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A member of the United Society of Believers, better known as the Shakers, Isaac Newton Youngs spent most of his life in New Lebanon, New York, home of the society's central Ministry. As both a private diarist and the official village scribe, he kept meticulous records throughout those years of both his own experience and that of the community. All told, more than four thousand pages of Brother Isaac's journals have survived, documenting the history of the Shakers during the period of their greatest success and providing a revealing view of the daily life of a rank-and-file Believer.

In this deeply researched biography, Glendyne R. Wergland draws on Youngs's writings to tell his story and to explore “the tension between desire and discipline” at the center of his life. She follows Youngs from childhood and adolescence to maturity, through years of demanding responsibility into his fatal decline. In each of these stages, he remained a talented and committed yet independent Shaker, one who chose to stay with the community but often struggled to abide by its stringent rules, including the vow of celibacy. Perhaps above all, he was a man who spent most of his waking hours working diligently at a succession of tasks, making clocks, sewing clothes, fixing roofs, writing poetry, chronicling his daily acts and thoughts.

In his journals, Brother Isaac writes at length of his efforts to control his lust as a young man, and he complains repeatedly about overwork as he grows older. He defines the rules of his community and identifies transgressors, while enciphering his critical entries (and those chronicling his own sexual desires) to avoid detection and uphold the demand for conformity. At times he admits doubt, but without ever relinquishing the belief that he is on the straight and narrow path to salvation. What emerges in the end is the complex portrait of an ordinary man striving to live up to the imperatives of his faith.

A broad and accessible history of religion in Texas, from prehistory to the present.

From sprawling megachurches to religious billboards and towering steel crosses, religion quite literally looms over Texas. Christian nationalism determines the state’s politics and, every school day, more than five million Texas children pledge allegiance to “one state under God.” But it wasn’t always this way.

In this wide-ranging chronicle, Joseph Locke uncovers the breadth of Texas’s religious history, from Indigenous painters of cosmological cave art and Spanish invaders who constructed missions to irreligious Anglo colonists, freethinking frontiersmen, Tejano folk saints, evangelical culture warriors, and Muslim immigrants. Locke traces the state’s religious transformations across the centuries, bringing them to life through his depiction of compelling figures, like enslaved preacher Anderson Edwards, fighting fundamentalist J. Frank Norris, and celebrated humanitarian Sister Norma Pimentel, and gripping moments, such as the murder of atheist newspaperman William Cowper Brann and the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. Comprehensive, fast-paced, and highly readable, One State Under God reveals how the Lone Star State’s spiritual path was blazed.

A definitive guide to the Confederate army’s primary engagements at the epic Battle of Antietam

With a tally of more than five thousand killed, twenty thousand wounded, and three thousand missing, the Battle of Antietam made September 17, 1862, the deadliest day of combat in American history. In Opposing the Second Corps at Antietam, Antietam scholar Marion V. Armstrong Jr. completes his magisterial study of Antietam begun in Unfurl Those Colors! by examining Robert E. Lee’s leadership at the climactic battle in the Confederate invasion of Union territory.

Eminent Civil War historians consider Antietam the turning point of the war. Hoping to maintain the initiative they had gained at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Confederate leaders looked to a stunning victory on Northern soil to sour Northern sentiment on the war as well as to coax European powers to recognize the fledgling Confederacy. Having examined McClellan’s command and role at Antietam in Unfurl Those Colors!, Armstrong now recounts in riveting detail Lee’s command decisions and their execution in the field, drawing on a superlative collection of first-person accounts by Confederate veterans to narrate the cataclysmic struggle between Lee and McClellan.

Armstrong sets the stage with a lively recap of the political and military events leading up to the early fall of 1862 and foreshadowing the conflagration to come on September 17. Each chapter then traces a critical section of the battle, the fight for the West Woods and the bloody engagement of the Sunken Road. Armstrong augments this collection with an exceptional set of maps, which will be valued by scholars, readers, and visitors to the battlefield. These unique maps delineate troop movements in intervals as brief as fifteen minutes, bringing to life the fluid, mutable lines that characterize the glory and horror of Antietam.

Either together with Unfurl Those Colors! or as a stand-alone account of the Confederate side of the battle, Opposing the Second Corps at Antietam provides the fullest possible understanding of the experience of Confederate soldiers at Antietam.

Following the discovery of gold in 1862 at Auburn and Canyon City, new communities and prospects were established in eastern Oregon. Just as the lure of free land attracted homesteaders and livestock raisers in search of new opportunities, so did the possibility of finding wealth in gold and silver throughout the region. Based on exhaustive research and a wealth of sources—federal census and mining records, newspapers, mining periodicals, county land records, maps, and federal government reports—Oregon Gold offers a comprehensive study of mining in Oregon between 1862 and 1910. From carefully examining the eastern portion of the state to exploring the economic expansion and political development of Portland, William Willingham highlights what is unique about the Oregon gold mining experience and places Oregon’s precious metal mining in the context of mining throughout the American West.

Willingham shows how mining was an important aspect of the state’s history, far greater than has been traditionally understood. He provides special attention and analysis to the role Chinese miners played in the story of eastern Oregon mining and to the demographic makeups of two major mining communities, Susanville and Granite, that thrived during the period. The attention to detail and thorough reporting in Oregon Gold will captivate both scholars and general readers interested in western mining and Oregon history during the nineteenth century.

In this deeply researched volume, Stephen Dow Beckham brings together commentary by Native Americans about the events affecting their lives in Oregon. Now available in paperback for the first time, this volume presents first-person accounts of events threatening, changing, and shaping the lives of Oregon Indians, from “first encounters” in the late eighteenth century to modern tribal economies.

The book's seven thematic sections are arranged chronologically and prefaced with introductory essays that provide the context of Indian relations with Euro-Americans and tightening federal policy. Each of the nearly seventy documents has a brief introduction that identifies the event and the speakers involved. Most of the book's selections are little known. Few have been previously published, including treaty council minutes, court and congressional testimonies, letters, and passages from travelers’ journals.

Oregon Indians opens with the arrival of Euro-Americans and their introduction of new technology, weapons, and diseases. The role of treaties, machinations of the Oregon volunteers, efforts of the US Army to protect the Indians but also subdue and confine them, and the emergence of reservation programs to “civilize” them are recorded in a variety of documents that illuminate nineteenth-century Indian experiences.

Twentieth-century documents include Tommy Thompson on the flooding of the Celilo Falls fishing grounds in 1942, as well as Indian voices challenging the "disastrous policy of termination," the state's prohibition on inter-racial marriage, and the final resting ground of Kennewick Man. Selections in the book's final section speak to the changing political atmosphere of the late twentieth century, and suggest that hope, rather than despair, became a possibility for Oregon tribes.   

In the first decades of the twentieth century, print-centered organizations spread rapidly across the United States, providing more women than ever before with opportunities to participate in public life. While most organizations at the time were run by and for white men, women—both Black and white—were able to reshape their lives and their social worlds through their participation in these institutions.

Organizing Women traces the histories of middle-class women—rural and urban, white and Black, married and unmarried—who used public and private institutions of print to tell their stories, expand their horizons, and further their ambitions. Drawing from a diverse range of examples, Christine Pawley introduces readers to women who ran branch libraries and library schools in Chicago and Madison, built radio empires from their midwestern farms, formed reading clubs, and published newsletters. In the process, we learn about the organizations themselves, from libraries and universities to the USDA extension service and the YWCA, and the ways in which women confronted gender discrimination and racial segregation in the course of their work.

How a North Alabama river fueled a national showdown over power, democracy, and the New Deal

Origins of the TVA: The Muscle Shoals Controversy, 1920–1932 is the definitive history of the bitter, decade-long struggle that gave rise to the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the most consequential experiments in American public policy. Centered on Muscle Shoals, Alabama, this book traces how wartime investments in nitrates and hydropower became the focal point for national debates over public versus private power, regional planning, agricultural reform, and the proper role of the federal government. 

In an era grappling with industrial transformation and sectional inequality, the story of Muscle Shoals illuminates why the TVA emerged as a landmark solution with global influence. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources—more than twenty-five congressional hearings, the Congressional Record, private manuscripts, National Archives collections, and contemporary journalism—historian Preston J. Hubbard delivers a model of scholarly rigor and balance. Originally published in 1961 and still unmatched in scope, the book is widely praised for its restraint, clarity, and meticulous reconstruction of complex political, economic, and technological issues. 

Hubbard demonstrates how a small group of lawmakers led by Senator George W. Norris ultimately shaped a durable vision of public power and regional development. This book will reward historians, political scientists, policy professionals, and students of Southern history, as well as readers interested in the origins of the New Deal, environmental policy, and the enduring debate over public resources and private enterprise.

A bestselling, re-evaluation of a major Native American resistance leader. Named an Outstanding Book by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights.

Born in Alabama to a Muscogee/Creek Indian mother and an English father, Osceola, born Billy Powell, came to prominence in the 1830s for resisting the U. S. government's sweep into Florida. He protested the government's Florida Indian removal, killed a pro-emigration Indian leader and then made war on the US government.

Osceola's Legacy draws on a wealth of sources, including letters, diaries, and artifacts to bring this fascinating figure and the central role he played in the Second Seminole War into vivid focus. Of particular interest is a chapter on the forensic report on Osceola's grave as well as descriptions and the illustrations of his personal property at the time of his death.
Osceola's Legacy is significant for its genealogy and archaeological study of this Native American and his interaction with the federal government during the 1800s. The catalog of photographs of Osceola portraits and his personal possessions makes this a worthwhile reference book as well.

WINNER OF THE LILLIAN SMITH BOOK AWARD

The story of faith, sacrifice, and moral courage in Alabama's fight for civil rights.

Outside Agitator tells the powerful, largely forgotten story of Jonathan Daniels—a white Episcopal seminarian from New England who answered the call of the civil rights movement and paid for that commitment with his life. In 1965, Daniels left the safety of Harvard and Cambridge for Selma and Alabama’s Black Belt, where he worked alongside Black activists to challenge segregation, register voters, and confront the moral failures of church and state. His murder by a white segregationist shocked the nation and exposed the deadly cost of racial injustice—and of moral courage. 

More than a biography, this book asks urgent questions that still resonate: What does it mean to act on conscience in a society structured by inequality? What responsibilities do faith, citizenship, and privilege impose? Historian Charles W. Eagles places Daniels’s life within the turbulent final phase of the southern civil rights movement, revealing the everyday fears, ethical dilemmas, and racial tensions behind the iconic events of Selma and Lowndes County. 

Outside Agitator will appeal to readers interested in civil rights history, religious activism, Southern history, and the moral dimensions of political struggle. It is essential reading for students, scholars, clergy, and general readers seeking to understand how individual lives can illuminate—and challenge—the ongoing fight for justice and equality.

Outside Influence: Photography in Colorado, 1945–1995 is the first detailed account of the state’s history of post–World War II expressive photography. The title “Outside Influence” alludes to the historic presence of the natural landscape as subject and to the transformative impact of out-of-state artists and educators. Their arrival in Colorado beginning in the 1960s galvanized interpretive photography by introducing innovative concepts, nontraditional materials, and emergent digital technologies to students, peers, and their audience-at-large.

Throughout the book’s nine chapters, Rupert Jenkins contextualizes Colorado photography’s postwar development with a social, political, and cultural abstract that encompasses national events and trends, the emerging presence of women and photographers of color, and institutional leadership. Drawing from more than 120 personal interviews, he identifies the medium’s principal in-state creators, mentors, and advocates from the modernist era of film processing to the emergence of interdisciplinary digital practice. Jenkins answers fundamental questions about the people and work of this era: Who generated this significant body of innovative, noncommercial photographic work? Where did they come from? Who inspired them, and who in turn did they inspire?

As Eric Paddock, curator of photography at the Denver Art Museum, discusses in his foreword, by looking at the schools, workshops, galleries, and museums that supported these artists, Jenkins stresses the importance of collaboration and community to any successful venture. Crucially, in examining the lives and careers of photographers like Robert Adams, Walter Chappell, Albert Chong, Cherie Hiser, Barbara Houghton, Winter Prather, Mark Sink, Melanie Walker, Myron Wood, and numerous others, Outside Influence seeks to affirm the medium’s legacy within Colorado’s fine arts canon.

Winner of the Alabama Library Author Award

Outside the Magic Circle tells the remarkable story of Virginia Foster Durr, a southern white woman born into privilige who (along with her husband Clifford Durr, a lawyer best known for defending Rosa Parks), nonetheless devoted her life to Civil Rights activism.

Outside the Magic Circle is the powerful and deeply personal autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr, a Southern woman who defied the expectations of her privileged upbringing to become one of the most courageous voices for civil rights and social justice in 20th-century America. Born into a wealthy, white Alabama family, Durr was raised in a world steeped in segregation and conservative values. Yet through a journey marked by moral reckoning, intellectual awakening, and political activism, she stepped outside the “magic circle” of Southern gentility to confront the injustices that shaped her world.

With a foreword by renowned oral historian Studs Terkel, this memoir captures Durr’s transformation from reluctant conformist to outspoken advocate. Her story spans decades of American history—from the Great Depression and New Deal politics to the McCarthy era and the Civil Rights Movement. Alongside her husband, attorney Clifford Durr, Virginia became a key figure in progressive circles, working to abolish the poll tax, defend civil liberties, and support Black activists in the segregated South.

Told in Durr’s own voice, the narrative is rich with anecdotes, reflections, and encounters with historical figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. It is both a personal reckoning and a political document, offering rare insight into the inner conflicts of white Southern liberals and the cost of dissent in a deeply divided society.

Outside the Magic Circle is more than a memoir—it is a testament to the power of conscience, the courage of transformation, and the enduring fight for justice. It remains a vital resource for readers interested in civil rights history, feminist thought, and the complexities of Southern identity.