Americas Great History in Books and Movies

These are by far the very best books and movies about the American experience. The list was draw from the knowledge and enthusiasm of leading historians,writers, and critics. Divided into both chronological and subject categories ranging from the rise of the Republic to the years of World War II to the post war years. Each section presents the writer’s choice of the 10 best books in a particular field.

September 20, 2005

The Colonial Era to 1776


The Columbian Exchange: Biological And Cultural Consequences of 1492

Thirty years ago, Alfred Crosby published a small work that illuminated a simple point, that the most important changes brought on by the voyages of Columbus were not social or political, but biological in nature. The book told the story of how 1492 sparked the movement of organisms, both large and small, in both directions across the Atlantic. This "Columbian exchange," between the Old World and the New, changed the history of our planet drastically and forever.


Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, By Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum



Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England



American Slavery, American Freedom: The ordeal of Colonial Virginia, by Edmund S. Morgan



The Sot-Weed Factor, By John Barth (1960)



The Indians' New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors From European Contact Through the Era of Removal, by James Merrell (1989)

September 19, 2005

Biographies

The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion



The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin



John Randolph



Personal Memoirs, by Ulysses S. Grant




Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington

September 18, 2005

Historical Novels

The Big Sky, By A.B. Guthrie, Jr.



Time and Again, By Jack Finney



The Bad Lands, by Oakley Hall



Lincoln, by Gore Vidal



Ragtime, by e.L. Doctorow

September 17, 2005

The Revolution 1776 to 1787

Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and The Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, by Fred Anderson



The War of the Revolution, by Christopher Ward

September 16, 2005

The Young Republic

September 15, 2005

The West

September 14, 2005

The Immigrant Experience

September 13, 2005

The Civil War 1861 to 1865

September 12, 2005

The Industrial Age 1865 to 1917

September 11, 2005

Modern America 1917 to 1941

September 10, 2005

World War II 1941 to 1945

September 09, 2005

The Postwar Years 1945 to 1974

September 08, 2005

Historical Movies

The Right Stuff (1983)



All the President's Men (1976)



Patton (1970)



Glory (1989)

September 07, 2005

Modern Times from 1974