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History and Current Events October 2017
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Ties that bound : founding first ladies and slaves by Marie Jenkins SchwartzBehind every great man stands a great woman. And behind that great woman stands a slave, or so it was in the households of the Founding Fathers from Virginia, where slaves worked and suffered throughout the domestic environments of the era. American icons like Martha Washington, Martha Jefferson, and Dolley Madison were all slaveholders. These women, as the day-to-day managers of their households, dealt with the realities of a slaveholding culture directly and continually. Schwartz makes it clear that it is impossible to honestly tell the stories of these women while ignoring their slaves. She asks us to consider anew the embedded power of slavery in the very earliest conception of American politics, society, and everyday domestic routines.
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A wretched and precarious situation : in search of the last Arctic frontier by David Welky In 1906, from atop a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of Greenland, Commander Robert E. Peary spotted a line of mysterious peaks looming in the distance that he named “Crocker Land.” Several years later, two of Peary’s disciples, George Borup and Donald MacMillan, assembled a team of amateur adventurers to investigate this new continent. What followed was a sequence of events that none of the explorers could have imagined. The men endured howling blizzards, unearthly cold, food shortages, isolation, a fatal boating accident, a drunken sea captain, disease, dissension, and a horrific crime. But the team pushed on through every obstacle, driven forward by the mystery of Crocker Land and their desire to make it home. Populated with a cast of memorable characters, and based on years of research in previously untapped sources, A Wretched and Precarious Situation is a harrowing Arctic narrative unlike any other.
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What does it mean to be a Canadian? Award-winning writer Charlotte Gray casts her eye over 150 years of Canadian history.on the eve of Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations, weaving together masterful portraits of nine influential Canadians to create a unique history of the country. What do these people have in common? Each one, according to Charlotte Gray, has left an indelible mark on Canada. These are people whose ideas caught her imagination, ideas that over time have become part of Canada's collective conversation. Beautifully illustrated with evocative black and white images and colourful artistic visions, The Promise of Canada is a fresh take on Canadian history that offers fascinating insights and makes history come alive as Gray opens doors into Canada's past, present and future.
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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David GrannIn 1920s Oklahoma, the Osage Indian Nation possessed immense wealth because their land contained large petroleum reserves. In Killers of the Flower Moon, New Yorker staff writer David Grann portrays a series of murders on the reservation. Local authorities couldn't solve the crimes, but an investigation by the relatively new FBI (led by the young J. Edgar Hoover) identified and charged the killers, whose primary motivation was greed. In this thoroughly researched history, Grann also reveals conspiracy and corruption beyond what the FBI discovered. Whether you're interested in Native American history or fascinated by true crime stories, check out this thrilling narrative, complete with photographs.
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The plot to hack America : how Putin's cyberspies and WikiLeaks tried to steal the 2016 election by Malcolm W NanceIn April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization’s computer servers and conducted a theft of sensitive documents, emails, donor information, even voice mails.The media was soon flooded with the stolen information channeled through Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. It was a massive attack on America but the Russian hacks appeared to have a singular goal—to elect Donald J. Trump as president of the United States. New York Times bestselling author Malcolm Nance takes the reader from Vladimir Putin’s rise through the KGB from junior officer to spymaster-in-chief and spells out a story of political manipulation with the goal of influencing the American presidential election. The Plot to Hack America is the thrilling tale tracing how Putin’s spy agency used the promise of power and influence in the hopes of effecting the 2016 presidential election.
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Russia: 100 years since the Revolution
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Russia : a 1,000 year chronicle of the wild east by Martin SixsmithCombining in-depth research with his personal experiences as the BBC Moscow correspondent for almost twenty years, Sixsmith tells Russia's full and fascinating story, from its foundation in the last years of the tenth century to the first years of the twenty-first, skillfully tracing the conundrums of modern Russia to their roots in its troubled past. Marking the twentieth anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia: a 1,000 year chronicle is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the complex political landscape of Russia and its unique place in the modern world.
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The family Romanov : murder, rebellion & the fall of imperial Russia by Candace FlemingThis is the tumultuous, heartrending, true story of the Romanovs—at once an intimate portrait of Russia’s last royal family and a gripping account of its undoing. Using captivating photos and compelling first person accounts, award-winning author Candace Fleming deftly maneuvers between the imperial family’s extravagant lives and the plight of Russia’s poor masses, making this an utterly mesmerizing read, as well as a riveting work of narrative nonfiction that appeals to the imagination as much as the intellect.
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Symphony for the city of the dead : Dmitri Shostakovich and the siege of Leningrad by M. T Anderson In September 1941, Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history—almost three years of bombardment and starvation that culminated in the harsh winter of 1943–1944. More than a million citizens perished.Trapped between the Nazi invading force and the Soviet government was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who would write a symphony that eulogized and commemorated his fellow citizens—the Leningrad Symphony—which came to occupy a place of prominence in the eventual Allied victory. This is the true story of a city under siege, the triumph of bravery and defiance in the face of terrifying odds, as well as a look at the power and layered meaning of music in beleaguered lives. Symphony for the City of the Dead is a masterwork thrillingly told and impeccably researched.
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All the Kremlin's men : inside the court of Vladimir Putin by Mikhail Zygar'All the Kremlin's Men is a gripping narrative of an accidental king and a court out of control. Based on an unprecedented series of interviews with Vladimir Putin's inner circle, this book presents a radically different view of power and politics in Russia. The image of Putin as a strongman is dissolved. In its place is a weary figurehead buffeted—if not controlled—by the men who at once advise and deceive him. The regional governors and bureaucratic leaders are immovable objects, far more powerful in their fiefdoms than the president himself. So are the gatekeepers—those officials who guard the pathways to power—on whom Putin depends as much as they rely on him. The tenuous edifice is filled with all of the intrigue and plotting of a Medici court, as enemies of the state are invented and wars begun to justify personal gains, internal rivalries, or one faction's biased advantage. A bestseller in Russia, All the Kremlin's Men is a shocking revisionist portrait of the Putin era and a dazzling reconstruction of the machinations of courtiers running riot
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| The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War by Arkady OstrovskyThe breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of optimism around the world, but Russia today is actively involved in subversive information warfare, manipulating the media to destabilize its enemies. How did a country that embraced freedom and market reform 25 years ago end up as an autocratic police state bent once again on confrontation with America? Arkady Ostrovsky comes to this story both as a participant and a foreign correspondent. His knowledge of many of the key players allows him to explain the phenomenon of Valdimir Putin. One of Putin's first acts was to reverse Gorbachev's decision to end media censorship, which has resulted in "weaponizing" the media and causing it to shape the fate of the country more than its politicians. This dazzling book flags up the conflicts over ideas, morality, and national destiny in Moscow politics from Gorbachev to Putin—a triumph of narrative skill and historical empathy based on personal experience and rigorous research. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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