Spring 2022
“An intelligently provocative, vital reading experience. . . . This highly readable, inclusive, and deeply researched book will appeal to scholars of women and gender studies as well as anyone seeking to understand the historical patterns that misogyny has etched across every era of American culture”
“An ambitious attempt to delineate nothing less than the changing state of being female in this country over the past four centuries. “Woman” is exhaustively researched and finely written.”
“A comprehensive and lucid overview of the ongoing campaign to free women from “the tyranny of old notions.” ”
Spring 2022
“A masterful history of a place that is both reality and ideal, and central to the modern world.”
Fall 2021
“David M. Henkin calls the heavenly version the astronomical week and the Genesis kind the dominical week. Lately, there’s also the pandemic week, every day a Blursday.”
“David Henkin traces the evolution—and analyzes the curious staying power—of what he lovingly refers to as “a recalcitrant calendar unit.”
Fall 2021
“The most accurate, thorough, and up-to-date quotation book ever compiled . . . if you need the confidence of impeccably authoritative attributions, the Yale Book is your best source. . . the Yale Book is the ultimate quoting machine.”
“The collection is fun to dip into, a reminder of why we like quotations to begin with.”
Spring 2021
“Here is Hansberry resurrected from the archives, from her scripts, scraps and drafts. . . . Colbert adds detail and dimension to Hansberry’s work. . . . Loving, lavishly detailed”
“Colbert has accomplished the mighty task of resurfacing and reconciling the many facets that Hansberry possessed. . . . A devoted and deeply felt account of the development of an artist’s mind.”
“Hits the mark as a fresh and timely portrait of an influential playwright.”
“Brilliant. . . . Colbert mines Hansberry’s work as both a playwright and essayist. As a scholar of African-American theater as well as literature at Georgetown University, Colbert is unparalleled in her understanding of both fields and Hansberry’s influence in each.”
Fall 2020
“A rich, roiling history that Thomas recounts with eloquence and skill, giving as much attention as he can to the specifics of each case while keeping an eye trained on the bigger context....Illuminating.”
“Brings a clear and sensitive eye to the tangled relationship of black and white Americans in the early 19th century.”
“An essential account of an overlooked chapter in the history of American slavery.”
“Gripping . . . profound and prodigiously researched”
Fall 2020
“A brisk guide to how epidemics have shaped U.S. law, and how the law has shaped epidemics in turn, taking us from the smallpox outbreaks of the colonies to Covid-19 . . . the conclusion he arrives at is devastating.”
“A startling feat of synthesis in five short chapters”
“In this brief and readable account, Mr. Witt describes the history of American efforts to prevent pandemics from breaking out and to grapple with them once they do.”
“One wishes that, six months ago, every member of Congress and the Trump administration had been forced to read and reckon with the history Witt neatly summarizes. But now in the aftermath of a close, bitterly fought election, let’s hope that this book will help America chart its way forward.”
Fall 2020
“A remarkable piece of scholarship, sophisticated yet crisply written, and deserves the widest possible audience.”
“What makes his book so valuable is [Harris’s] ability to use this last dark era of the slave trade as a window onto a much wider world of international diplomacy, imperial arrogance, criminal conspiracy, financial shenanigans, and political conflict. . . . a small book about big things. Harris is that rare historian who revels in complexity and contradiction and yet manages to also write a clear and gripping narrative.”
“Smoothly written, well-researched . . . illuminating an often forgotten yet crucially important chapter in US history. . . . Timely.”
Fall 2019
“All nations deserve to have their stories told with this degree of attentiveness.”
“Hämäläinen’s book emphasizes that to understand American history it is vital to understand Lakota—and, by extension, Native American—history; that rather than existing in a state of constant first contact marked by incomprehension and surprise, Native nations and the American nation knew each other, grew up and around and through each other; that contact between the Lakota and European powers wasn’t one-sided and didn’t necessarily spell doom for Indians. The Lakota nation expanded for centuries as a result of European colonization. Native American history isn’t a sideshow any more than it is simply a litany of abuse at the hands of European empires. Lakota America joins, and in many respects leads, a growing body of work centered on single-tribe histories through which we can see, for the first time, the wild making of America.”
“Will undoubtedly become the standard work on early Lakota history and, more broadly, provide crucial context for understanding key events in the history of the American West.”
Fall 2019
“An excellent and unsparing guide to understanding how we arrived at this particular social and historical moment.”
“Glickman’s thoughtful analysis is a useful reminder that, in politics, struggle — including the struggle over ideas — is a constant”
“Though Mr. Glickman shows no particular sympathy for conservatism . . .Free Enterprise is far from a rant.”
Fall 2019
“A brilliant riposte to scholarly conventions, ... a powerful counter-narrative to the traditional accounts that have been institutionalized as clichés in the Thanksgiving tradition.”
“With verve, tact, and insight, Mancall has teased out those strands of Morton’s career that suggest an attractive alternative to some of the grim realities of early American history. As the most recent witness in Morton’s ongoing “trial,” he has launched a vigorous, though not impartial, defense of a complicated man.”