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History and Current Events May 2017
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By Chance Alone : A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz
by Max Eisen
More than 70 years after the Nazi camps were liberated by the Allies, a new Canadian Holocaust memoir details the rural Hungarian deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau, back-breaking slave labour in Auschwitz I, the infamous "death march" in January 1945, and the painful aftermath of liberation in a journey of physical and psychological healing. After his liberation, Eisen immigrated to Canada in 1949, where he has dedicated the last twenty-two years of his life to educating others about the Holocaust across Canada and around the world.
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The return : fathers, sons and the land in between
by Hisham Matar
In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison. Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballah Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is "persistent and cunning." This book is a profoundly moving family memoir, a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power.
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Mad enchantment : Claude Monet and the painting of the water lilies
by Ross King
The portrait of the master artist and his most famous series reveals the terrible dramas behind their creation, describing Monet's struggles with World War I, family losses, harsh criticism and the competitive presences of a younger generation of artists throughout the final years of his life.
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The Promise of Canada : 150 Years--People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country
by Charlotte Gray
On the eve of Canada's sesquicentennial celebrations comes a richly rewarding new book from acclaimed historian Charlotte Gray about what it means to be Canadian. She weaves together masterful portraits of nine influential Canadians, creating a unique history of the country over the past 150 years. Gray has chosen people whose ideas have caught her imagination, ideas that over time have become part of our collective conversation. She also highlights many other Canadians, past and present, who have added to the ongoing debate over how we see ourselves, arguing that Canada has constantly reimagined itself in every generation since 1867.
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How should we respond to the global refugee crisis? : How Should We Respond?
by Louise Arbour
The world is facing the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. Over 300,000 are dead in Syria, and one and half million are either injured or disabled. Four and a half million people are trying to flee the country. And Syria is just one of a growing number of failed or failing states in the Middle East and North Africa. How should developed nations respond to human suffering on this mass scale? Do the prosperous societies of the West, including Canada and the U.S., have a moral imperative to assist as many refugees as they reasonably and responsibly can? Or, is this a time for vigilance and restraint in the face of a wave of mass migration that risks upending the tolerance and openness of the West? The eighteenth semi-annual Munk Debate, which was held on April 1, 2016, pits former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and leading historian Simon Schama against leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage and bestselling author Mark Steyn to debate the West's response to the global refugee crisis."
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| Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War by Helen ThorpeUntil 2015, the U.S. excluded women from ground combat, but they have increasingly served as non-combatants on the front lines since deployments to Iraq began in 2002. In Soldier Girls, journalist Helen Thorpe chronicles the experiences of three Indiana women who joined the National Guard before 9/11, not expecting to be sent to a war zone. Describing their different backgrounds, the importance of their friendship throughout their 12 years' service, and the effects of deployment on the women and their families, Thorpe vividly portrays the lives of women in the armed forces. For more on American women in combat, try Amber Smith's Danger Close and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon's Ashley's War. |
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| Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby WarrickIn Black Flags, Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick chronicles the birth of ISIS and its rise to become a major international threat. Recounting the history of Muslim zealot Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, he explains how Zarqawi organized the insurgency into a coherent movement called al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which survived his 2006 death in an airstrike and became ISIS. Warrick reveals how errors in U.S. responses to the crises in Iraq and Syria fed the anger of Zarqawi and his followers and bolstered their formation of a powerful army and a borderless nation. This book won Warrick his second Pulitzer Prize (the first was for a newspaper series); for additional background on al-Qaeda in Iraq, pick up his 2011 The Triple Agent. |
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The Islamic State : a brief introduction
by Charles R. Lister
Introduces the Islamic State, describing how the the regional terrorist group grew into an international threat, details the organization's revenue and media machine, and provides profiles on its leaders
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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