Robert William Fogel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1993. "To take a trip around the mind of Robert Fogel, one of the grand old men of American economic history, is a rare treat. At every turning, you come upon some shiny pearl of information."—The Economist In this broad-thinking and profound piece of history, Robert William Fogel synthesizes an amazing range of data into a bold and intriguing view of America's past and future—one in which the periodic Great Awakenings of religion bring about waves of social reform, the material lives of even the poorest Americans improve steadily, and the nation now stands poised for a renewed burst of egalitarian progress.

A gripping and original account of how the Civil War began and a second American revolution unfolded, setting Abraham Lincoln on the path to greatness and millions of slaves on the road to freedom. An epic of courage and heroism beyond the battlefields, 1861 introduces us to a heretofore little-known cast of Civil War heroes—among them an acrobatic militia colonel, an explorer’s wife, an idealistic band of German immigrants, a regiment of New York City firemen, a community of Virginia slaves, and a young college professor who would one day become president. Their stories take us from the corridors of the White House to the slums of Manhattan, from the waters of the Chesapeake to the deserts of Nevada, from Boston Common to Alcatraz Island, vividly evoking the Union at its moment of ultimate crisis and decision. Hailed as “exhilarating….Inspiring…Irresistible…” by The New York Times Book Review, Adam Goodheart’s bestseller 1861 is an important addition to the Civil War canon. Includes black-and-white photos and illustrations.

The First Great Awakening, an unprecedented surge in Protestant Christian revivalism in the Eighteenth Century, sparked enormous of controversy at the time and has been a source of scholarly debate ever since. Few historians have sought to write a synthetic history of the First Great Awakening, and in recent decades it has been challenged as having happened at all, being either an exaggeration or an “invention.” The First Great Awakening expands the movement’s geographical, theological, and sociopolitical scope. Rather than focus exclusively on the clerical elites, as earlier studies have done, it deals with them alongside ordinary people, and includes the experiences of women, African Americans, and Indians as the observers and participants they were. It challenges prevailing scholarly opinion concerning what the revivals were and what they meant to the formation of American religious identity and culture. Cover image: NPG 131, George Whitefield by John Wollaston, oil on canvas, circa 1742. © National Portrait Gallery, London

Interpreting the Great Awakening of the 18th century was in large part the work of Jonathan Edwards, whose writings on the subject defined the revival tradition in America. This text demonstrates how Edwards defended the evangelical experience against overheated zealous and rationalistic critics.

An “instructive first-hand account of how Iraq’s insurgents were defeated” in the surge of 2007—written by a Combat Arms Battalion Commander who lived it (Publishers Weekly). In August 2006, the American war in Iraq was looking grim. Control of Al Anbar Province, the seat of the Sunni insurgency, was said to be irrevocably lost to the insurgents. Al Qaeda in Iraq had planted their flag in the provincial capital, Ramadi, declaring it the capital of their new “Islamic State of Iraq.” In January 2007, the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment, deployed to Ramadi, spearheading a surge that would become the D-Day of the Global War on Terror. By mid-summer 2007, attacks in the province were down ninety percent. As the “awakening” swept through Iraq, it brought about the best security situation since 2003. The 3rd Battalion was the only unit to participate in this campaign from start to finish. Moreover, many of the US successes came directly from this unit’s work. Awakening Victory tells the story of this incredible campaign through the eyes of the 3rd Battalion commander. It describes the battalion’s actions, including incidents previously unknown to the public, but it is not merely another war story. The author uses the actions of his battalion to describe a paradigm shift, moving from a war of bombs and bullets to one of partnership and ideas.