What's better than diving into a new ebook? Knowing that you got it for free. Check out these fascinating history accounts that are free to download for the whole month.
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
The celebrated remembrances of the man who led the Union to victory during the Civil War
Completed just days before his death, Grant’s Personal Memoirs is a clear and compelling account of his military career, focusing on two great conflicts: the Mexican-American War and the Civil War. Lauded for its crisp and direct prose, Grant’s autobiography offers frank insight into everything from the merits of the war with Mexico to the strategies and tactics employed by Union forces against the Confederacy to the poignancy of Grant’s meeting with General Lee at Appomattox Court House.
Beloved and bestselling since its publication in 1885, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is a seminal work of military history and one of the great achievements of American autobiography.
The Frontier in American History
A fascinating exploration of American identity by one of the most influential historians and thinkers of the twentieth century
According to Frederick Jackson Turner, the distinct qualities of the American character are inseparable from the idea of the frontier. One of the nation’s most influential historians, Turner sets forth his “frontier thesis” in the eight brilliant, enlightening, and provocative essays that make up his seminal work, The Frontier in American History—a book which profoundly altered the way Americans viewed themselves.
Disputing the traditionally held emphasis on European cultural influences, Turner argues that the American frontier fostered self-reliance, optimism, ingenuity, individualism, restlessness, materialism, and democratic ideals—traits that collectively shaped the national character. His groundbreaking work continues to influence American culture, politics, and history more than eighty years after it was first published.
Traditions of the North American Indians
The first of three volumes of collected Native American folktales or oral traditions.
Born in Massachusetts in 1790, James Athearn Jones grew up with Native American culture all around him. His childhood nursemaid was from the Gay Head tribe, and his household was frequented by other local Indigenous people of all ages. He enjoyed hearing their folktales. As an adult, he traveled the continent and sought to preserve and collect these stories in a book.
In this first of three volumes, Jones shares eighteen captivating folktales from the North American Indians he encountered in his life. Discover such stories as “The Man of Ashes,” “Pomatare, the Flying Beaver,” and “The Resurrection of the Bison.” This enriching and enlightening collection serves as a fascinating means to explore some of the history and culture of Native Americans.
Undertones of War
In a beautifully-rendered memoir of the Great War, the English poet recounts his experiences in the combat zones of France and Flanders.
Using his gifts as a distinguished poet, Edmund Blunden masterfully shares memories from his service in combat along with the feelings they invoked in him. After enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the destructive battles of the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele, which he describes as “murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes.”
Blunden’s autobiography conveys all the horrors of trench warfare, the struggle to comprehend the violence, and the strangeness of observing the war as both a soldier and a poet. With allusive and powerful prose, he conveys the fortitude and despair of his comrades, including the stunning acts of bravery that won him the Military Cross. Although Blunden left the war physically unscathed, he bore mental scars from it for the rest of his life.
Originally published in 1928, Undertones of War features thirty-two of Blunden’s poems inspired by the war.
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