A “wide-ranging and sophisticated anthology” comparing theaters of war to wars in the movie theater (Dennis Showalter, author of Patton and Rommel). Why We Fought makes a powerful case that film can be as valuable a tool as primary documents for improving our understanding of the causes and consequences of war. A comprehensive look at war films, from depictions of the American Revolution to portrayals of September 11 and its aftermath, this volume contrasts recognized history and historical fiction with the versions appearing on the big screen. The text considers a selection of the pivotal war films of all time, including All Quiet on the Western Front, Sands of Iwo Jima, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Saving Private Ryan—revealing how film depictions of the country’s wars have shaped our values, politics, and culture, and offering a unique lens through which to view American history. Named as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title

Retells the story of America--and of its engagement with its neighbors and the rest of the world--as a series of highly contentious battles over clandestine commerce.

As the site of the first permanent English settlement in North America, the birthplace of a presidential dynasty, and the gateway to western growth in the nation’s early years, Virginia can rightfully be called the “cradle of America.” Peter Wallenstein traces major themes across four centuries in a brisk narrative that recalls the people and events that have shaped the Old Dominion. The second edition is updated with new material throughout, including a new chapter on Virginia and world affairs from the Korean War through 9/11 and beyond, and, an expanded bibliography. Historical accounts of Virginia have often emphasized harmony and tradition, but Wallenstein focuses on the impact of conflict and change. From the beginning, Virginians have debated and challenged each other’s visions of Virginia, and Wallenstein shows how these differences have influenced its sometimes turbulent development. Casting an eye on blacks as well as whites, and on people from both east and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he traces such key themes as political power, racial identity, and education. Bringing to bear his long experience teaching Virginia history, Wallenstein takes readers back, even before Jamestown, to the Elizabethan settlers at Roanoke Island and the inhabitants they encountered, as well as to Virginia’s leaders of the American Revolution. He chronicles the state’s dramatic journey through the Civil War era, a time that revealed how the nation’s evolution sometimes took shape in opposition to the vision of many leading Virginians. He also examines the impact of the civil rights movement and considers controversies that accompany Virginia into its fifth century. The text is copiously illustrated to depict not only such iconic figures as Pocahontas, George Washington, and Robert E. Lee, but also such other prominent native Virginians as Carter G. Woodson, Patsy Cline, and L. Douglas Wilder. Sidebars throughout the book offer further insight, while maps and appendixes of reference data make the volume a complete resource on Virginia’s history.

Parrot and Olivier in America has been shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. From the two-time Booker Prize–winning author comes an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early nineteenth-century America. Olivier—an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville—is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be connected by an enigmatic one-armed marquis. When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United States—ostensibly to make a study of the penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolution—Parrot will be there, too: as spy for the marquis, and as protector, foe, and foil for Olivier. As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, between their picaresque adventures apart and together—in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new lands—a most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the experiment of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness and with all the richness and surprise of characterization, imagery, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer.

Covers the period from 1787, when the Constitution was sent to the states to be ratified, to 1917 and the eve of our entry into World War I.

A riveting narrative of a New England slave boy caught up in the American Revolution A boy named Peter, born to a slave in Massachusetts in 1763, was sold nineteen months later to a childless white couple there. This book recounts the fascinating history of how the American Revolution came to Peter's small town, how he joined the revolutionary army at the age of twelve, and how he participated in the battles of Bunker Hill and Yorktown and witnessed the surrender at Saratoga.Joyce Lee Malcolm describes Peter’s home life in rural New England, which became increasingly unhappy as he grew aware of racial differences and prejudices. She then relates how he and other blacks, slave and free, joined the war to achieve their own independence. Malcolm juxtaposes Peter’s life in the patriot armies with that of the life of Titus, a New Jersey slave who fled to the British in 1775 and reemerged as a feared guerrilla leader.A remarkable feat of investigation, Peter’s biography illuminates many themes in American history: race relations in New England, the prelude to and military history of the Revolutionary War, and the varied experience of black soldiers who fought on both sides.