Product Description: "A graceful, informed overview of the antebellum U.S., the Civil War years, and the conflict's great aftermath. Best of all are the portrayed exhibit pieces." —BooklistThis analysis of the American Civil War pieces together a complex sequence of events, at the centre of which was slavery and the issue of its expansion into America's western territories...read more

Product Description: An illustrated companion volume to the first major museum exhibit on the era of Reconstruction, written by the author of Reconstruction, the award-winning definitive book on the period. The book reproduces many of the exhibit's photos, lithographs, political cartoons, flags, quilts, and other artifacts of the era...read more

Product Description: The history of Chicago can be told through its neighborhoods, and perhaps none is more telling than Douglas/Grand Boulevard on the city's south side. The future site of the neighborhood remained a sparsely settled prairie until the early 1850s, when Stephen A...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Beginning in 1865, millions of people started to pass through Chicago on their way to the American West. This book takes a look at how Chicago became America's transportation hub and its most important gateway to the West. Topics include the railroads; industry, particularly farming and mail-order; western settlements and boom towns; the seizing of Native American territories and the Indian wars that followed; and the enduring legacy of the image of the Old West...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)