Once a thriving metropolis on the banks of the Mississippi, St. Louis, Missouri, is now a ghostly landscape of vacant houses, boarded-up storefronts, and abandoned factories. The Gateway City is, by a
The AIDS crisis of the 1980s looms large in recent histories of sexuality, medicine, and politics, and justly so—an unknown virus without a cure ravages an already persecuted minority, medical p
In the inaugural issue of Ms. Magazine, the feminist activist Judy Syfers proclaimed that she "would like a wife," offering a wry critique of the state of marriage in modern America. After all, she ob
Homeless explores the efforts of private and public institutions to solve the problem of homelessness by tracing the rise and fall of skid rows in America through the lens of New York's Bowery. Crowde
Pan American Women examines U.S. women activists' attempts to advance inter-American cooperation among women and further hemispheric peace between the World Wars. Threlkeld argues that diplomatic tens
Coined by Republican strategist Kevin Phillips in 1969 to describe the new alloy of conservatism that united voters across the southern rim of the country, the term "Sunbelt" has since gained currency
Today, universities serve as the economic engines and cultural centers of many U.S. cities, but how did this come to be? In Building the Ivory Tower, LaDale Winling traces the history of universities'
Analyzing economic policy from the New Deal through the Reagan Revolution, Tax and Spend takes a new look at the so-called tax-and-spend liberals of the past. This important study examines why many Am
The "Latino vote" has become a mantra in political media, as journalists, pundits, and social scientists regularly weigh in on Latinos' loyalty to the Democratic Party and the significance of their el
Martin Luther King, Jr., is widely celebrated as an American civil rights hero. Yet King's nonviolent opposition to racism, militarism, and economic injustice had deeper roots and more radical implic
At first glance, the Ford Foundation and the black power movement would make an unlikely partnership. After the Second World War, the renowned Foundation was the largest philanthropic organization in
Fictional characters, such as June Cleaver, and criticism of suburban domestic passivity, notably Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, have profoundly shaped our popular and intellectual view of the
Robert McNamara is best known for his key role in the escalation of the Vietnam War as U.S. secretary of defense under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The familiar story begins with the
The legislative attack on public sector unionism that gave rise to the uproar in Wisconsin and other union strongholds in 2011 was not just a reaction to the contemporary economic difficulties faced b
The Battle for Welfare Rights chronicles an American war on poverty fought first and foremost by poor people themselves. It tells the fascinating story of the National Welfare Rights Organization, the
Mollin (Virginia Technical U., Blacksburg) tells of a movement from World War II through the Vietnam War era that sought counter-cultural revolt while mired in mainstream social and cultural values. T
Compton, California, is often associated in the public mind with urban America's toughest problems, including economic disinvestment, gang violence, and failing public schools. Before it became synony
Let Us Die as Free Men explores the African American fight for the desegregation of the American military between the Second World War and the Korean War. The book credits black soldiers and civilian
