A Short History of the Twentieth Century

John Lukacs (Get this book)
Compressed history as sharp and provocative as it is short. Though the matter-of-fact title might suggest a primer or student guide, renowned historian Lukacs demonstrates the argumentative power of the simple declarative sentence. "The twentieth century was--An? The?--American century," he writes. It "meant the end of the European age" and was "a short century, seventy-five years, from 1914-1989." True to that last declaration, Lukacs begins with the start of World War I and closes with the belated end of the Cold War, consistently contending that the Soviet Union was overrated as a threat to the United States and American primacy. A masterpiece of concision and a marvel of clear, controlled prose, a quality lacking in much academic writing.--Kirkus

Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War

Elizabeth R. Varon (Get this book)
What exactly was the meaning of the surrender at Appomattox? Robert E. Lee's surrender of his starving army to Ulysses S. Grant effectively brought the Civil War to an end; remaining military resistance collapsed shortly thereafter. But once the killing ceased and the Confederate troops had returned home under magnanimous surrender terms, what had truly been resolved? Slavery and secession were ended by force of arms; the South accepted that, however grudgingly. Yet many social and political questions remained to be settled by leaders from both sides of the conflict. A careful, scholarly consideration of how the ambiguities surrounding the defeat of the South resolved into the bitter eras of Reconstruction and Jim Crow.--Kirkus

Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation

John Ferling (Get this book)
Two antithetical but complementary Founding Fathers, duly and exhaustively compared and contrasted. Despite the enormous research already done in fleshing out the lives of the multitalented, ambitious Jefferson and Hamilton, Ferling leaves no stone unturned in sifting through the biographies, walking readers through their respective childhoods, and flushing out influences that shaped their livelihoods and helped form their fundamental ideologies regarding the new nation. From hammering out constitutional liberties and building the nation's banking system to jockeying in early elections, Ferling draws crisp, sharp delineations between his two subjects.--Kirkus