Why did it take so long to end slavery in the United States, and what did it mean that the nation existed eighty-eight years as a house divided against itself, as Abraham Lincoln put it? The decline of slavery throughout the Atlantic world was a protracted affair, says Patrick Rael, but no other nation endured anything like the United States. Here the process took from 1777, when Vermont wrote slavery out of its state constitution, to 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery nationwide. Rael immerses readers in the mix of social, geographic, economic, and political factors that shaped this unique American experience. He not only takes a far longer view of slavery's demise than do those who date it to the rise of abolitionism in 1831, he also places it in a broader Atlantic context. We see how slavery ended variously by consent or force across time and place and how views on slavery evolved differently between the centers of European power and their colonial peripheries some of which would become power centers themselves. Rael shows how African Americans played the central role in ending slavery in the United States. Fueled by new Revolutionary ideals of self-rule and universal equality and on their own or alongside abolitionists, both slaves and free blacks slowly turned American opinion against the slave interests in the South. Secession followed, and then began the national bloodbath that would demand slavery's complete destruction.

Chronicling nearly nine decades of life and work on a Maine farm, this memoir by Will and Minnie Penney presents a wonderful look back at rural life before and during the Depression, in the heady post-war years, and late, as family farms began to give way to larger industrial farms. The Penney's adapted to change by adjusting the way they farmed, focusing on fewer crops, adding dairy cows to their stock, even harvesting trees from the woodlot and cutting them into lumberwith the farm's lumber mill. Through it all the Penney's toughed it out and thrived on their slice of Maine heaven. The Penney Farm in Belgrade, Maine, remained in the family for more than one hundred and fifty years. Eighty-Eighth Years on a Maine Farm is part Will Penney's personal memoir and part Minnie's diary. Together, they show readers just what everyday life on a busy Maine farm was like.

Historians generally consider James K. Polk one of the most effective presidents in United States history. Many of them doubt, however, that President Polk would have been successful without the counsel of his wife Sarah. The president dominated his cabinet and trusted no one--except for his wife. Sarah Childress Polk (1803-1891) was a highly educated woman who became President Polk's virtual secretary and more: She critiqued his speeches, evaluated his Cabinet decisions, and worked side by side with her husband. Mrs. Polk was praised for her astute views on matters of state by both Polk's supporters and his opponents. She outlived her husband by 42 years, and was often consulted by politicians who respected her opinions and trusted her instincts, including Confederate and Union officers in the Civil War. This is the story of a powerful and tireless first lady who became one of the most influential Americans of the middle and late nineteenth century.

A first-of-its-kind book that covers the entire history of the British conquest of India in a deep and focused manner.