American Architecture History

The riveting story of the McKissack family—the founders of the leading Black design and construction firm in the United States, from its beginnings in the mid-1800s to its thriving status today—in a moving celebration of resilience and innovation. Captured in his native West Africa and...

Winner of the 2024 George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, given by the National Council of Teachers of English "Making Americans shines a light on the barriers that immigrant students in the US face—and shares some inspiring stories about...

Thelonious Monk transformed twentieth-century sound by making silence sing and rhythm think. The Mysterious Genius traces his extraordinary journey from a North Carolina childhood to the electrified pulse of Harlem and the concert stages of the world. Through archival depth and musical insight, the book reveals how Monk turned structure into swing and dissonance into beauty. Drawing from decades of recordings, interviews, and historical accounts, it captures the discipline behind the eccentricity—the composer who built architecture out of melody, who balanced humor with intellect, and who...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Globe-trotting golfer Tom Coyne has finally come home. And he’s ready to play all of it. After playing hundreds of courses overseas in the birthplace of golf,​ Coyne, the bestselling author of A Course Called Ireland and A Course Called Scotland, returns to his own...

An explosive inside look into the highly-planned and well-funded global propaganda campaign to delegitimize Israel and sow the seeds of antisemitism in the aftermath of October 7th. October 7th, 2023 was a truly horrific day—a day in which Israeli men, women, and children were slaughtered or...

From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was a "saloon in the open air"), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati's Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums we fill today, Paul Goldberger makes clear the inextricable bond between the American city and America's favorite pastime. In the changing locations and architecture of our ballparks, Goldberger reveals the manifestations of a changing society.

The books I am proposing to read for you may have a few extraneous sounds and will be imperfectly read and produced. Hopefully, you will excuse any defects, as these old books are quite unlikely to become audiobooks otherwise and still have great value.

Born to a well-to-do, connected family in 1816, Montgomery C. Meigs graduated from West Point as an engineer. He helped build America's forts and served under Lt. Robert E. Lee to make navigation improvements on the Mississippi River. As a young man, he designed the Washington aqueducts in a city where people were dying from contaminated water. He built the spectacular wings and the massive dome of the brand-new US Capitol.

From the Midwest barns of Indianapolis to the concert halls of Paris and the studios of New York, Slide Hampton: The Trombone’s Architect charts the extraordinary journey of one of jazz’s most disciplined minds. Born Locksley Wellington “Slide” Hampton in 1932, he rose from family band prodigy to become one of the most respected arrangers and educators in modern music. This definitive biography reveals the architecture behind his sound—the rigorous structure, empathy, and global imagination that shaped seven decades of jazz evolution. Through extensive research and scene-by-scene ...

Benny Golson’s life traces the evolution of American jazz through the mind of one of its most disciplined architects. Born in 1929 in Philadelphia and shaped by a city alive with rhythm, Golson transformed from a gifted teenager practicing in church basements to a composer whose melodies—“Whisper Not,” “Stablemates,” “Killer Joe,” “I Remember Clifford”—became pillars of the modern jazz songbook. Drawing on decades of interviews, session records, and archival detail, Benny Golson: Composer of Standards presents an immersive, documentary-grade portrait of a man who ...

Don Redman shaped the sound of American jazz long before it had a name. From his small-town beginnings in West Virginia to his revolutionary work with Fletcher Henderson, Redman transformed improvisation into design and collective energy into musical architecture. His charts for Louis Armstrong, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, and his own orchestra set the standard for swing—structured yet alive, intelligent yet joyful. Drawing on archival research, historical recordings, and the voices of his peers, Don Redman: Jazz’s First Great Arranger reveals how one man’s precision and imagination ...

How the world broke—and how we can still save it The liberal world order that emerged after World War II—and expanded triumphantly following the Cold War—is unraveling. Multilateral cooperation is giving way to multipolar rivalry and conflict. Global norms are eroding. What comes next will...

From CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, a revelatory account of how one man, four teenagers, and a struggling city collided over race, vigilantism, and public safety . . . exposing the fault lines of a nation On a dirty New York subway car on December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz shot Barry Allen...

Every day of the week in contemporary America (and especially on Sundays) people raise money for their religious enterprises - for clergy, educators, buildings, charity, youth-oriented work, and more. In a fascinating look into the economics of American Protestantism, James Hudnut-Beumler examines how churches have raised and spent money from colonial times to the present and considers what these practices say about both religion and American culture.

Politicians have failed us. But democracy doesn’t have to. Bought by special interests, detached from real life, obsessed with reelection. Politicians make big promises, deliver little to nothing, and keep the game rigged in their favor. But what can we do? In Politics Without Politicians...

The history of the White House, first completed in 1799, reflects the history of America itself. It was the dream of George Washington to have an elegant "presidential mansion" in the capital city that was named after him. Yet he is the only president who never got to live there. All the rest...