United States Books

The Pulitzer prize-winning history professor Jack Rakove tells us how the U.S. Constitution came to be written and ratified and explains why, after more than 200 years, Americans are still so deeply wedded to it.

The idea of Boston as "a place of revolutionary fervour because liberty is somehow baked into its bones" is loaded with a "very heavy dose of self-mythologizing," says American historian Jane Kamensky. Here, the Harvard professor lifts the veil on this quintessential New England city and recommends five books for understanding its history

Which are the best books on American history? Brent Glass, Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the world’s largest museum devoted to telling the story of America, chooses five standout books in a crowded field.

The educationalist tells us about her experience as head of Washington DC’s public school system and explains how poorly performing children, and institutions, can be helped to improve

How did the concept of United States immigration being a 'melting pot' of diverse nationalities come to be? In this interview, Stanford historian Ana Raquel Minian explores America's complex, highly racialized history of immigration and recommends five of the books on the subject that have most influenced her.

Who are the men and women in black robes who sit on America’s highest judicial bench? Legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick recommends the best books on the Supreme Court justices of the United States.

Harvard macroeconomist Robert Barro takes issue with some common assumptions about the Great Depression, and how America got out of it.

The author of "The End of History" says the financial crisis revealed a great deal about the nature of America’s political and economic system. The shame, he says, is that opportunities to change it are now being ignored.

When George W Bush declared that America "has never been an empire,” he elided a half century of colonial rule over its overseas dependencies. But American expansionism has manifested in other forms too, says A G Hopkins, imperial historian and author of a panoramic new work of American history.

Inequality is coming not just from the economy; it is coming from politics and policy, says Jamila Michener, assistant professor of government at Cornell University. Here she chooses five books that showcase some of the best, most thought-provoking writing on the politics and consequences of policy.