Fergus M. Bordewich

"The First Congress was the most important in US history says prizewinning author and historian Fergus Bordewich, because it established how our government would actually function. Had it failed--as many at the time feared it would--it's possible that the United States as we know it would not exist today,"--NoveList.

How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government

The First Congress

The story of how Congress helped win the Civil War--a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict. This brilliantly argued new perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory and gives us a vivid account of the essential role Congress played in winning the war Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress--Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham--Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history. From reinventing the nation's financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century. Brimming with drama and outsized characters, Congress at War is also one of the most original books about the Civil War to appear in years and will change the way we understand the conflict.

How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America

Congress at War

A study of Native American politics and policies examines the efforts of tribal governments

Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century

Killing the White Man's Indian

The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement

Bound for Canaan

In the face of a new lightly romanticized view of Native Americans, "Killing the White Man's Indian bravely confronts the current myths and often contradictory realities of tribal life today. Following two centuries of broken treaties and virtual government extermination of the "savage redmen," Americans today have recast Native Americans into another, equally stereotyped role, that of eternal victims, politically powerless and weakened by poverty and alcoholism, yet whose spiritual ties with the natural world form our last, best hope of salvaging our natural environment and ennobling our souls. The truth, however, is neither as grim, nor as blindly idealistic, as many would expect. The fact is that a virtual revolution is underway in Indian Country, an upheaval of epic proportions. For the first time in generations, Indians are shaping their own destinies, largely beyond the control of whites, reinventing Indian education and justice, exploiting the principle of tribal sovereignty in ways that empower tribal governments far beyond most American's imaginations. While new found power has enriched tribal life and prospects, and has made Native Americans fuller participants in the American dream, it has brought tribal governments into direct conflict with local economics and the federal government. Based on three years of research on the Native American reservations, and written without a hidden conservative bias or politically correct agenda, "Killing the White Man's Indian takes on Native American politics and policies today in all their contradictory--and controversial-guises." "From the Trade Paperback edition.

"Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 2020."

Ming-Yi Yang

When he accidentally discovers a beautiful hidden valley inhabited by contented people, a fisherman is asked to return but only if he tells no one where he's been.

Adapted from a Chinese Tale

Peach Blossom Spring

Traveling through the chaotic landscape of modern China, Fergus M. Bordewich discovers the remains of an older world that Communism did its best to erase. “Mr. Bordewich, by searching so assiduously, so affectionately, and so understandingly for legacies of the Chinese past, may paradoxically be giving us some foretastes of a China yet to be.” —Jan Morris

A Journey in Search of Old China

Cathay

The author, a journalist, recalls his life lived in the aftermath of his mother's accidental death in a riding accident, a traumatic incident for which he has continued to blames himself and that had a profound impact on his family. 20,000 first printing.

My Mother's Ghost

Paul Chaat Smith

This collection of work by both Native and non-Native artists speaks of the complexity of Native American historical and cultural influences in contemporary culture. Rather than focusing on artists who attempt to maintain strict cultural practices, it brings together a group of artists who engage the larger contemporary art world and are not afraid to step beyond the bounds of tradition. Focusing on a group of 10 artists who came of age since the initial Native Rights movement of the 1960s and 70s, the book emphasizes art that does not so much "look Indian," but incorporates Native content in surprising and innovative ways that defy easy categorization. The Native artists featured here focus on the evolution of cultural traditions. The non-Native artists focus primarily on the history of European colonization in America. Artists include Matthew Buckingham, Lewis deSoto, Peter Edlund, Nicholas Galanin, Jeffrey Gibson, Rigo 23, Duane Slick, Marie Watt, Edie Winograde and Yoram Wolberger.

Fergus M. Bordewich

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