Don't Know Much About History, Anniversary Edition: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don't Know Much About®) (111 page)

Kean, Thomas H., and Lee Hamilton.
The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States with Reporting and Analysis by the New York Times.
New York: St. Martin’s, 2004. Must-read account of the official investigation into 9/11.

Kessler, Ronald.
The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI.
New York: St. Martin’s, 2002. Covers the FBI’s history from its inception to the September 11 attacks; insightful history by an investigative reporter formerly with the
Washington Post
and the
Wall Street Journal.

Krakauer, Jon.
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.
New York: Doubleday, 2009. The tragic death in Afghanistan of a former NFL player, by friendly fire, and the cover-up of the incident.

Lewis, Charles, and the Center for Public Integrity.
The Buying of the President 2004: Who’s Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers—and What They Expect in Return.
New York: HarperPerennial, 2004. Nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Public Integrity investigates the money behind the campaigns.

Lewis, Michael.
Liar’s Poker.
New York: Norton, 1989. Excellent account of the changes in policy that led to the financial excesses and, later, the crash of 1987.

———.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.
New York: Norton, 2010. Behind the scenes at the 2008 market meltdown.

Mann, James.
Rise of the Vulcans: The History of the Bush War Cabinet.
New York: Viking, 2004. Account of the men who influenced the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Maraniss, David.
First in His Class: The Biography of Bill Clinton.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. A political biography that ends on the night when Bill Clinton declared his candidacy for the presidency.

Mayer, Jane.
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.
New York: Doubleday, 2008. Hard-hitting exposé of the Bush war on terror policy decisions that led to waterboarding and other dubious and possibly illegal techniques.

Mitchell, Greg.
So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed on Iraq.
New York: Union Square Press, 2008.

———.
Why Obama Won: The Making of a President 2008.
New York: Sinclair, 2009.

Obama, Barack.
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
New York: Three Rivers, 2004.

O’Rourke, P. J.
Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Tries to Explain the Entire U.S. Government.
New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991. A cuttingly funny humorist takes on pork-barrel politics as a practice in modern America.

Packer, George.
The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. A veteran
New Yorker
writer, and a self-described “pro-war liberal,” Packer details the history of infighting that led to the disastrous decision making in the Iraq war.

Palast, Greg.
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth About Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High Finance Fraudsters.
London: Pluto, 2002. The generally overlooked downside of the rise in the world economy and powerful institutions like the World Bank by a “muckraking” investigative reporter.

Paulson, Henry M.
On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System.
New York: Grand Central, 2010.

Phillips, Kevin.
Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich.
New York: Broadway, 2002. A conservative historian assesses the impact of wealth on democracy in America, which has rarely served the common man.

Pollack, Kenneth M.
The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq.
New York: Random House, 2002.

Remnick, David.
Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire.
New York: Random House, 1993. A prizewinning journalist’s acclaimed history of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ricks, Thomas E.
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.
New York: Penguin, 2006. By a
Washington Post
Pentagon correspondent, the title says it all.

Sorkin, Andrew Ross.
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis—and Themselves.
New York: Viking, 2009.

Spence, Gerry.
From Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America.
New York: St. Martin’s, 1995. An attack of the forces of government and corporate “tyranny” by the renowned criminal defense attorney who defended Randy Weaver.

Stephanopoulos, George.
All Too Human: A Political Education.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1999. A fascinating insider’s view of the Clinton campaign and White House by a former “true believer.”

Toobin, Jeffrey.
A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999. Widely regarded as a balanced and definitive account of the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal that culminated in only the second presidential impeachment trial in history.

———.
Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election.
New York: Random House, 2001. The Bush-Gore controversy over Florida, a journalistic account.

Wills, Garry.
A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999. Instructive essay looking at tradition of anti-government attitudes in America and how the mood has grown more violent.

———.
Under God: Religion and American Politics.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Original look at religion and politics, especially since the 1988 election and the rise of the evangelical right.

Woodward, Bob.
The Commanders.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. An account of the decision making that led to the Persian Gulf War, by the famous Watergate journalist, who is managing editor of the
Washington Post.

———.
Shadow: Five Presidencies and the Legacy of Watergate.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999. An exploration of how changes that followed the Watergate scandal affected the administrations of Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.

———.
Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. A lucid, brief, and revealing—if mostly laudatory—examination of the way the Federal Reserve works and how its chairman Alan Greenspan amassed, and used, his extraordinary power.

Wright, Lawrence.
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.
New York: Knopf, 2006. Excellent history of the terrorist organization and western intelligence failures that led to 9/11.

Index

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Aaron, Hank, 406

abolitionists, 45, 104, 113–14, 152, 162, 174, 194, 197–201, 203–6, 208, 214–19, 229–30, 242, 248, 334–35

Abrams, Elliot, 526, 527

Abu Ghraib, xxvii, 607

Acheson, Dean, 404

Adams, Abigail, 95, 334

Adams, John, 66, 69, 70–71, 75, 78–79, 82, 95–96, 100, 103, 109, 113, 126, 130, 133, 138, 141–43, 160, 334, 658, 659

Adams, John Quincy, 160–62, 164–66, 176, 177, 571, 654, 659, 660

Adams, Samuel, 66–67, 69–70, 78–79, 81–84, 110, 127

Addams, Jane, 299, 300

affirmative action, 535, 588–89

Afghanistan, 554, 596–97; Soviet war in, 103, 533, 534, 591–92, 596; U.S. war in, xii, 538, 542, 590, 595–603, 627

Agnew, Spiro, 477, 482, 501, 503, 663–64

Aguinaldo, Emiliano, 290, 292

Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 590, 608

AIDS/HIV, 528–32

AIG, 620, 622

Alabama, 163, 615

Alden, John, 30

Aldrin, Buzz, 494

Alexander, James, 59

Algonquian Indians, 24, 40, 41, 655

Ali, Muhammad, 489–90

Alien and Sedition Acts, 133, 142

Alien Registration (Smith) Act, 329, 372

Allen, Ethan, 71, 85, 97

Allen, Frederick Lewis, 346

Almagro (conquistador), 18

Al Qaeda, 533, 590–92, 595–98, 604

Altgeld, John, 277

Altman, Dr. Lawrence K., 528–29

Alvarez, Everett, Jr., 467, 471

Ambrose, Stephen, xxiii

America First movement, 325, 342

American Federation of Labor, 278, 301, 355

American Railway Union, 277

American Recovery and Investment Act, 621, 626

American Revolution, xvii, 38, 47, 49, 64–105

Ames, Aldrich, 583

Ames, Oakes, 267

Amherst, Jeffrey, 63

Andagoya, Pascual de, 18

Anderson, “Bloody Bill,” 234

André, John, 76, 98–99

Anthony, Susan B., 335

anti-Communism, 55, 264, 301–2, 328–29, 348, 354–55, 357–58, 362–63, 402–4, 406–12, 414–18, 422, 434, 443, 448–49, 453, 466–69, 515, 524

anti-Federalists, 85, 88, 127–28

Antimasonic Party, 123, 660

anti-Semitism, 340–42, 357, 362–63, 410, 446, 576

Anti-Slavery Society, 104, 194, 197

antiwar movement, 456, 473, 475, 477, 490, 493, 495, 497–98

Apache Indians, 259, 260

Apple, R. W., Jr., 525

Appomattox Court House, surrender at, 15, 239

Arapaho Indians, 259

Arawak Indians, 4, 5, 18, 145

Arizona, 193, 314, 586

Arkansas, 179, 218, 219, 225, 234, 377, 431–32, 548, 550, 551, 572; Territory, 164

Arlington National Cemetery, 218, 248

Armstrong, Neil, 494, 519

Army Reorganization Act, 313

Arnold, Benedict, xxii, 71, 73, 76, 79, 85, 97–99

Arthur, Chester A., 662

Articles of Confederation, 74, 88, 99–100, 109, 112, 133, 222–23

Ashcroft, John, 580–81, 631

Ashe, Arthur, 531

Atahualpa, Inca ruler, 18

Atlantic Charter, 375

Attucks, Crispus, 66

Atzerodt, George, 247

Austin, Stephen, 176–78

Australian route, 13

Austria-Hungary, 306, 310, 319

Aztecs, 13–14, 18

Azzam, Abdullah, 592

Babcock, Orville, 268

Bacon, Nathaniel, 51–52, 109

Badoglio, Pietro, 382

Bahamas, 4–6, 8

Bajoria, Jayshree, 592