Visions of America: A History of the United States (co-author, Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009)

Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum (Broadway Books, May 2003)

1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History (Broadway Books, 2002).

Talisman of a Lost Hope: Henry George and Gilded Age America (Columbia University Press, forthcoming) 

Using images as primary historical evidence, Visions of America brings history alive for a generation of visual learners—and shows how conflicting visions of America have shaped our nation’s past. Visions of America recognizes the value of using images to engage students in serious inquiry about the historical development of the United States. Visual images are critical primary sources, and using them effectively requires the development of key analytic skills. This new textbook revolutionizes the role of images in the history survey by integrating them into the narrative. The visual legacy of the nation’s past also provides insight into the competing visions of America that have shaped American political culture. Visions of America explores the tensions and conflicts that have marked virtually every chapter of American history. It presents history as a dynamic, unpredictable, and dramatic process shaped by the choices made by people of all classes.
 

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Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum tells the extraordinary story of the deadliest day in New York City history before September 11.  More than 1,000 New Yorkers perished on June 15, 1904 when the steamboat General Slocum burst into flames on the East River.   A panicked and untrained crew, coupled with rotten life preservers and inaccessible life boats, turned a small storage room fire into a human tragedy of immense proportions.  News of the horror made headlines around the world and elicited an enormous outpouring of sympathy and donations. Later, as evidence of negligence and corruption on the part of the steamer's owners mounted, sympathy turned to outrage and demands for justice that were never fully met.  In Ship Ablaze, historian Edward T. O'Donnell brings to life this gripping tragedy and the wider, compelling story of innocents lost, heroes made, and a city and people that overcame.

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1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History
 is a comprehensive and vividly illustrated celebration of Irish American enterprise, talent and courage.  Organized around such broad subjects as Culture, Politics, Business, Religion, and Sports, it engagingly profiles the Irish American Presidents and Congressional Medal of Honor recipients and highlights the ten most important works of Irish American fiction, while offering many surprises.  Alongside the exploits of Irish American soldiers like General Philip Sheridan, O’Donnell tells the incredible story of Jennie Hodgers, a Belfast-born woman who served in the Union Army disguised as a man.  Elsewhere Bing Crosby shares the stage with Willis O’Brien, the brilliant pioneer of film animation and the man who brought King Kong to life.  Entrepreneur Henry Ford is featured with Rose O’Neill, inventor of the wildy popular Kewpie Doll.  And throughout readers will find answers to questions like who was the Murphy who dreamed up “Murphy’s Law”; why is a do-over shot in golf called a “mulligan”; what exactly does it mean to “scream like a banshee”; and, did Mrs. O’Leary’s cow really start the Great Chicago Fire of 1871? Written with the understanding that so much of the Irish experience in America is inseparable from the history of the Emerald Isle, 1001 Things also devotes substantial coverage to the history of Ireland.  These ingredients combine to demonstrate how the Irish have shaped America – and make 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History the ideal book for Irish Americans eager to discover more about their rich heritage.

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