History Resources: Library Books

This page provides curriculum, materials, and information resources related to United States History.

Search The Library Catalog

Circulating Books (Books to Borrow)

The library has Circulating copies of books in many subject areas, such as Criminal Justice, Business, Healthcare and Culinary Arts. These books may be borrowed and taken out, using your Monroe College ID.

e-Books

e-Books may be borrowed and read online, at the library or remotely via MyMonroe. They are fully searchable, and selected chapters may be downloaded for use in your research.

Reference Books

Our Reference collection contains standard, core titles in many disciplines for basic research. These books may be used in the library only.

Art History

Black Art : a cultural history by Richard J. Powell The African diaspora--a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade and Western colonialism--generated a wide array of artistic achievements in the past century, from blues to reggae, from the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner to the video installations of Keith Piper. Richard Powell's study concentrates on the works of art themselves and on how these works, created during a time of major social upheaval and transformation, use black culture as both subject and context. From musings on the "the souls of black folk" in early twentieth-century painting, sculpture, and photography to questions of racial and cultural identities in performance, media, and computer-assisted arts in the 1990s, the book draws on the works of hundreds of artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Mailou Jones, Wifredo Lam, Jacob Lawrence, Spike Lee, Archibald Motley, Jr., Faith Ringgold, and Gerard Sekoto. This revised edition includes expanded coverage of video art and a new chapter that discusses work by a number of artists who have newly risen to prominence, such as Chris Ofili, Kara Walker, and Renée Cox. Biographies of more than 170 key artists provide a unique art-historical reference. Placing its emphasis on black cultural themes rather than on black racial identity, this groundbreaking book is an important exploration of the visual representations of black culture throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
Call Number: N 6538 .N5 P64 2002 (BX)
ISBN: 0500203628
History of Art by Anthony F. Janson Features a discussion of major art movements, trends, and periods along with biographical information on key artists and their work.
Call Number: N 5300 .J3 2001 (BX - REF!)
ISBN: 0130197327
A History of Art in Africa by Monica Blackmun Visona; Robin Poynor; Herbert M. Cole; Michael D. Harris; Rowland Abiodun; Suzanne P. Blier (Introduction by) This comprehensive work considers the arts of Africa as art history, rather than as expressions of anthropological and societal impulses and traditions. The result is to animate the study of African art, showing how it has changed over the years.
Call Number: N 7380 .H54 2001 (BX & NR - REF!)
ISBN: 0810934485
The Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Art by Jane Turner (Editor)
Call Number: N 6502 .E53 2000
ISBN: 9781884446047
Bronx Library - in Reference
The Penguin Concise Dictionary of Art History by Nancy Frazier
Call Number: N 5300 .F64 2000
ISBN: 9780670100156
Bronx Library - in Reference
A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art by Ian Chilvers (Editor)
Call Number: N 6490 .C5317 1998
ISBN: 0192116452
Bronx Library - in Reference

Caribbean History

Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean by Randy Browne A groundbreaking study of slavery and power in the British Caribbean that foregrounds the struggle for survival Atlantic slave societies were notorious deathtraps. In Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean, Randy M. Browne looks past the familiar numbers of life and death and into a human drama in which enslaved Africans and their descendants struggled to survive against their enslavers, their environment, and sometimes one another. Grounded in the nineteenth-century British colony of Berbice, one of the Atlantic world's best-documented slave societies and the last frontier of slavery in the British Caribbean, Browne argues that the central problem for most enslaved people was not how to resist or escape slavery but simply how to stay alive. Guided by the voices of hundreds of enslaved people preserved in an extraordinary set of legal records, Browne reveals a world of Caribbean slavery that is both brutal and breathtakingly intimate. Field laborers invoked abolitionist-inspired legal reforms to protest brutal floggings, spiritual healers conducted secretive nighttime rituals, anxious drivers weighed the competing pressures of managers and the condition of their fellow slaves in the fields, and women fought back against abusive masters and husbands. Browne shows that at the core of enslaved people's complicated relationships with their enslavers and one another was the struggle to live in a world of death. Provocative and unflinching, Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean reorients the study of Atlantic slavery by revealing how differently enslaved people's social relationships, cultural practices, and political strategies appear when seen in the light of their unrelenting struggle to survive.
Call Number: HT 1140 .B4 B76 2017 (BX)
ISBN: 9780812249408
An Intellectual History of the Caribbean by Silvio Torres-Saillant This is first intellectual history of the Caribbean written by a top Caribbean studies scholar. The book examines both the work of natives of the region as well as texts interpretive of the region produced by Western authors. Stressing the experimental and cultural particularity of the Caribbean, the study considers major questions in the field.
Call Number: F 2169 .T67 2006 (BX)
ISBN: 1403966761
Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem Renaissance by Joyce Moore Turner; W. Burghardt Turner; Franklin W. Knight (Introduction by) Cogent & probing study of African American flirtation with socialism and communism broadens one's understanding of the Harlem Renaissance to its political underpinnings
Call Number: PS 153.C27 T87 2005 (BX)
ISBN: 0252072413
A Colony of Citizens : Revolution & slave emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804. by Laurent Dubois
Call Number: F 2151 .D83 2004 (BX)
ISBN: 0807828742
African Caribbeans by Alan West-Duran
Call Number: F 1629 .B55 B53 2003
ISBN: 0313312400
New Rochelle Library - in Reference
A Brief History of the Caribbean by Jan Rogozinski; Jan Rogonzinski Revised and updated through the year 2000
Call Number: F 1621 .R72 2000 (BX & NR)
ISBN: 0452281938

United States History

And There Was Light : Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how-and why-he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America. "Meacham has given us the Lincoln for our time."-Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize . Longlisted for the Biographers International Plutarch Award. One of the Best Books of the Year- The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents-a remote icon-or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln-an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment, essential to the story of justice in America, began as he grew up in an antislavery Baptist community; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him to see the right. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination in 1865- his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans, Lincoln's story illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.
Call Number: E 457.2 .M479 2022 (BX)
ISBN: 9780553393965
The American Story : Conversations with master historians by David M. Rubenstein; Carla Hayden (Foreword by) Co-founder of The Carlyle Group and patriotic philanthropist David M. Rubenstein takes readers on a sweeping journey across the grand arc of the American story through revealing conversations with our greatest historians. In these lively dialogues, the biggest names in American history explore the subjects they've come to so intimately know and understand. -- David McCullough on John Adams -- Jon Meacham on Thomas Jefferson -- Ron Chernow on Alexander Hamilton -- Walter Isaacson on Benjamin Franklin -- Doris Kearns Goodwin on Abraham Lincoln -- A. Scott Berg on Charles Lindbergh -- Taylor Branch on Martin Luther King -- Robert Caro on Lyndon B. Johnson -- Bob Woodward on Richard Nixon --And many others, including a special conversation with Chief Justice John Roberts Through his popular program The David Rubenstein Show, David Rubenstein has established himself as one of our most thoughtful interviewers. Now, in The American Story, David captures the brilliance of our most esteemed historians, as well as the souls of their subjects. The book features introductions by Rubenstein as well a foreword by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to lead our national library. Richly illustrated with archival images from the Library of Congress, the book is destined to become a classic for serious readers of American history. Through these captivating exchanges, these bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors offer fresh insight on pivotal moments from the Founding Era to the late 20th century.
Call Number: E 175 .R83 2019 (NR)
ISBN: 9781982120252
These Truths : a history of the United States by Jill Lepore New York Times Bestseller In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history. Written in elegiac prose, Lepore's groundbreaking investigation places truth itself--a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence--at the center of the nation's history. The American experiment rests on three ideas--"these truths," Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation's truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore traces the intertwined histories of American politics, law, journalism, and technology, from the colonial town meeting to the nineteenth-century party machine, from talk radio to twenty-first-century Internet polls, from Magna Carta to the Patriot Act, from the printing press to Facebook News. Along the way, Lepore's sovereign chronicle is filled with arresting sketches of both well-known and lesser-known Americans, from a parade of presidents and a rogues' gallery of political mischief makers to the intrepid leaders of protest movements, including Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist orator; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and ultimately tragic populist; Pauli Murray, the visionary civil rights strategist; and Phyllis Schlafly, the uncredited architect of modern conservatism. Americans are descended from slaves and slave owners, from conquerors and the conquered, from immigrants and from people who have fought to end immigration. "A nation born in contradiction will fight forever over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. "The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden," These Truths observes. "It can't be shirked. There's nothing for it but to get to know it."
Call Number: E 178 .L57 2018 (NR)
ISBN: 9780393635249
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz New York Times Bestseller Now part of the HBO docuseries "Exterminate All the Brutes," written and directed by Raoul Peck Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples   Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire. With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them."   Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples' history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.
Call Number: E 76.8 .D86 2014 (BX)
ISBN: 9780807057834
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
Call Number: E 178 .Z75 2005 (BX & NR)
ISBN: 9780060838652
United States History to 1877 by Nelson Klose; Robert F. Jones Excellent summaries of facts, important names and dates, plus extensive reading lists and timelines. The first volume begins with English colonization of North America and extends to the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. The second volume surveys the late-nineteenth-century industrial growth in America, the twentieth century development of the U.S. as a world power, and contemporary economic, social, racial, and cultural issues.
Call Number: E188 .K57 1994 (NR)
ISBN: 0812018346
A Basic History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard As its title indicates, the volume deals with fundamental activities, ideas, and interests which have entered into the development of American society from the colonial period to the contemporary age. Whatever may be added to the record here presented, a consideration of these activities, ideas, and interests is basic, we believe, to any understanding of American history.
Call Number: E178 .B39 1944 (NR)
ISBN: N/A

World History

Nations of the World : a political, economic and business handbook by World of Information Staff (Editor) This comprehensive handbook profiles 231 nations and self-governing territories around the world in an easy-to-access, single-volume format. More than 2,000 pages present political, economic and business information not found in any other reference work of its kind.
Call Number: HF 1010 .N37 2016 (NR)
ISBN: 9781619257535
Sapiens : a brief history of humankind by Yuval Noah Harari From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution--a #1 international bestseller--that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be "human." One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one--homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas. Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become? Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.
Call Number: GN 357.5 .H3713 2015 (NR)
ISBN: 9780062316097
Empires in World History by Jane Burbank; Frederick Cooper Empires--vast states of territories and peoples united by force and ambition--have dominated the political landscape for more than two millennia. Empires in World History departs from conventional European and nation-centered perspectives to take a remarkable look at how empires relied on diversity to shape the global order. Beginning with ancient Rome and China and continuing across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa, Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper examine empires' conquests, rivalries, and strategies of domination--with an emphasis on how empires accommodated, created, and manipulated differences among populations. Burbank and Cooper examine Rome and China from the third century BCE, empires that sustained state power for centuries. They delve into the militant monotheism of Byzantium, the Islamic Caliphates, and the short-lived Carolingians, as well as the pragmatically tolerant rule of the Mongols and Ottomans, who combined religious protection with the politics of loyalty. Burbank and Cooper discuss the influence of empire on capitalism and popular sovereignty, the limitations and instability of Europe's colonial projects, Russia's repertoire of exploitation and differentiation, as well as the "empire of liberty"--devised by American revolutionaries and later extended across a continent and beyond. With its investigation into the relationship between diversity and imperial states, Empires in World History offers a fresh approach to understanding the impact of empires on the past and present.
Call Number: D 32 .B94 2010 (BX & NR - REF!)
ISBN: 9780691127088
Globalization and Global History / by Barry K. Gills (Editor); William Thompson (Editor) Globalization and Global History argues that globalization is not an exotic and new phenomenon. Instead it emphasizes that globalization is something that has been with us as long as there have been people who are both interdependent and aware of that fact. Studying globalization from the vantage point of long-term global history permits theoretical and empirical investigation, allowing the authors collected to assess the extent of ongoing transformations and to compare them to earlier iterations. With this historical advantage, the extent of ongoing changes - which previously appeared unprecedented - can be contrasted to similar episodes in the past. The book is divided into three sections. The first focuses on how globalization has been written about from a historical perspective. The second part advances three different takes on how best to view globalization from a very long-term stance. The final section continues this interpretative thread by examining more narrow aspects of globalization processes, ranging from incorporation processes to systemic disruptions.
Call Number: JZ 1318 .G578625 2006 (E-book. Click Title for access)
ISBN: 9780203799475
World History : Volume 2 : from AD 1500 to the present by Charles Frazee (Editor)
Call Number: D 20 .W886 1999 Vol. 2 (BX - REF!)
ISBN: 1565109872

A Monroe College Research Guide

THIS RESEARCH OR "LIBGUIDE" WAS PRODUCED BY THE LIBRARIANS OF MONROE COLLEGE