Depending on your topic, you may need to look in multiple sections of the Library collection. In the Library, if you want to browse, here are some shelf ranges that might be appropriate. If you need help, ask us!
D – World History (except American History)
E – American History
F – Local History of the United States and British, Dutch, French, and Latin America
And, you may also find useful books in:
B – Philosophy, Psychology, Religion
A few books you might try:
America, Empire of Liberty by
It was Thomas Jefferson who envisioned the United States as a great #147;empire of liberty.” This paradoxical phrase may be the key to the American saga: How could the anti-empire of 1776 became the world’s greatest superpower? And how did the country that offered unmatched liberty nevertheless found its prosperity on slavery and the dispossession of Native Americans? In this new single-volume history spanning the entire course of US history#151;from 1776 through the election of Barack Obama#151;prize-winning historian David Reynolds explains how tensions between empire and liberty have often been resolved by faith#151;both the evangelical Protestantism that has energized American politics for centuries and the larger faith in American righteousness that has driven the country’s expansion. Written with verve and insight, Empire of Liberty brilliantly depicts America in all of its many contradictions.
Becoming Historians by
In this unique collection, the memoirs of eleven historians provide a fascinating portrait of a formative generation of scholars. Born around the time of World War II, these influential historians came of age just before the upheavals of the 1960s and OCO70s and helped to transform both their discipline and the broader world of American higher education. The self-inventions they thoughtfully chronicle led, in many cases, to the invention of new fieldsOCoincluding womenOCOs and gender history, social history, and public historyOCothat cleared paths in the academy and made the study of the past more capacious and broadly relevant. In these storiesOCoskillfully compiled and introduced by James Banner and John GillisOCoaspiring historians will find inspiration and guidance, experienced scholars will see reflections of their own dilemmas and struggles, and all readers will discover a rare account of how todayOCOs seasoned historians embarked on their intellectual journeys.
Inventing American History by
American public history--in magazines and books, television documentaries, and museums--tends to celebrate its subject at all costs, even to the point of denial and distortion. This does us a great disservice, argues William Hogeland in Inventing American History. Looking at details glossed over in three examples of public history--the Alexander Hamilton revival, tributes to Pete Seeger and William F. Buckley, and the Constitution Center in Philadelphia--Hogeland considers what we lose when history is written to conform to political aims. Questioning the resurrection, by both neocons and the left, of Alexander Hamilton as the founder of the American financial system--if not of the American dream itself--Hogeland delves deeply into Hamilton's brutal treatment of working-class entrepreneurs. And debunking recent hagiographies of Pete Seeger and William F. Buckley, Hogeland deftly parses Seeger's embrace of communism and Buckley's unreconstructed views on race. Hogeland then turns his attention to the U.S. Constitution Center in Philadelphia (the location of Barack Obama's speech on race), comparing its one-note celebration of the document to the National Park Service tours of nearby Independence Hall. The Park Service tours don't advance any particular point of view, but by being almost purely informative with a kind of hands-on detail, they make the past come to life, available for both celebration and criticism. We should be able to respect the Constitution without being forced to our knees before it, Hogeland argues; we can handle the truth about the Framers' intense politicking and compromises.. Only when we can ground our public history in the gritty events of the day, embracing its contradictions and difficulties, will we be able to learn from it.
Longwood's Library was originally in Grainger Hall.
