The Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, dazzled with its new rainbow-colored electric lights. It showcased an array of wonders, like daredevils attempting to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, or the "Animal King" putting the smallest woman in the world and also terrifying animals on display. But the thrill-seeking spectators little suspected that an assassin walked the fairgrounds, waiting for President William McKinley to arrive. In Margaret Creighton's hands, the result is "a persuasive case that the fair was a microcosm of some momentous facets of the United States, good and bad, at the onset of the American Century" (Howard Schneider, Wall Street Journal).

THE UNPARALLELED HISTORY OF THE FALL OF OLD MEXICO

Drawing on newly discovered sources and writing with brilliance, drama, and profound historical insight, Hugh Thomas presents an engrossing narrative of one of the most significant events of Western history.

Ringing with the fury of two great empires locked in an epic battle, Conquest captures in extraordinary detail the Mexican and Spanish civilizations and offers unprecedented in-depth portraits of the legendary opponents, Montezuma and Cortés. Conquest is an essential work of history from one of our most gifted historians.

Coney Island is an iconic symbol of turn-of-the-century New York, but many other amusement parks thrilled the residents of the five boroughs. Strategically placed at the end of trolley lines, railways, public beaches and waterways, these playgrounds for rich and poor alike first appeared in 1767. From humble beginnings, they developed into huge sites like Fort George, Manhattan's massive amusement complex. Each park was influenced by the culture and eclectic tastes of its owners and patrons--from the wooden coasters at Staten Island's Midland Beach to beer gardens on Queens' North Beach and fireworks blasting from the Bronx's Starlight Park. However, as real estate became more valuable, these parks disappeared. Rediscover the thrills of the past from the lost amusement parks of New York City.

As one of the nation's oldest cities, Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a tumultuous history filled with Revolutionary War beginnings, religious persecution and centuries of debate among Ivy League intelligentsia. It should come as no surprise that the city is also home to spirits that are entangled with the past and now inhabit the dormitories, local watering holes and even military structures of the present. Discover the apparitions that frighten freshmen in Harvard's Weld Hall, the Revolutionary War ghosts that haunt the estates of Tory Row and the flapper who is said to roam the seats of Somerville Theatre. Using careful research and firsthand accounts, author Sam Baltrusis delves into ghastly tales of murder, crime and the bizarre happenings in the early days of Cambridge to uncover the truth behind some of the city's most historic haunts.

Roanoke, Virginia, is one of America's great historic railroad centers. The Norfolk & Western Railway Company, now the Norfolk Southern Corporation, has been in Roanoke for over a century. Since the company has employed many of the city's African Americans, the two histories are intertwined. The lives of Roanoke's black railroad workers span the generations from Jim Crow segregation to the civil rights era to today's diverse corporate workforce. Older generations toiled through labor-intensive jobs such as janitors and track laborers, paving the way for younger African Americans to become engineers, conductors and executives. Join author Sheree Scarborough as she interviews Roanoke's African American railroad workers and chronicles stories that are a powerful testament of personal adversity, struggle and triumph on the rail.

Oil and Nation places petroleum at the center of Bolivia's contentious twentieth-century history. Bolivia's oil, Cote argues, instigated the largest war in Latin America in the 1900s, provoked the first nationalization of a major foreign company by a Latin American state, and shaped both the course and the consequences of Bolivia's transformative National Revolution of 1952. Oil and natural gas continue to steer the country under the government of Evo Morales, who renationalized hydrocarbons in 2006 and has used revenues from the sector to reduce poverty and increase infrastructure development in South America's poorest country. The book advances chronologically from Bolivia's earliest petroleum pioneers in the nineteenth century until the present, inserting oil into historical debates about Bolivian ethnic, racial, and environmental issues, and within development strategies by different administrations. While Bolivia is best known for its tin mining, Oil and Nation makes the case that nationalist reformers viewed hydrocarbons and the state oil company as a way to modernize the country away from the tin monoculture and its powerful backers and toward an oil-powered future.

Polemics, Literature, and Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Mexico is the first study to comprehensively analyse the configuration of the idea of the Republic of Letters in an eighteenth-century Latin American country. Taking a multisided approach to Mexican culture of the era, this book's analysis of literary texts engages with an exploration of such concepts as the Republic of Letters and the archive, as well as their connections to transatlantic polemics on knowledge production in the New World and debates on philosophical systems of learning. It furthermore draws upon the history of science in Mexico in order to trace the development of scientific thought and its influence on culture, religion, and fiction. This study proposes that eighteenth-century Mexican writers sought to establish a place within a global scholarly community for their local literary republic through the formation of scholarly networks, the historical exploration of the past and present, and the creation of new epistemological approaches to literary production inspired by Enlightenment ideas. This book invites those devoted to the study of eighteenth-century cultures to engage in an examination of a lesser-explored scholarly territory and its networks, and to think about how it was heterogeneously constructed by many-sided polemics and debates which manifested in a broad range of literary works.

America: A Narrative History puts narrative front and centre with David Shi's rich storytelling style, colourful biographical sketches and vivid first-person quotations. The new editions further reflect the state of our history and society by continuing to incorporate diverse voices into the narrative with new coverage of the Latino/a experience as well as enhanced coverage of gender, African American, Native American, immigration and LGBTQ history. With dynamic digital tools, including the InQuizitive adaptive learning tool, and new digital activities focused on primary and secondary sources, America: A Narrative History gives students regular opportunities to engage with the story and build critical history skills.

Discover the remarkable history of Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.

As the saying goes, "dead men tell no tales." Or do they? From its humble beginnings as a Spanish settlement in 1691 to the bloody battle at the Alamo, San Antonio's history is rich in haunting tales. Discover Old San Antonio's most haunted places and uncover the history that lies waiting for those who dare to enter their doorways. Take a peek inside the Menger Hotel, the "Most Haunted Hotel in Texas," and just a block away, peer into the Emily Morgan Hotel, one of the city's first hospitals and where many men and women lost their lives. Explore the San Fernando Cathedral, where people are buried within the walls and visitors claim to see faces mysteriously appear. Uncover the legends behind Bexar County Jail. Join authors James and Lauren Swartz and decide for yourself what truly lurks behind the Alamo City's fabled past.