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History and Current Events May 2019
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Hidden History of Jackson
by Ryan Starrett
What's in it: The history of Jackson is filled with gripping tales of horrors and heroism. A recording company founded in the mid-1960s with the expectation of competing with New Orleans and Memphis was a national success, outlasting its better-funded rivals. Known as the "Devil's Backbone," the Natchez Trace is the graveyard for countless travelers slain by the road's numerous serial killers, brigands and land pirates. Yet one mass grave stands above the others: the Boyd Mounds, which hold the remains of thirty-one Choctaws. Although legend has it that the father of Jackson, Louis LeFleur, was a Canadian trapper famous in high society for his dancing, the truth is even stranger. Join Ryan Starrett and Josh Foreman as they reveal the hidden past of the City with Soul.
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Marijuana : a short history
by John Hudak
What it's about: Discusses the social and cultural history of marijuana, focusing on how it has been discussed in politics, media, government, and education.
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Pox : an American history
by Michael Willrich
What it's about: Chronicles the lesser-known history of how America's Progressive Era war on smallpox sparked one of the 20th century's leading civil liberties battles, describing the views and tactics of anti-vaccine advocates who feared an increasingly large government.
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Putin: His Downfall and Russia's Coming Crash
by Richard Lourie
What it's about: In Putin, Russian affairs expert Richard Lourie offers a sobering analysis of Vladimir Putin's rise to power and the reasons why Lourie predicts disaster for Putin's regime. Cataloguing Putin's failure to assure the diversification of Russia's economy, his craving for personal power, and his desire to recreate the Russian empire, Lourie proposes a variety of possible outcomes while arguing that Putin's leadership is making the Russian economy unsustainable.
W|hy you may like it: This is a thought-provoking and eye-opening discussion for Russia-watchers. For additional insight into Putin and Russia, try Steven Lee Myers' The New Tsar.
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| One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill BrysonWhat it's about: how a single pivotal season signaled American's ascent to the world stage.
Topics include: Charles Lindbergh's ambitious transatlantic flight; Babe Ruth's career-best record of 60 home runs; the production of The Jazz Singer (the first "talking picture"); Al Capone's reign of terror.
Read it for: Bill Bryson's sly humor and unusual factoids (for instance, Calvin Coolidge enjoyed having Vaseline applied to his head). |
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The life of Herbert Hoover : fighting Quaker, 1928-1933
by Glen Jeansonne
What it's about: This is the first definitive study of the presidency of America's least understood, most neglected and most under-appreciated Chief Executive. Born in a Quaker hamlet in Iowa, orphaned at nine, Herbert Hoover rose to wealth and world fame as an international mining engineer, the savior of Belgium during the Great War, and Food Administrator under Woodrow Wilson. Perhaps the greatest Secretary of Commerce in American history, he helped engineer the prosperity of the 1920s and vainly warned of an economy overheated by speculation that collapsed in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Combining government with private resources, he became the first president to pit government action against the economic cycle, setting precedents and spawning ideas employed by hissuccessor and all future presidents. Modest, shy, humble, with a subtle sense of humor, he lacked the self-promotional style of professional politicians and eschewed political invective. His depression measures mitigated the effects of the depression yetfailed to end it. In foreign policy he sponsored naval disarmament, refused to recognition territory seized by force, and made world peace his priority. Maligned as a miserly misanthrope, he was blamed for the crash and depression during the 1932 campaign, which he lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt by a slightly larger margin than he had defeated Al Smith in 1928. Jeansonne's study sweeps away the cobwebs of neglect from Hoover's presidency and his lively prose humanizes and evokes greater understanding of our thirty-first president. -- Publisher's description
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Only yesterday : an informal history of the 1920's
by Frederick Lewis Allen
What it's about: From Frederick Lewis Allen, former editor-in-chief of Harper's magazine, comes a classic history of 1920s America, from the end of World War I to the stock market crash and the beginning of The Great Depression. Originally published in 1931, Only Yesterday has an exuberance and proximity to its subject--the Roaring Twenties in all its scandal and glory--that uniquely captures the feel of the era.
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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
by David Grann
What it's about: In 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.
Why you may like this: 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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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Central Mississippi Regional Library System
100 Tamberline Street
Brandon, Mississippi 39042
601-825-0100
http://www.cmrls.lib.ms.us
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