Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

At the height of WWI, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of... (more)

Common Sense

by Thomas Paine

Written prior to the revolutionary war, "Common Sense" was a widely distributed phamphlet that argued for the complete independence of America from Britain. Its importance in terms of American history cannot by understated. The influence that this publication had on the American sentiment towards fighting the revolutionary war may have been more significant than any other single factor. Read for yourself the... (more)

Dear America

Voyage on the Great Titanic

The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, RMS Titanic, 1912

by Ellen Emerson White

Written from the point of view of a young passenger aboard the ill-fated Titanic, this title combines an award-winning series with the "disaster of the century".

Magic Tree House: Book 22

Revolutionary War On Wednesday

by Mary Pope Osborne

The Magic Tree House whisks Jack and Annie back to Colonial America. They arrive just as General george Washington is planning the crossing of the Delaware. Before they know it, Jack and Annie are in a boat with the Father of Our Country as history is made!

Samantha: An American Girl (The American Girls Collection/Boxed Set)

Samantha: An American Girl (The American Girls Collection/Boxed Set)

by Susan S. Adler

The American Girls Collection. This is Samantha. There are 6 books about Samantha and her family and friends.

Washington: The Indispensable Man

by James Thomas Flexner

Blood on the River

James Town 1607

by Elisa Lynn Carbone

Twelve-year-old Samuel Collier is a lowly commoner on the streets of London. So when he becomes the page of Captain John Smith and boards the Susan Constant, bound for the New World, he can’t believe his good fortune. He’s heard that gold washes ashore with every tide. But beginning with the stormy journey and his first contact with the native people, he realizes that the New World is nothing like he... (more)

Calico Captive

by Elizabeth George Speare

In the year 1754, the stillness of Charlestown, New Hampshire, is shattered by the terrifying cries of an Indian raid. Young Miriam Willard, on a day that had promised new happiness, finds herself instead a captive on a forest trail, caught up in the ebb and flow of the French and Indian War. It is a harrowing march north. Miriam can only force herself to the next stopping place, the next small portion of food,... (more)

102 Minutes : The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers

102 Minutes : The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers

by Jim Dwyer

The dramatic and moving account of the struggle for life inside the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, when every minute counted. At 8:46 AM on September 11, 2001, 14,000 people were inside the twin towers -- reading e-mails, making trades, eating croissants at Windows on the World. Over the next 102 minutes, each would become part of a drama for the ages, one witnessed only by the people who... (more)

Little House: Book 6

The Long Winter

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and little Grace bravely face the hard winter of 1880-81 in their little house in the Dakota Territory. Blizzards cover the little town with snow, cutting off all supplies from the outside. Soon there is almost no food left. so voting Almanzo Wilder and a friend make a dangerous trip across the prairie to find some wheat.... (more)

Little House (9 Books, Boxed Set)

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The set includes:Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years. Little House in the Big Woods Wolves and panthers and bears roam the deep Wisconsin woods in the late 1870's. In those same woods, Laura lives with Pa and Ma, and her... (more)

Homer & Langley

by E. L. Doctorow

From Ragtime and Billy Bathgate to The Book of Daniel, World’s Fair, and The March , the novels of E. L. Doctorow comprise one of the most substantive achievements of modern American fiction. Now, with Homer & Langley, this master novelist has once again created an unforgettable work. Homer and Langley Collyer are brothers–the one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness, or perhaps... (more)

The Known World

by Edward P. Jones

One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones. The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual... (more)

The Johnstown Flood

The Incredible Story Behind One of the Most Devastating Natural Disasters America Has Ever Known

by David G. McCullough

David McCullough is known to millions as the author of the critically acclaimed, best-selling books The Great Bridge, The Path Between the Seas, and Mornings on Horseback, and as host of the popular PBS television series "Smithsonian World?' The Johnstown Flood, David McCullough's first book, was praised by Time magazine as a "meticulously researched, vivid account of one of the most stunning disasters in... (more)

Liberation Trilogy: Book 1

An Army at Dawn

The War in North Africa, 1942-1943

by Rick Atkinson

In the first volume of his monumental trilogy about the liberation of Europe in WW II, Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson tells the riveting story of the war in North Africa The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can... (more)

Charlie Wilson's War

by George Crile

Charlie Wilson's War was a publishing sensation and a New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times bestseller. In the early 1980s, a Houston socialite turned the attention of maverick Texas congressman Charlie Wilson to the ragged band of Afghan "freedom fighters" who continued, despite overwhelming odds, to fight the Soviet invaders. Wilson, who sat on the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee,... (more)

Hawaii: A Novel

by James A. Michener

In Hawaii , Pulitzer Prize–winning author James Michener weaves the classic saga that brought Hawaii’s epic history vividly alive to the American public on its initial publication in 1959, and continues to mesmerize even today. The volcanic processes by which the Hawaiian Islands grew from the ocean floor were inconceivably slow, and the land remained untouched by man for countless centuries until, little more... (more)

The Best and the Brightest

by David Halberstam

"A rich, entertaining, and profound reading experience." -- The New York Times "<The> most comprehensive saga of how America became involved in Vietnam. It is also the Iliad of the American empire and the Odyssey of this nation's search for its idealistic soul. THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST is almost like watching an Alfred Hitchcock thriller." -- The Boston Globe "Deeply moving . . . We cannot help but feel... (more)

Molly: An American Girl : 1944 (The American Girls Collection)

Molly: An American Girl : 1944 (The American Girls Collection)

by Valerie Tripp

America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (P.S.)

America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (P.S.)

by Gail Collins

America's Women tells the story of more than four centuries of history. It features a stunning array of personalities, from the women peering worriedly over the side of the Mayflower to feminists having a grand old time protesting beauty pageants and bridal fairs. Courageous, silly, funny, and heartbreaking, these women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America. By culling the... (more)

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Browse Subjects: american history

Top Books

The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History

by John M. Barry

by Thomas Paine

The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, RMS Titanic, 1912

by Ellen Emerson White

by Mary Pope Osborne

by Susan S. Adler

by James Thomas Flexner

James Town 1607

by Elisa Lynn Carbone

by Elizabeth George Speare

by Jim Dwyer

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

by E. L. Doctorow

by Edward P. Jones

The Incredible Story Behind One of the Most Devastating Natural Disasters America Has Ever Known

by David G. McCullough

The War in North Africa, 1942-1943

by Rick Atkinson

by George Crile

by James A. Michener

by David Halberstam

by Valerie Tripp

by Gail Collins