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The histories of the Civil War and of the emerging West were tangled together from their beginnings. Although the war was fought mostly in the East, the events that set it off were born of the expansion of the 1840s, and in turn the...

As I write this essay in February 2009, the nation is engaged in a great discussion about how to restore confidence during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. One contentious issue is whether and how cultural...

Theodore Roosevelt’s interesting life often tempts biographers to write about him with the history left out. His story offers plenty of drama. Born in 1858 to a wealthy family in New York City he waged a life and death struggle...

Abolitionism emerged in America as part of a massive fusion of reform movements related to religious revivals and dedicated to the goal of creating a righteous society capable of fulfilling America’s high ideals. [1] In part, the...

During the mid-nineteenth century, American commentators pronounced that new technological innovations in transportation and communications represented nothing less than the "annihilation of space and time." On steamships and...