through centuries of exploration, conflict, and endurance, the history of New France maps the foundations of a modern nation.
Ukraine under the Soviets
Clarence Augustus Manning
The collapse of the tsarist empire unleashed a fierce struggle for Ukrainian autonomy, caught between shifting Bolshevik strategies and devastating central control.