History - Columbia University Press Blog

April 4, 2011

Manning Marable

Columbia University Press mourns the loss of Manning Marable, who died over the weekend. Marable, a leading scholar of black history and a leftist critic of American social institutions and race relations, was a valued member of the Columbia University...

February 28, 2011

Do Mayors Matter? A review of "America's Mayor" and "Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City"

In The New Republic, Edward Glaeser, reviews three recent books on New York City that explore the city’s postwar politics, finances, and efforts at urban renewal. The books discussed include America’s Mayor: John V. Lindsay and the Reinvention of...

January 13, 2011

New York City Mayors and Snow

Having recently published biographies of New York City mayors—America’s Mayor: John V. Lindsay and the Reinvention of New York and Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City—we’ve been following Mayor Bloomberg’s recent battles with snow storms. While the...

December 7, 2010

On the Anniversary of Pearl Harbor: A Post by Greg Robinson

The following is a post, published last year, is by Greg Robinson, author of A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America, now available in paper. December 7 remains, as Franklin Roosevelt predicted, a date that lives in infamy....

November 24, 2010

Andrew Smith Exposes the Truth About Thanksgiving

In the chapter “Giving Thanks” from his book Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, Andrew Smith reveals that “the whole idea that the Pilgrims were the first to celebrate Thanksgiving in America was, in fact...

November 16, 2010

Jonathan Soffer interviewed about Ed Koch by the New York Press

In a just-published interview with the New York Press, Jonathan Soffer, author of Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City, weighs in on a variety of Koch-related topics, ranging from his distinctive and often abrasive personality and his...

November 8, 2010

Jeffrey Perry Interviewed by Laura Flanders on GRITTV

Jeffrey Perry’s biography Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918 is now available in paperback. Here is an interview with Jeffrey Perry on Grittv.com with Laura Flanders.

November 1, 2010

Theodore C. Sorensen

October 27, 2010

Interviews with and talks by James Rodger Fleming, author of "Fixing the Sky"

James Rodger Fleming, author of Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, was recently interviewed by both ABC Radio’s Late Night Live as well as New Books in History. In both interviews, Fleming talks about the...

October 21, 2010

Award Winner! Triumph of Order Wins the Kenneth Jackson Book Award

The Triumph Of Order: Democracy and Public Space in New York and London, by Lisa Keller has been selected as a co-recipient of the Kenneth Jackson Book Award. Congratulations to Lisa Keller. For more on the book browse the book...

October 12, 2010

New York City, Questions, Oddities, and History

Every year the librarians at the New-York Historical Society Library field thousands of questions from patrons. In When Did the Statue of Liberty Turn Green? 102 of the most compelling questions are collected and answered. These questions illuminate New York’s ...