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History & Current Events April 2017
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| Blue on Blue: An Insider's Story of Good Cops Catching Bad Cops by Charles Campisi with Gordon DillowFormer Chief of the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau Charles Campisi's memoir is a compelling, no-holds-barred account of policing in New York City, with a focus on police misconduct. (Even before he joined Internal Affairs, he'd witnessed some shady cop behavior.) From stopping a fellow officer from shooting a suspect in the back, to the Amadou Diallou shooting and the Abner Louima case, Campisi chronicles internal controversies and public outrage while detailing his work to change the culture in the NYPD. In a starred review, Booklist calls Blue on Blue an "unflinching exposé and a riveting read." |
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| Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong DunbarWhen George Washington, the first President of the U.S., inhabited the Executive Mansion in Philadelphia, one of the enslaved people who accompanied George and Martha was a young seamstress named Ona Judge. When the Washingtons decided to give her as a wedding present to one of their granddaughters, Judge, who had met a lot of free blacks in Philly, took off. Despite intense and unremitting efforts to capture her, she lived free in New Hampshire for the half-century until her death. In this meticulously researched, thought-provoking account, the Washingtons, slavery, and the abolition movement provide the eye-opening context for Judge's inspiring escape. |
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| We'll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood's Most... by Noah IsenbergThe World War II-set film Casablanca, featuring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains, won multiple Oscars and became a perennial favorite. In this extensively researched history, film expert Noah Isenberg covers all the details, from the screenplay's source (an unproduced play titled Everybody Comes to Rick's), to casting and production, to credits, to isolationist objections and the wartime context of its release in 1942. He also adds some little-known facts, including that the cast included several refugees from the Nazi regime. Isenberg's discussion of the movie's enduring appeal will give classic film buffs much to discuss, perhaps with soft piano music in the background. |
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Cannibalism : a perfectly natural history
by Bill Schutt
A research associate at the American Museum of Natural History presents a tour of cannibalism in the human and animal worlds to explore its evolutionary roles and how it has manifested culturally as a survival mechanism, burial ritual and warfare tactic.
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Revolution for dummies : laughing through the Arab Spring
by Bassem Youssef
The creator of Egypt's popular incendiary news lampoon, The Program, chronicles his transition from heart surgeon to political satirist while sharing crucial insights into the Arab Spring, the Egyptian Revolution and the turbulence of the modern Middle East. 75,000 first printing.
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City of light, city of poison : murder, magic, and the first police chief of Paris
by Holly Tucker
Draws on transcripts, letters and diaries to chronicle how an epidemic of murder in the late 1600s led to Nicolas de La Reynie's appointment as Paris's first police chief, the installation of lanterns that turned Paris into the City of Light and the investigations in the criminal underground that implicated Louis XIV's mistress.
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The home that was our country : a memoir of Syria
by Alia Malek
A senior staff writer at Al Jazeera America describes what life was like in her family’s home in Damascus through various political shifts and describes how the Arab Spring allowed her to reclaim her grandmother’s apartment, lost to them since 1970. 25,000 first printing.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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