William H. Goetzmann

Shane Mountjoy

In 1531, Pizarro led a small but well-trained army along the Pacific coast of the unexplored South America. With less than 200 men, he conquered the Inca Empire, which ruled what is now Peru, establishing Spanish dominion.

Francisco Pizarro and the Conquest of the Inca

Discusses the history and civilization of the Indus Valley over the last 5,000 years and how the Indus River is used today.

The Indus River

What happens when a state board prescribes a prayer for public school children to recite in every classroom each morning as part of its program of moral and spiritual training? This question faced the U.S. Supreme Court in 1962 when they heard arguments in Engel v. Vitale. What some observers considered to be nothing more than a school tradition became the basis of a key constitutional question dealing with religious freedom and the meaning of separation of church and state in the United States. Engel v. Vitale serves as a useful primer of an issue that remains an emotionally charged one today. Combining absorbing profiles of key litigants with carefully selected full-color photographs, extensive footnotes, and a chronology and timeline, historian Shane Mountjoy provides excellent coverage of this decisive case.

School Prayer and the Establishment Clause

Engel V. Vitale

As the population of the 13 colonies grew and the economy developed, the desire to expand into new land increased. Nineteenth-century Americans believed it was their divine right to expand their territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. "Manifest destiny," a phrase first used in 1839 by journalist John O'Sullivan, embodied the belief that God had given the people of the United States a mission to spread a republican democracy across the continent. Advocates of manifest destiny were determined to carry out their mission and instigated several wars, including the war with Mexico to win much of what is now the southwestern United States. In Manifest Destiny: Westward Expansion, learn how this philosophy to spread out across the land shaped our nation.

Shane Mountjoy

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