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History and Current Events October 2018
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| 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah HarariHow do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children?
Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.
In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis?
Harari’s unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty. |
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| These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill LeporeWritten in elegiac prose, Lepore’s groundbreaking investigation places truth itself―a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence―at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas―"these truths," Jefferson called them―political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?
These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore traces the intertwined histories of American politics, law, journalism, and technology, from the colonial town meeting to the nineteenth-century party machine, from talk radio to twenty-first-century Internet polls, from Magna Carta to the Patriot Act, from the printing press to Facebook News. |
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Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975
by Max Hastings
An absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Secret War.
Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975. Max Hastings has spent the past three years interviewing scores of participants on both sides, as well as researching a multitude of American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to create an epic narrative of an epic struggle. He portrays the set pieces of Dienbienphu, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air blitz of North Vietnam, and also much less familiar miniatures such as the bloodbath at Daido, where a US Marine battalion was almost wiped out, together with extraordinary recollections of Ho Chi Minh’s warriors. Here are the vivid realities of strife amid jungle and paddies that killed two million people.
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In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown
by Nathaniel Philbrick
In the fall of 1780, after five frustrating years of war, George Washington had come to realize that the only way to defeat the British Empire was with the help of the French navy. But as he had learned after two years of trying, coordinating his army's movements with those of a fleet of warships based thousands of miles away was next to impossible. And then, on September 5, 1781, the impossible happened. Recognized today as one of the most important naval engagements in the history of the world, the Battle of the Chesapeake--fought without a single American ship--made the subsequent victory of the Americans at Yorktown a virtual inevitability.
In a narrative that moves from Washington's headquarters on the Hudson River, to the wooded hillside in North Carolina where Nathanael Greene fought Lord Cornwallis to a vicious draw, to Lafayette's brilliant series of maneuvers across Tidewater Virginia, Philbrick details the epic and suspenseful year through to its triumphant conclusion. A riveting and wide-ranging story, full of dramatic, unexpected turns, In the Hurricane's Eye reveals that the fate of the American Revolution depended, in the end, on Washington and the sea.
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| Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin DickeyA measured, cogent history of notable haunted houses, institutions, and towns in America.
Want a taste? "Ghost stories are how cities make sense of themselves: how they narrate the tragedies of their past, weave cautionary tales for the future."
This intriguing road trip narrative poignantly grapples with what ghost lore reveals about thorny topics like race. |
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| American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America by Linda S. GodfreyReporter and "creature expert" Linda S. Godfrey draws on eyewitness accounts, historical documents, and folklore to investigate the otherworldly beasts allegedly populating the American landscape.
Featuring: Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil, the Mothman, and Wampus cats.
Reviewers say: "a handy encyclopedia for enthusiastic cryptozoologists of all ages" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost by Peter ManseauLooks at the work of controversial "spirit photographer" William Mumler, who was tried for fraud in a highly publicized 1869 case that featured showman P.T. Barnum as a witness for the prosecution.
Worth a thousand words: Mumler's most famous photograph, taken six years after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, purportedly shows Lincoln's ghost hovering behind his wife.
This balanced account allows readers to draw their own conclusions about Mumler and his work. |
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| The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America's UFO Highway by Ben MezrichA lively and dramatic account of small-town police officer Chuck Zukowski's 3,000-mile quest to prove that UFOs exist, sparked by unexplained livestock mutilations in his rural Colorado town.
Places visited: the usual UFO "hot spots" like Roswell and Area 51, but also underground military bases and sacred Native American sites.
For fans of The X-Files and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. |
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| The Witches: Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria in 1692 Salem by Stacy SchiffA gripping and vivid retelling of the Salem witch trials and their aftermath, recounted with verve in a conversational tone.
Historian Stacy Schiff is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra: A Life.
Try this next: Marilynne K. Roach's Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and the Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. |
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Contact the Library for more great titles! |
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