David

Apart from The Last of the Mohicans, most Americans know little of the French and Indian War—also known as the Seven Years’ War—and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history.

In The War That Made America, Fred Anderson deftly shows how the expansion of the British colonies into French territory in the 1750s and the ongoing Native American struggle for survival would erupt into seven years of bloodshed and unrest. The struggle would spread from the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the high courts of Europe, eventually overturning the balance of power on two continents and laying the groundwork for the American Revolution.

Beautifully illustrated, richly detailed, and utterly compelling, The War That Made America is the story of how America as we know it today emerged from a series of fractured colonies and warring tribes into a nation ripe for independence—and nobody tells this story better than Fred Anderson.

The first study to examine why violence erupts in America’s small towns and suburbs—and what can be done to prevent it.

In the last decade, school shootings have decimated communities and terrified parents, teachers, and children in even the most “family friendly” American towns and suburbs. These tragedies appear to be the spontaneous acts of troubled, disconnected teens, but this important book argues that the roots of violence are deeply entwined in the communities themselves. Rampage challenges the “loner theory” of school violence, and shows why so many adults and students miss the warning signs that could prevent it.

Drawing on more than 200 interviews with town residents, distinguished sociologist Katherine Newman and her co-authors take the reader inside two of the most notorious school shootings of the 1990s, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Paducah, Kentucky. In a powerful and original analysis, she demonstrates that the organizational structure of schools “loses” information about troubled kids, and the very closeness of these small rural towns restrained neighbors and friends from communicating what they knew about their problems. Her conclusions shed light on the ties that bind in small-town America.