| Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza MundyIn this "sleek, compelling narrative" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), journalist Liza Mundy details women's secret and essential contributions to American military intelligence during the 1940s. Drawing on voluminous government records and interviews with some of the women, Code Girls describes their code-breaking work and its significance. For a close-up of one woman's contributions to cryptography, pick up Jason Fagone's The Woman Who Smashed Codes. |
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Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
by Caroline Fraser
The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading―and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters.
Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.
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Grant
by Ron Chernow
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
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The Last 100 Days: FDR at War and at Peace
by David B. Woolner
The first hundred days of FDR's presidency are justly famous, often viewed as a period of political action without equal in American history. Yet as historian David B. Woolner reveals, the last hundred might very well surpass them in drama and consequence.
Drawing on new evidence, Woolner shows how FDR called on every ounce of his diminishing energy to pursue what mattered most to him: the establishment of the United Nations, the reinvigoration of the New Deal, and the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. We see a president shorn of the usual distractions of office, a man whose sense of personal responsibility for the American people bore heavily upon him. As Woolner argues, even in declining health FDR displayed remarkable political talent and foresight as he focused his energies on shaping the peace to come.
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The 20th Century Through the Years
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| Provence, 1970: M. F. K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and... by Luke BarrThe winter of 1970 was a pivotal year for the evolution of American cuisine, even though the key events took place in Provence, France. During that time, several influential American culinary experts were staying near each other and frequently dining together. Pulling information from diaries and letters, especially M.F.K. Fisher's diary, her great-nephew Luke Barr concocts a mouth-watering chronicle of their conversations, their opinions, and what they ate. Later, Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and their colleagues came into their own as leaders of the American culinary scene. |
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| The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and... by John F. KassonIn 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was determined to restore Americans' spirits and the American economy, but he needed a way to restore consumer confidence. Cue the entrance of Hollywood child star Shirley Temple, with her irresistible smile and impressive talents. In this absorbing cultural history, historian John Kasson shows how her 1930s films raised spirits, incidentally leading Americans to spend millions on movie tickets and memorabilia. Her partnership with co-star Bill "Bojangles" Robinson also gave hope to African Americans while significantly breaking a racial barrier. |
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| Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America by Calvin TrillinAward-winning New Yorker contributor Calvin Trillin's Jackson, 1964 reports on American race relations in the last third of the 20th century. Reprinting richly descriptive, journalistic essays, Trillin depicts Jackson, Mississippi in the summer of 1964, relates the history of New Orleans' African American Krewe of Zulu (a Mardi Gras organization), recounts a 1976 controversy over restaurant desegregation in Boston, and describes other racially charged events around the U.S. Readers interested in U.S. race relations will find this a thought-provoking window into both the past and the present. |
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