Do You Teach U.S. History?

You can search for books across this discipline through our course lists on our website, including a wide range of history from the Colonial American era, the American Revolution, the Civil War and Reconstruction to America in the 20th Century, the Civil Rights Movement, and America in the 21st Century. Here is a small selection

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Books for LGBTQIA+ History Month

For LGBTQIA+ History Month we’re celebrating the shared history of individuals within the community and the importance of the activists who have fought for their rights and the rights of others. We acknowledge the varying and diverse experiences within the LGBTQIA+ community that have shaped history and have led the way for those celebrating their

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Books About Land and Water Conflicts, and Colonialism

Here is a grouping of titles that explore land and water conflicts. From a travelogue and a storytelling of the past and present along the the Río Magdalena to the ordinary people in El Salvador who rallied together to prevent the poisoning of the country’s main water source to Ingrid Rojas Contreras’ intimate family history

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FROM THE PAGE: An Excerpt from Linda Villarosa’s Under the Skin

Under the Skin is a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of the nation. Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die

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The 50th Anniversary of the Watergate Scandal

This year is the 50th Anniversary of the Watergate Scandal, when Richard Nixon and his administration tried to cover up the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington D.C. Watergate Building. We’re sharing a few books about the history of the scandal and Richard Nixon, a key player in the cover up.

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A letter to professors from Corban Addison, author of Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial

I went to law school in part because I read A Civil Action in college. Jonathan Harr’s masterful tale of a toxic tort lawsuit inspired in me a fascination with the courtroom and a desire to fight for the rights of people who have suffered injustice. When I finished that book twenty years ago, I

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What is a “Classic?” Educator’s Guide Now Available

In honor of their 75th anniversary, Penguin Classics has partnered with #DisruptTexts, a renowned education organization that works to create a more inclusive, representative and equitable language arts curriculum for K-12 students. Facilitated by Penguin Random House (PRH) Education, this partnership includes a number of new initiatives focused on connecting with, and supporting, educators through

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Stewardesses Rebel! How the “mascots” of the labor movement became militant union leaders

by Nell McShane Wulfhart Stewardesses aren’t the first workers that come to mind when you think of the labor movement. But behind that smiling, compliant, conventionally attractive image lies a group of militant unionists who led an unheralded workplace revolution that changed American history. In the beginning of the 1960s, the airplane cabin might have

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Confessions of the Flesh, the fourth volume in Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality

By Caitlin Landuyt, Editor, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group   I am being haunted by the ghost of Michel Foucault. Each time I think I’ve read or studied him for the last time, something conspires to bring him back into my life. My last foray into his philosophy was in grad school, where I was getting

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Read Kyle T. Mays’ Author Note for An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian, Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present. He explores how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled

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