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History and Current Events May 2019
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| Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, PhDWhat it's about: supplemented with research and the author's own experiences with prejudice, this eye-opening work explores how readers can combat unconscious racial bias in their everyday lives.
Author alert: MacArthur fellow Jennifer L. Eberhardt is a Stanford University psychology professor and an expert on the topic of racial bias.
Book buzz: Just Mercy author Bryan Stevenson calls Biased "groundbreaking." |
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| Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London by Claire HarmanLondon, 1840: Penny dreadfuls are surging in popularity and are believed to be a corrupting influence on the city’s lower-class residents. When aristocrat Lord William Russell is brutally murdered in his home, is a book to blame?
Starring: prime suspect François Corvoisier, a valet of Russell's who claimed in court that William Harrison Ainsworth's crime novel Jack Sheppard drove him to the violent deed. |
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| The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government... by Heath Hardage LeeWhat it is: the forgotten story of the military wives who mobilized to bring their POW husbands home from Vietnam.
How they did it: After forming the National League of Families, the women organized media campaigns, lobbied politicians, learned encryption to send and receive coded messages (earning the nickname "Jane Bonds"), and even negotiated directly with the North Vietnamese.
Reviewers say: Book clubs will flock to this "unputdownable" tale (Library Journal) that "begs for discussion" (Booklist). |
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Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation
by Steve Luxenberg
What it's about: the complex, decades-long origins of the landmark United States Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which legally upheld racially segregated "separate but equal" facilities.
Reviewers say: Separate "is likely to become the seminal work on this crucial Supreme Court decision" (Library Journal).
For fans of: Isabel Wilkerson's sweeping Great Migration history The Warmth of Other Suns.
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| The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story by Cara RobertsonWhat it is: a fast-paced account of the notorious 1893 Lizzie Borden murder trial that utilizes court transcripts, newspaper accounts, and recently discovered letters written by Borden herself to argue that the jury who acquitted her got it wrong.
About the author: Debut author Cara Robertson is a lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk who spent 20 years researching the Borden case.
Who it's for: true crime aficionados and amateur sleuths. |
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| One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill BrysonWhat it's about: how a single pivotal season signaled American's ascent to the world stage.
Topics include: Charles Lindbergh's ambitious transatlantic flight; Babe Ruth's career-best record of 60 home runs; the production of The Jazz Singer (the first "talking picture"); Al Capone's reign of terror.
Read it for: Bill Bryson's sly humor and unusual factoids (for instance, Calvin Coolidge enjoyed having Vaseline applied to his head). |
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1920 : the year of the six presidents
by David Pietrusza
The presidential election of 1920 was one of the most dramatic ever. For the only time in the nation's history, six once-and-future presidents hoped to end up in the White House: Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and Theodore Roosevelt. It was an election that saw unprecedented levels of publicity -- the Republicans outspent the Democrats by 4 to 1 -- and it was the first to garner extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. It was also the first election in which women could vote. Meanwhile, the 1920 census showed that America had become an urban nation -- automobiles, mass production, chain stores, and easy credit were transforming the economy and America was limbering up for the most spectacular decade of its history, the roaring '20s.
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| The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political... by Linda GordonWhat it's about: the "second Ku Klux Klan," which attracted millions of middle-class northern and midwestern Americans throughout the 1920s.
How it happened: Klan leaders, many of whom were elected government officials, amplified xenophobic fears by arguing for "100 percent Americanism" amid the country's influx of immigrants.
Don't miss: Linda Gordon's incisive discussion of the Klan's 500,000 women members, who played significant roles in the organization. |
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The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote
by Elaine Weiss
What 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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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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