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History and Current Events April 2018
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| The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South [on order] by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington What it is: a deeply searing exposé detailing how a Mississippi medical examiner and a forensic dentist successfully gamed the criminal justice system to falsely imprison two innocent men.
Why you should read it: The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist is timely in its examination of how professional misconduct, junk science, structural racism, and broken institutions deny justice to American citizens. |
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| Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America by Catherine KerrisonWhat it is: a finely detailed portrait of Thomas Jefferson's daughters and the tumultuous times in which they lived.
Reviewers say: "Incisive and elegant, Kerrison's book is at once a fabulous family story and a stellar work of historical scholarship" (Publishers Weekly).
You might also like: Virginia Scharff's The Women Jefferson Loved, which explores how Jefferson was shaped by the women in his life. |
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| The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to... by Charles C. MannWhat it's about: In this dual biography, award-winning author Charles C. Mann explores how scientists Norman Borlaug and William Vogt's contributions to -- and opposing views of -- modern environmentalism reflect the challenges of maintaining a viable future.
Why you should read it: Mann's stimulating account reveals the achievements of these overlooked contemporaries, masterfully examining both viewpoints without taking sides. |
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| The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War by Benn SteilWhat it is: a lively and accessible survey of the historical, political, and economic impact of the Marshall Plan, a $13 billion postwar rebuilding effort that provided aid to Western European nations from 1948-1952.
About the author: Benn Steil is the director of international economics at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations.
Reviewers say: The Marshall Plan "will be the definitive account for years to come" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine WeissWhat it is: a page-turning and uplifting chronicle of the women's suffrage movement, culminating in the struggle to ratify the 19th Amendment in 1920.
Why you might like it: Elaine Weiss dramatically conveys hair-raising suspense in a story where the outcome is already well-known, while also noting how echoes of suffragettes' compromises on racial equality are still felt today. |
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Focus on: The Holocaust and Resistance
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The Holocaust : A New History
by Laurence Rees
A historian who has an unrivaled archive of firsthand testimony from both the perpetrators and victims of the Holocaust presents almost all of this evidence for the first time in an authoritative and accessible account of the greatest crime against humanity.
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A Crime in the Family
by Sacha Batthyány
Told partly through the surviving journals of others from the author’s family and the vanished world of Hitler’s heartland, a moving and revelatory memoir recounts the brutal massacre of 180 enslaved Jewish laborers in 1945 on the Austrian-Hungarian border during a party at the mansion of the author’s great aunt, Countess Margit Batthyany. 20,000 first printing.
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| Irena's Children: A True Story of Courage by Tilar J. MazzeoWhat it is: a gripping and succinct profile of the "female Schindler," Polish social worker Irena Sendler, who smuggled thousands of children out of the Warsaw ghetto and falsified paperwork to give them new lives.
Don't miss: Tilar J. Mazzeo reveals Sendler's smuggling strategies, which included hiding children in coffins and toolboxes.
Is it for you? Readers drawn to hopeful stories of courage and survival will find Irena's Children compelling. |
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KL : A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
by Nikolaus Wachsmann
The award-winning author of Hitler's Prisons presents an unprecedented, integrated account of the Nazi concentration camps from their inception in 1933 through their demise in the spring of 1945.
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| Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy SnyderWhat it's about: In this provocative analysis of the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust, historian Timothy Snyder argues that the weakening of national states opens up the possibility of history repeating itself -- and for genocides like the Holocaust to happen again.
Who it's for: Readers familiar with Holocaust history and discourse.
Further reading: Snyder's critically acclaimed Bloodlands, to which Black Earth serves as a companion volume. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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