Building America

An English emigre who became America's first professional architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe put his stamp on the built landscape of the new republic. Latrobe contributed to such iconic structures as the south wing of the US Capitol building, the White House, and the Navy Yard. He created some of the early republic's greatest neoclassical interiors, including the Statuary Hall.

America's Constitutional Republic is like no other. Most Americans recognize the names George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, but few can tell you their stories—much less that of James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, or Andrew Jackson. These seven men from the Founding Ear were America's first presidents. They established our republic on the foundation of the Constitution and its liberties.

This riveting, true account of the 1929 race to build New York City's tallest skyscraper evokes the glory of an exciting time long past.

Meet Steve and Annette Economides. They've been called cheapskates, thriftaholics, and tightwads, but in these tough economic times, Steve and Annette have managed to feed their family of seven on just $350 per month, pay off their first house in nine years and purchase a second, larger home, buy cars with cash, take wonderful vacations, and put money in savings. Without degrees in finance or six-figure salaries, Steve and Annette have created a comfortable, debt-free life for themselves and their children.

As the world continues to rebuild after the collapse, groups across the country are coming together to form new communities. Some just want to survive. Some want to build a better place in which to live than the one that is now gone. And some want to conquer and enslave others in order to expand their own fledgling empires. In this evolving mix, Stonemont and their allies must navigate the ever-changing dynamics of friends and enemies - and attempt to build a new place in the world where people can live free.

While the success of Disneyland is largely credited to Walt and Roy Disney, there was a third, mostly forgotten dynamo instrumental to the development of the park: fast-talking Texan C. V. Wood. Three Years in Wonderland presents the never-before-told, full story of "the happiest place on earth".

In Empires of Trust, Professor Thomas F. Madden explores surprising parallels between the Roman and American republics. By making friends of enemies and demonstrating a commitment to fairness, the two republics - both "reluctant" yet unquestioned super-powers - built empires based on trust. Madden also includes vital lessons from the Roman Republic's 100-year struggle with "terrorism."

Building a New Nation chronicles the development of the new government following the signing of the Constitution. It explores the political views of the young nation’s leaders as they struggled to form a strong nation, despite the foreign and domestic dilemmas that they faced. The authors describe the beginnings of the two-party system, the administrations of the first three presidents, and key decisions by each branch of the government that shaped the future of the country.

This insider's look at inherited wealth in the United States explores the complex meanings of money and success in American society with a new introduction that examines whether America's privileged class will be willing or able to play a leadership role in the twenty-first century.

This monumental book tells the enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge rose out of the expansive era following the Civil War, when Americans believed all things were possible.

Why the American Revolution, of all the great revolutions, was the only enduring success. Through the Founders' own voices - and in the homes they designed and built to embody the ideal of domestic happiness they fought to achieve - we come to understand why the American Revolution, of all great revolutions, was the only enduring success. The Founders were vivid, energetic men, with sophisticated worldviews, and this magnificent reckoning of their successes draws liberally from their own eloquent writings on their actions and well-considered intentions.

The completion of the transcontinental railroad in May 1869 is usually told as a story of national triumph and a key moment for American Manifest Destiny. The Railroad made it possible to cross the country in a matter of days instead of months, paved the way for new settlers to come out west, and helped speed America's entry onto the world stage as a modern nation that spanned a full continent. It also created vast wealth for its four owners, including the fortune with which Leland Stanford would found Stanford University some two decades later.

In the years around 1870, the concept of building a great bridge to span the East River between the cities of Manhattan and Brooklyn required a vision and determination comparable to that which went into the building of the pyramids. Throughout the fourteen years of the bridge's construction, the odds against its successful completion seemed staggering. Bodies were crushed and broken, lives were lost, political empires fell, and surges of public emotion constantly threatened the project.

Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) was an educator, author, intellectual and orator, who founded Tuskegee University in 1881. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the most prominent leader in the African American community.

Pioneer Days in the Southwest from 1850 to 1879 is an anthology of memoirs by pioneers of the region. The book contains accounts by Emanuel Dubbs , John A. Hart and Charles Goodnight, the famous cattle rancher who was also known as the "father of the Texas Panhandle”. They were the true heroes and heroines who laid the foundation for the future development of the Southwest. Their accounts are filled with plenty of action on subjects like the Battle of Adobe Walls and other Indian fights, hunting expeditions and the challenges of making a living in on the wild frontier.

In Divided Highways, Tom Lewis offers an encompassing account of highway development in the United States. In the early twentieth century Congress created the Bureau of Public Roads to improve roads and the lives of rural Americans. The Bureau was the forerunner of the Interstate Highway System of 1956, which promoted a technocratic approach to modern road building sometimes at the expense of individual lives, regional characteristics, and the landscape.

Being Black in America is not an easy task. Black people in America are faced with the task of surviving in a system predicated on the notion that Black people were less than human, policed and enforced by a system that is rooted in slavery and racism. All while trying to succeed in a capitalist society where we are discriminated against.

In life and in death, slaves were commodities, their monetary value assigned based on their age, gender, health, and the demands of the market. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives—including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death—in the early American domestic slave trade.

Conceived in the early 1800s and completed in 1825, the Erie Canal was the boldest and biggest American engineering project of its century, with enduring political, social, and economic effects. It was the Erie Canal that first opened up the West to American enterprise and imagination, bringing vast riches and a far-reaching vision to a rapidly expanding nation.In this compelling narrative, author Gerard Koeppel tells the complete, sweeping story of the creation of the canal.

Miami was never a town, not even a village; it sprang to life out of the tropical wilderness, as a fully formed magical city. London, Paris, and Rome are just three of the world’s cities that are crammed full of history; events, personalities, stories that never fail to fascinate and entertain. But they have had two-thousand years to evolve those stories. Miami is barely one-hundred years old but is already as full of history as any place else on the planet.