David S. Reynolds

New books reconsider how Ulysses S. Grant became a forceful defender of the rights of African Americans after the Civil War.

The representation of Jews in antebellum popular culture reveals that many Americans found them both cartoonishly villainous and enticingly exotic.

A new history of spiritualism during the Civil War era suggests an unexpected link between the Lincoln family and that of John Wilkes Booth.

While he opposed slavery and southern secession early in his career, as president Andrew Johnson turned out to be an unsightly bigot.

A new book tells the forgotten story of fugitive slaves who found freedom south of the border.

A new biography details the cultural jumble of literature, dirty jokes, and everything in between that went into the making of the foremost self-made American.

In his time, the 16th president drew comparisons to a famous tightrope walker.

How Walt Whitman became the quintessential poet of disability and death.