Books – Detail

A collection of stories and fascinating facets of theater history in Philadelphia.

A sweeping history of New York that chronicles the construction of one of the world’s great cities.

Spurred by a surprising family discovery, Gail McCormick embarked on an historical journey to uncover the story of a unique society of Swedenborgians, a Christian sect inspired by the works of eighteenth-century scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg.

• Vol. 1. 1817-1875
• Vol. 2. 1875-1971

An enthralling study of a founding American dynasty –the Peirces and the Princes--in an interwoven story of family heritage that extends from the earliest settlements to the mid-twentieth century.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist that's as unsettling as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist.

Winner of the Bancroft Prize

This is the amazing story in words and images of the historic discovery of the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, deep beneath the ice of Antarctica.

Smooth lawns, glassy pools, cool garden temples, mysterious woodland glades, evocative statuary ... the 18th-century English landscape garden offers a transcendent vision of Arcadia, a world of rich escapism peopled by gods and goddesses, young lovers and dairymaids, poets and philosophers.

The internationally bestselling author of The Anarchy returns with a sparkling, soaring history of ideas, tracing South Asia's under-recognized role in producing the world as we know it.

A riveting history about the little-known rivalry between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett that profoundly shaped reproductive rights in America

The dramatic story of an ingenious man who explained nature and created a country.

The first comprehensive biography of Philadelphia’s Henry C. Lea (1825–1909): historian, publisher, political activist, and reformer.

An original history of music in the lives of American soldiers.

Drawing from an archive of nearly five thousand letters and advertisements, the riveting, dramatic story of formerly enslaved people who spent years searching for family members stolen away during slavery.

Drawing upon interviews, correspondence, and nearly 2000 pages of never-before-used prison records, Malcolm Before X is the definitive examination of the prison years of civil rights icon Malcolm X. 

Using narratives from fair-goers, this book examines the technological enthusiasm of Victorian society at the 1876 Philadelphia World’s Fair and the resulting transition from agricultural republic to industrial empire.

The final volume of Albert J. Churella's landmark series, The Pennsylvania Railroad, concludes the story of the iconic transportation company, covering its long decline from the 1930s to its merger with the New York Central Railroad in 1968.

Adrian Tinniswood reconstructs life in the country house during its golden age before the Great War, when Britain ruled over a quarter of the earth's population and its stately homes were at their most opulent. But change was on the horizon: the landed classes were being forced to grapple not only with new neighbors, but also with new social norms and expectations.

A riveting portrait of Queen Victoria and the ten prime ministers who headed British government during her sixty-three-year reign.

A wealth of stories showing why Philadelphia was America’s first great city in the years before the Revolution.

A colorful and fast-moving account of how postwar London became the global center of the art market--a story of Impressionist masterpieces, dodgy dealers, and ground-breaking financial transactions.

A gripping history that plumbs the extraordinary stories of American relief and rescue workers during World War II.

Acclaimed journalist, podcaster, andtrue-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson tells the true story of the scandalous murder investigation that became the inspiration for both Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and the first true-crime book published in America.

An acclaimed historian narrates the stories of newly emancipated children who were re-enslaved by white masters through apprenticeships and their parents fights to free them.

When plans to overhaul Southwest Philadelphia in the 1950s scheduled both the integrated neighborhood of Eastwick and the ecologically valuable Tinicum marshes to be razed, two grassroots movements took up the cause―battling eminent domain in the name of environmental conservation and economic injustice.

A revolutionary study of nineteenth-century Parisian cartography and its role in shaping a modern conception of space.

In this engaging study, Allan Chapman shows how the Holy Land took on new meaning for Europeans during the Victorian era.

Details the history of SEPTA's acquisitions and its preservation of commuter and trolley lines in Philadelphia.

An urgent exploration of a world in constant crisis, where every regional disaster threatens to become a global conflict, with lessons from history that can stop the spiral—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography.