By Patricia Cline Cohen (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett. … Continued
By Laura F. Edwards (NHC Fellow, 2007–08) In the half-century following the Revolutionary War, the logic of inequality underwent a profound transformation within the southern legal system. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Carolina, Laura F. Edwards illuminates those changes by revealing the importance of localized legal practice. Edwards shows that following … Continued
By Michael F. Holt (NHC Fellow, 1987–88) Here, Michael F. Holt gives us the only comprehensive history of the Whigs ever written. He offers a panoramic account of the tumultuous antebellum period, a time when a flurry of parties and larger-than-life politicians–Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Henry Clay–struggled for control as … Continued
By Einar Thomassen (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) This book is a comprehensive study of “Valentinianism,” the most important Gnostic Christian movement in Antiquity. It is the first attempt to make full use of the Valentinian documents from Nag Hammadi as well as the reports of the Church Fathers. The book discusses the difference between the Eastern … Continued
By Cara Robertson (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 2004–05; 2005–06) When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892, the arrest of the couple’s younger daughter Lizzie turned the case into international news and her murder trial into a spectacle unparalleled in American history. Reporters flocked to the scene. … Continued
By Akinwumi Ogundiran (NHC Fellow, 2015–16) “The Yoruba: A New History is the first transdisciplinary study of the two-thousand-year journey of the Yoruba people, from their origins in a small corner of the Niger-Benue Confluence in present-day Nigeria to becoming one of the most populous cultural groups on the African continent. Weaving together archaeology with … Continued
By Linda K. Kerber (NHC Fellow, 1990–91) As a leading historian of women, Linda K. Kerber has played an instrumental role in the radical rethinking of American history over the past two decades. The maturation and increasing complexity of studies in women's history are widely recognized, and in this remarkable collection of essays, Kerber's essential … Continued
By Ewa Kuryluk (NHC Fellow, 1988–89)
By Wilfrid R. Prest (NHC Fellow, 1998–99) This is the first comprehensive account of the life and writings of William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England remains the most celebrated and influential text in the Anglo-American common-law tradition. Based on the widest possible range of archival, manuscript, and printed sources, it presents a … Continued
By John A. Thompson (NHC Fellow, 1993–94) Most famous in Europe for his efforts to establish the League of Nations under US leadership at the end of the First World War, Woodrow Wilson stands as one of America’s most influential and visionary presidents. A Democrat who pursued progressive domestic policies during his first term in … Continued