History Book List ·

Ohio University, 1804–2004

The Spirit of a Singular Place

“It's like a glorified scrapbook,” says author Betty Hollow. “You can really see how student life has changed over the years when you look at the whole thing.”

Ohio Volunteer

The Childhood and Civil War Memoirs of Captain John Calvin Hartzell, OVI

When his captain was killed during the Battle of Perryville, John Calvin Hartzell was made commander of Company H, 105th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He led his men during the Battle of Chickamauga, the siege of Chattanooga, and the Battle of Missionary Ridge.…

Ohio’s First Peoples

Although founders of the state like Rufus Putnam pointed to the remaining prehistoric earthworks at Marietta as evidence that the architects were a people of “ingenuity, industry, and elegance,” their words did not prevent a rivalry with the area's Indian inhabitants that was settled only through decades of warfare and treaty-making.…

Ohio’s Kingmaker

Mark Hanna, Man and Myth

For a decade straddling the turn of the twentieth century, Mark Hanna was one of the most famous men in America. Portrayed as the puppet master controlling the weak-willed William McKinley, Hanna was loved by most Republicans and reviled by Democrats, in large part because of the way he was portrayed by the media of the day.…

Ohio’s War

The Civil War in Documents

In 1860, Ohio was among the most influential states in the nation. As the third-most-populous state and the largest in the middle west, it embraced those elements that were in concert-but also at odds-in American society during the Civil War era.…

On the Fringes of History

A Memoir

In the 1950s, professional historians claiming to specialize in tropical Africa were no more than a handful. The teaching of world history was confined to high school courses, and even those were focused on European history, with a chapter added to account for the history of East and South Asia.…

One Day for Democracy

Independence Day and the Americanization of Iron Range Immigrants

Just before the turn of the twentieth century, immigrants from eastern and southern Europe who had settled in mining regions of Minnesota formed a subculture that combined elements of Old World traditions and American culture.…

One Thousand and One Most Asked Questions About the American West

With Answers

During his more than 40 years of newspaper and magazine work, Harry Chrisman has been answering questions about the American West — both the standard and the oddball queries, such as "What is the most fantastic bear story you ever heard?" Chrisman first encountered many of these questions in his monthly column "Roundup Time," which appeared in The West, a national monthly magazine.…

Organic Coffee

Sustainable Development by Mayan Farmers

Despite deepening poverty and environmental degradation throughout rural Latin America, Mayan peasant farmers in Chiapas, Mexico, are finding environmental and economic success by growing organic coffee.…

The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy

The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy is a series of closely integrated essays that traces the idea of democracy in Polish thought and practice. It begins with the transformative events of the mid-nineteenth century, which witnessed revolutionary developments in the socioeconomic and demographic structure of Poland, and continues through changes that marked the postcommunist era of free Poland.…

Ouidah

The Social History of a West African Slaving Port, 1727–1892

Ouidah, an African town in the Republic of Benin, was the principal precolonial commercial center of its region and the second-most-important town of the Dahomey kingdom. It served as a major outlet for the transatlantic slave trade.…

Our New Husbands Are Here

Households, Gender, and Politics in a West African State from the Slave Trade to Colonial Rule

In Our New Husbands Are Here, Emily Lynn Osborn investigates a central puzzle of power and politics in West African history: Why do women figure frequently in the political narratives of the precolonial period, and then vanish altogether with colonization? Osborn addresses this question by exploring the relationship of the household to the state.…

Pachakutik and the Rise and Decline of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement

The mobilization of militant indigenous politics is one of the most important stories in Latin American studies today. In this critical work, Kenneth J. Mijeski and Scott H. Beck examine the rise and decline of Ecuador’s leading indigenous party, Pachakutik, as it tried to transform the state into a participative democracy.…

Panamanian Militarism

A Historical Interpretation

Carlos Guevara Mann argues that Panamanian militarism, a consequence of the breakdown of legitimacy that occurred in the early nineteenth century, is more a manifestation of a deeply-rooted political tradition than an isolated phenomenon of the late twentieth century.…

The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr., Vol III

NAACP Labor Secretary and Director of the NAACP Washington Bureau, 1946–1950

Born in Baltimore in 1911, Clarence Mitchell Jr. led the struggle for passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the 1960 Civil Rights Act, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.…

The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr., Volume I

1942–1943

Clarence Mitchell Jr. was the driving force in the movement for passage of civil rights laws in America. The foundation for Mitchell's struggle was laid during his tenure at the Fair Employment Practice Committee, where he led implementation of President Roosevelt's policy barring racial discrimination in employment in the national defense and war industry programs.…

The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr., Volume II

1944–1946

Clarence Mitchell Jr. was the driving force in the movement for passage of civil rights laws in America. The foundation for Mitchell's struggle was laid during his tenure at the Fair Employment Practice Committee, where he led implementation of President Roosevelt's policy barring racial discrimination in employment in the national defense and war industry programs.…

The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr., Volume IV

Director of the NAACP Washington Bureau, 1951–1954

Volume IV of The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr. covers 1951, the year America entered the Korean War, through 1954, when the NAACP won its Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the Supreme Court declared that segregation was discrimination and thus unconstitutional.…

The Paradox of Progress

Economic Change, Individual Enterprise, and Political Culture in Michigan, 1837–1878

Americans have long recognized the central importance of the nineteenth-century Republican party in preserving the Union, ending slavery, and opening the way for industrial capitalism. On the surface, the story seems straightforward—the party's “free labor” ethos, embracing the opportunity that free soil presented for social and economic mobility, and condemning the danger that slavery in the territories posed for that mobility, foreshadowed the GOP's later devotion to unfettered enterprise and industrial capitalism.…

Paris on the Potomac

The French Influence on the Architecture and Art of Washington, D.C.

In 1910 John Merven Carrère, a Paris-trained American architect, wrote, “Learning from Paris made Washington outstanding among American cities.” The five essays in Paris on the Potomac explore aspects of this influence on the artistic and architectural environment of Washington, D.…