History

Publisher Comments
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a... (read more)

Powells.com Staff Pick
Nelson Mandela once said, "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world." Mortenson and Relin's Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time is a powerful contribution to that arsenal. If there... (read more)

Powells.com Staff Pick
At once a meditation on the motives of the pilgrims and a history of religion in America, The Wordy Shipmates will be a welcome addition to your history shelves. Sarah Vowell brings her usual wry humor and sharp insight to a piece of American history... (read more)

Publisher Comments
Winner of the 1996 American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship Americans have lost touch with their history, and in this thought-provoking book, Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying twelve... (read more)

Publisher Comments
the New York Times bestseller: a true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. When Germany invaded poland, stuka bombers devastated warsaw—and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals... (read more)

Powells.com Staff Pick
At the heart of the immense and growing interest in Lewis and Clark in recent years stands this book. WWII historian Stephen Ambrose had long harbored a private obsession for the Expedition of the Corps of Discovery, and in Undaunted Courage he... (read more)

Publisher Comments
In his controversial book, John Perkins tells the gripping tale of the years he spent working for an international consulting firm where his job was to convince underdeveloped countries to accept enormous loans, much bigger than they really needed, for... (read more)

Publisher Comments
Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an... (read more)