History.

With striking visuals from the Library of Congress' unparalleled archive, The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War is an authoritative and engaging narrative of the domestic conflict that determined the course of American history. A detailed chronological timeline of the war captures the harrowing intensity of 19th-century warfare in firsthand accounts from soldiers, nurses, and front-line journalists. Readers will be enthralled by speech drafts in Lincoln's own hand, quotes from the likes of Frederick Douglass and Robert E. Lee, and portraits of key soldiers and politicians who are not covered in standard textbooks. The Illustrated Timeline's exciting new source material and lucid organization will give Civil War enthusiasts a fresh look at this defining period in our nation's history.

Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year for 2017 "A uniquely colorful chronicle of this dramatic and convulsive chapter in American--and world--history. It's an epic tale, and here it is wondrously well told." --David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of FREEDOM FROM FEAR From August 1914 through March 1917, Americans were increasingly horrified at the unprecedented destruction of the First World War. While sending massive assistance to the conflict's victims, most Americans opposed direct involvement. Their country was immersed in its own internal struggles, including attempts to curb the power of business monopolies, reform labor practices, secure proper treatment for millions of recent immigrants, and expand American democracy. Yet from the first, the war deeply affected American emotions and the nation's commercial, financial, and political interests. The menace from German U-boats and failure of U.S. attempts at mediation finally led to a declaration of war, signed by President Wilson on April 6, 1917. America and the Great War commemorates the centennial of that turning point in American history. Chronicling the United States in neutrality and in conflict, it presents events and arguments, political and military battles, bitter tragedies and epic achievements that marked U.S. involvement in the first modern war. Drawing on the matchless resources of the Library of Congress, the book includes many eyewitness accounts and more than 250 color and black-and-white images, many never before published. With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy, America and the Great War brings to life the tempestuous era from which the United States emerged as a major world power.

Provides information such as military commander profiles, the war's armaments and battlefronts, timelines, oral histories, and the political, social, and economic factors that influenced the conflict.

An indispensable reference on World War II produced by the Library of Congress and edited by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy. With hundreds of illustrations and quotations from contemporary documents, this will be the most authoritative popular reference on World War II. The noted historian John Keegan called World War II "the largest single event in human history." More than sixty years after it ended, that war continues to shape our world. Going far beyond accounts of the major battles, The Library of Congress World War II Companion examines, in a unique and engaging manner, this devastating conflict, its causes, conduct, and aftermath. It considers the politics that shaped the involvement of the major combatants; military leadership and the characteristics of major Allied and Axis armed services; the weaponry that resulted in the war's unprecedented destruction, as well as debates over the use of these weapons; the roles of resistance groups and underground fighters; war crimes; daily life during wartime; the uses of propaganda; and much more. Drawn from the unparalleled collections of the institution that has been called "America's Memory," The Library of Congress World War II Companion includes excerpts from contemporary letters, journals, pamphlets, and other documents, as well as first-person accounts recorded by the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. The text is complemented by more than 150 illustrations. Organized into topical chapters (such as "The Media War," "War Crimes and the Holocaust," and two chapters on "Military Operations" that cover the important battles), the book also include readers to navigate through the rich store of information in these pages. Filled with facts and figures, information about unusual aspects of the war, and moving personal accounts, this remarkable volume will be indispensable to anyone who wishes to understand the World War II era and its continuing reverberations.

Until recently, Rosa Parks’s personal papers were unavailable to the public. In this compelling new book from the Library of Congress, where the Parks Collection is housed, the civil rights icon is revealed for the first time in print through her private manuscripts and handwritten notes. Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words illumines her inner thoughts, her ongoing struggles, and how she came to be the person who stood up by sitting down. At the height of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as Parks was both pilloried and celebrated, she found a catharsis in her writing. Her precise descriptions of her arrest, the segregated South, and her recollections of childhood resistance to white supremacy document a lifetime of battling inequality. Parks expressed her thoughts on paper using whatever was available—meeting agendas, event programs, drugstore bags. The book features one hundred color and black-and-white photographs from the Parks collection, many appearing in print for the first time, along with ephemera from the long life of a private person in the public eye.