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History and Current Events April 2018
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How democracies die
by Steven Levitsky
A cautionary assessment of the demise of history's liberal democracies identifies such factors as the steady weakening of critical institutions, from the judiciary to the press, while sharing optimistic recommendations for how America's democratic system can be saved.
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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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Seven Fallen Feathers : Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City
by Tanya Talaga
In 1966, twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied. More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario.... Using a sweeping narrative focusing on the lives of the students, award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities.
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Putting Trials on Trial : Sexual Assault and the Failure of the Legal Profession
by Elaine Craig
Over the past few years, public attention focused on the Jian Ghomeshi trial, the failings of Judge Greg Lenehan in the Halifax taxi driver case, and the judicial disciplinary proceedings against former Justice Robin Camp have placed the sexual assault trial process under significant scrutiny. Less than one percent of the sexual assaults that occur each year in Canada result in legal sanction for those who commit these offences. Survivors often distrust and fear the criminal justice process, and as a result, over ninety percent of sexual assaults go unreported. Unfortunately, their fears are well founded. In this thorough evaluation of the legal culture and courtroom practices prevalent in sexual assault prosecutions, Elaine Craig provides an even-handed account of the ways in which the legal profession unnecessarily – and sometimes unlawfully – contributes to the trauma and re-victimization experienced by those who testify as sexual assault complainants.
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The future is history : how totalitarianism reclaimed Russia
by Masha Gessen
The award-winning Russian-American journalist and author of the best-selling The Man Without a Face traces how within the space of a generation, Russia has succumbed to a more virulent and resistant strain of autocracy as demonstrated by the experiences of four prototype individuals born at the once-presumed dawn of Russian democracy.
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Focus on: The Holocaust and Resistance
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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 Cost of Courage by Charles KaiserWhat it is: a nerve-wracking, remarkably rendered portrait of the Boulloche family, Parisian Catholics who bravely fought in the French Resistance during World War II.
About the author: Charles Kaiser, a former New York Times and Wall Street Journal reporter, is the first author with whom the Boulloche family has collaborated to share their astounding story.
Further reading: Stephen Grady's memoir Gardens of Stone, which recounts his boyhood in the French Resistance.
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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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| Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of... by Marie Jalowicz SimonWhat it's about: Marie Simon, a Jewish Berliner, evaded arrest and deportation by hiding in plain sight and relying on the kindness of friends and strangers alike to stay one step ahead of the Gestapo.
Why you should read it: Poignant and unflinching, this memoir conveys the moral ambiguity of war-torn Berlin.
Further reading: Berlin at War, Roger Moorhouse's social history of Nazi Germany.
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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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