Touching America's History: From the Pequot War Through WWII

Objects that make the past feel real, from a stone axe head to a piece of John Brown's scaffold—includes photos.

History isn't just about abstract "isms"—it's the story of real events that happened to real people. In Touching America's History, Meredith Mason Brown uses a collection of such objects, drawing from his own family's heirlooms, to summon up major developments in America's history.

The objects range in date from a Pequot stone axe head, probably made before the Pequot War in...