Gary B. Nash

Friends of Liberty tells the remarkable story of three men whose lives were braided together by issues of liberty and race that fueled revolutions across two continents. Thomas Jefferson wrote the founding documents of the United States. Thaddeus Kosciuszko was a hero of the American Revolution and later led a spectacular but failed uprising in Poland, his homeland. Agrippa Hull, a freeborn black New Englander, volunteered at eighteen to join the Continental Army.--From publisher description.

"A unique and captivating interpretation of American independence, and one that is more democratic than traditional histories of the period." -Chicago TribuneIn this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing readers to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans, disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of this country's birth, they laid down ideas that have become part of our inheritance and ideals toward which we still strive today.

"Offering 11 volumes and about 3,500 entries, this comprehensive set follows the congressional-mandated National Standards for United States History -- a project coedited by the editor of this encyclopedia. Each of the first 10 volumes covers a different period in American history with an alphabetical list of entries. A chronology of important events for that period, reprints of important documents, and an index specific to each volume are included. The last volume includes a comprehensive index."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.

An enormous fortune would be hers on day. Melina was grateful that her grandfather, a Greek shipping magnate, had chosen her as his heir. Yet there was one issue that she hotly disputed with him: the question of whom she would marry. She wanted only one man -- Anthony Seaton, a fiery individual who lived on a neighboring island ... and who'd been haunted by his wife's tragic death until he met Melina. Together they were caught up in a swirl of passion. But their happiness was soon cut short. Because someone was aiming to destroy the shipping empire -- and its only heir, Melina.

A history of the United States in the twentieth century, featuring sociological and cultural events, as well as strictly historical, and using many pertinent literary excerpts.

What, the authors ask, is the purpose of teaching history to children? Do we revise and reinterpret the past to tell previously ignored stories because they reflect present-day democratic values and speak to the issues of our own time? Or do we believe that the primary role of schools, textbooks, and museums is to preserve traditional versions of the past, to teach the basic facts, and to instill patriotism in our students? How has this country grappled with these questions and developed its standards in contrast to other nations? As head of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 through 1992, Lynne Cheney funded the creation of national standards in various disciplines. History was assigned to an office at the University of California, Los Angeles - designated the National Center for History in the Schools - where Nash and his colleagues began to gather ideas and opinions from all sectors of the educational community. After the standards were written and published in 1994, Cheney attacked them in the Wall Street Journal for being too politically correct, for not adequately recognizing some of the great figures of the past, and for giving too much attention to women and minority groups. Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, and other conservative voices denounced the standards and their writers in a media war that continued for more than a year and culminated in action by the U.S. Senate. History on Trial tells the story of this rancorous debate, how changes in the standards were made, and how the resulting documents are now being widely used in our schools to further the accessibility and relevance of history.

A history text of America's colonial period emphasizing the interaction of three cultures--colonialists, Indians, and blacks.