Critical Moments in American History
Nixon in China
1st Edition
By Nicole L. Anslover
September 30, 2025
This book reassesses Richard Nixon’s historic visit as the first American president ever to visit mainland China in 1972, personalizing the actors involved and exploring the event’s lasting impact. Nixon’s visit signalled a dramatic change not only in U.S.-China relations but in the overall ...
The Pullman Strike: A Gilded Age Clash between Labor, Capital, and Government
1st Edition
By Edward T. O'Donnell
October 03, 2024
This book examines the 1894 Pullman Strike, one of the most consequential clashes between labor and capital that paralyzed America’s railroad system. The Gilded Age saw rapid economic growth, expansion of industrialization, and real wage growth. Yet between 1800 and 1900 there were nearly 37,000 ...
From Desert One to Desert Storm: Operation Eagle Claw as a Critical Movement
1st Edition
By Tal Tovy
August 19, 2024
This book recounts the history of the US Special Operations Forces (SOF) after the failure of Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, examining the events that led to and followed a series of organizational and operational reforms in the American military system. Operation Eagle Claw’s damage to America’s ...
The Advent of the All-Volunteer Force: Protecting Free Society
1st Edition
By William A. Taylor
March 10, 2023
This book examines the extensive influence of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) on the past, present, and future of America, demonstrating how the AVF encompasses the most significant issues of military history and defense policy. Throughout the vast majority of its wars during the twentieth century, ...
The Gulf of Tonkin: The United States and the Escalation in the Vietnam War
1st Edition
By Tal Tovy
April 23, 2021
The Gulf of Tonkin: The United States and the Escalation in the Vietnam War analyzes the events that led to the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam and increased American involvement. On August 4, 1964, the captains of two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy, reported ...
When Women Won The Vote: The Final Decade, 1910-1920
1st Edition
By Sandra Opdycke
August 27, 2019
When Women Won the Vote focuses on the final decade (1910–1920) of American women’s fight for the vote—a fight that had already been underway for more than sixty years, and which culminated in the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920. Sandra Opdycke reveals how woman suffragists campaigned in ...
The "Silent Majority" Speech: Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, and the Origins of the New Right
1st Edition
By Scott Laderman
August 19, 2019
The "Silent Majority" Speech treats Richard Nixon’s address of November 3, 1969, as a lens through which to examine the latter years of the Vietnam War and their significance to U.S. global power and American domestic life. The book uses Nixon’s speech – which introduced the policy of "...
Title IX: The Transformation of Sex Discrimination in Education
1st Edition
By Elizabeth Kaufer Busch, William E. Thro
May 21, 2018
This book examines the history and evolution of Title IX, a landmark 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination at educational institutions receiving federal funding. Elizabeth Kaufer Busch and William Thro illuminate the ways in which the interpretation and implementation of Title IX have been ...
America Enters the Cold War: The Road to Global Commitment, 1945–1950
1st Edition
By Kevin E. Grimm
November 21, 2017
America Enters the Cold War provides a succinct and insightful analysis of the foreign policy decisions which shaped America’s early involvement in the Cold War. In focusing on key documents and detailing the ideological foundations of U.S. foreign policy, Kevin Grimm situates the events of the ...
The 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing: Anarchy and Terrorism in Progressive Era America
1st Edition
By Jeffrey A. Johnson
August 22, 2017
This book places the 1916 San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing within the broader context of American radicalism and isolationism during the Progressive Era. A concise narrative and key primary documents offer readers an introduction to this episode of domestic violence and the subsequent, ...
Three Mile Island: The Meltdown Crisis and Nuclear Power in American Popular Culture
1st Edition
By Grace Halden
June 20, 2017
Three Mile Island explains the far-reaching consequences of the partial meltdown of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island power plant on March 28, 1979. Though the disaster was ultimately contained, the fears it triggered had an immediate and lasting impact on public attitudes towards nuclear energy in ...
McCarthyism: The Realities, Delusions and Politics Behind the 1950s Red Scare
1st Edition
By Jonathan Michaels
April 20, 2017
In this succinct text, Jonathan Michaels examines the rise of anti-communist sentiment in the postwar United States, exploring the factors that facilitated McCarthyism and assessing the long-term effects on US politics and culture. McCarthyism:The Realities, Delusions and Politics Behind the ...