American History

Participating in Summer Books & Bites Bingo? Try these books about American history!

Updated July 1, 2026
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Days without end : a novel
Barry, Sebastian
Paper Book
COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNER LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER PRIZE "A true leftfield wonder: Days Without End is a violent, superbly lyrical western offering a sweeping vision of America in the making."--Kazuo Ishiguro, Booker Prize winning...
Forget the Alamo : the rise and fall of an American myth
Burrough, Bryan
Paper Book
Every nation needs a creation myth, and Texas's myths bite deep. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. The fight over the Alamo's meaning has become...
The gunfighters : how Texas made the West wild
Burrough, Bryan
TRN
Ring shout : or, Hunting Ku Kluxes in the end times
Clark, P. Dje?li?
Paper Book
Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror "A fantastical, brutal and thrilling triumph of the imagination...Clark's combination of...
My dear Hamilton : a novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton
Dray, Stephanie
Paper Book
USA Today Bestseller "An edge-of my sear immersion into historical events...No study of Alexander Hamilton would be complete without reading this book." --Karen White, New York Times bestselling author "The best book of the year!" --Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling...
An indigenous peoples' history of the United States /
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne,
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller Now part of the HBO docuseries "Exterminate All the Brutes," written and directed by Raoul Peck Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples ...
The great contradiction : the tragic side of the American founding
Ellis, Joseph J.
Paper Book
A major new history from our most trusted voice on the Revolutionary era, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, and featured in THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, a film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt,...
This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark
Fehrman, Craig
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A major revisionist history of the Lewis and Clark expedition: For the first time in a generation, This Vast Enterprise offers a fresh and more accurate account of one of the most important episodes in American history, humanizing forgotten figures and...
American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed
Fitzgerald, Isaac
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * New York Times bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald sets off into the heart of America, following the path of the legendary Johnny Appleseed on an epic journey that both takes him far from home and brings him closer to it. "Rollicking,...
A girl called Samson : a novel
Harmon, Amy
Paper Book
From New York Times bestselling author Amy Harmon comes the saga of a young woman who dares to chart her own destiny in life and love during the American Revolutionary War. In 1760, Deborah Samson is born to Puritan parents in Plympton, Massachusetts. When her father abandons...
The widow of the south
Hicks, Robert
Paper Book
Reminiscent of Cold Mountain and Enemy Women, Robert Hicks' gripping debut novel, based on the incredible true story of Carrie McGavock--a woman whose life was forever changed by the Civil War--is exquisitely packaged with endpapers and compelling interior photographs.
Abigail Adams
Holton, Woody.
Paper Book
In this vivid new biography of abigail adams, the most illustrious woman of America's founding era, prize-winning historian Woody Holton offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams's life story and of women's roles in the creation of the republic.Using previously overlooked documents from a host of...
Barracoon : the story of the last "black cargo"
Hurston, Zora Neale
Paper Book
One of the New York Times' Most Memorable Literary Moments of the Last 25 Years!  * New York Times Bestseller *  TIME Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2018 * New York Public Library's Best Book of 2018 * NPR's Book Concierge Best Book of 2018 * ...
Dear Abigail : the intimate lives and revolutionary ideas of Abigail Adams and her two remarkable sisters
Jacobs, Diane.
Paper Book
For readers of the historical works of Robert K. Massie, David McCulough, and Alison Weir comes the first biography on the life of Abigail Adams and her sisters. nbsp; "Never sisters loved each other better than we."--Abigail Adams in a letter to her sister Mary, June...
The hunger : a novel /
Katsu, Alma,
Paper Book
The Foursome
Kline, Christina Baker
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline comes a boldly original reimagining of the astonishing true story of two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina -- Kline's own distant relatives -- who married world...
The ballad of Black Tom
LaValle, Victor D.
Paper Book
One of NPR's Best Books of 2016, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, the This is Horror Award for Novella of the Year, and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards People move to New York looking for magic...
Book of ages : the life and opinions of Jane Franklin
Lepore, Jill
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR NPR * Time Magazine * The Washington Post * Entertainment Weekly * The Boston Globe A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK From one...
The good lord bird
McBride, James
Paper Book
Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, the region a battlefield between anti and pro slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an arguement between Brown and Henry's master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave...
I shall be near to you
McCabe, Erin Lindsay.
Paper Book
An extraordinary novel about a strong-willed woman who disguises herself as a man in order to fight beside her husband, inspired by the letters of a remarkable female soldier who fought in the Civil War.   Rosetta doesn't want her new husband Jeremiah to enlist, but he joins up, hoping...
1776
McCullough, David G.
Paper Book
America's beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation's birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a war...
American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union: An Anthology
Meacham, Jon
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . The author of The Soul of America unites centuries of essential American voices to understand our national debates and divisions from 1619 to the present, with his signature commentary on the consequential speeches, letters, and essays that led us...
All that she carried : the journey of Ashley's sack, a black family keepsake
Miles, Tiya
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a "deeply layered and insightful" (The Washington Post) testament to people who are left out...
Wild girls : how the outdoors shaped the women who challenged a nation
Miles, Tiya
Paper Book
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Publishers Weekly and New York Public Library Best Book of 2023 An award-winning historian shows how girls who found self-understanding in the natural world became women who changed America. Harriet...
Destiny of the Republic : a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president
Millard, Candice.
Paper Book
James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the...
When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America's Black Botanical Legacy
Montgomery, Beronda L
Paper Book
This stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery offers up lessons from the natural world shared through the stories of long-lived trees. The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were...
Beloved : a novel
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * This "powerful, mesmerizing story" (People) is an unflinching look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. With an afterword by the author and a new introduction by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers....
By the fire we carry : the generations-long fight for justice on native land
Nagle, Rebecca
Paper Book
"No part of the judiciary exposes the chasm between American ideals and institutional practice like federal Indian law. In By the Fire We Carry, Nagle, a Cherokee journalist, turns a case most Americans haven't heard of into a legal thriller." --New York Times Book Review NATIONAL...
The traitor's wife : the woman behind Benedict Arnold and the plan to betray America /
Pataki, Allison,
Paper Book
A riveting work of historical fiction, The Traitor's Wife tells the little known but explosive story of Peggy Shippen Arnold, the cunning young wife of Benedict Arnold and mastermind behind one of the most shocking acts of...
Beaverland : how one weird rodent made America
Philip, Leila
Paper Book
An intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver--the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future.  From award-winning writer Leila Philip, Beaverland is a masterful work of narrative science writing,...
Rise to rebellion
Shaara, Jeff
Paper Book
Jeff Shaara dazzled readers with his bestselling novels Gods and Generals, The Last Full Measure, and Gone for Soldiers. Now the acclaimed author who illuminated the Civil War and the Mexican-American War brilliantly brings to life the American Revolution, creating a...
Monument : poems : new and selected
Trethewey, Natasha D.
Paper Book
Urgent new poems on race and gender inequality, and select poems drawing upon Domestic Work, Bellocq's Ophelia, Native Guard, Congregation, and Thrall, from two-time U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey. Layering joy and urgent defiance--against...
Cherokee America
Verble, Margaret
Paper Book
It's the early spring of 1875 in the Cherokee Nation West. A baby, a black hired hand, a bay horse, a gun, a gold stash, and a preacher have all gone missing. Cherokee America Singer, known as "Check" -- a wealthy farmer, mother of five boys, and soon-to-be widow -- is not amused. The tension mounts...
The American Revolution : an intimate history
Ward, Geoffrey C.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the award-winning historian and filmmakers of The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The Roosevelts, and others: a richly illustrated, human-centered history of America's founding struggle--expanding on the landmark, six-part PBS series ...
African American poetry : 250 years of struggle & song
Young, Kevin
Paper Book
A literary landmark: the biggest, most ambitious anthology of Black poetry ever published, gathering 250 poets from the colonial period to the present Across a turbulent history, from such vital centers as Harlem, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and the Bay Area, Black...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.