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History and Current Events January 2021
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Me, According to the History of Art by Dick FrizzellThroughout his long career, New Zealand painter Dick Frizzell has often gone way out on a limb to see where it would take him. From his early Pop art-influenced approach to his experiments with landscape and the contested area of appropriation, he's always been brave. Now, he takes on the history of art, starting right back at cave art to discover the key threads of Western art that sit in his DNA as a painter in the twenty-first century. The approach is essential Frizzell: bring everyone along for the ride. It's a fun romp, but despite the humour, it sits on a bedrock of serious scholarship and reverence for the painters of the past. And there's one thing that makes this book different from any other: all the reproductions of significant paintings, from Rubens and Tintoretto to Cezanne and Lichtenstein, are by Frizzell himself, heroically painted over a twelve-month period. Me, According to the History of Art is the art history education you've been missing.
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Guiding Lights : The Extraordinary Lives of Lighthouse Women by Shona RiddellWomen have a long history of keeping the lights burning, from tending ancient altar flames or bonfires to modern-day lighthouse keeping. Yet most of their stories are little-known. Guiding Lights includes stories from around the world, such as the dramatic torching of Puysegur Point, one of New Zealand's most inhospitable lighthouses; the two caretakers living alone on Tasmania's wild Maatsuyker Island; the female keeper in charge of Cape Beale on Canada's Vancouver Island (the station receives visits from bears, cougars and wolves); several 'haunted' lighthouses in various US states with tragic tales; the despotic keeper on Clipperton Island, a tiny atoll far off the coast of Mexico; lighthouse accidents and emergencies around the world; and two of the world's most legendary lighthouse women: Ida Lewis (US) and Grace Darling (UK), who risked their lives to save others. The book also explores our dual perception of lighthouses: are they comforting and romantic beacons symbolising hope and trust, or storm-lashed and forbidding towers with echoes of lonely, mad keepers? Whatever our perception, stories of women's courage and dedication in minding the lights - then and now - continue to capture the public's imagination and inspire us.
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Genealogy for Beginners
by Katherine Pennavaria
"This book covers everything you need to get started researching your family history or continue a project you've already started. It offers practical suggestions from an experienced genealogist, and detailed, step-by-step instructions for carrying out aquality family history research"
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Crucible of Hell : The Heroism and Tragedy of Okinawa, 1945 by Saul DavidFrom award-winning historian Saul David, an action-packed and powerful new narrative of the Battle of Okinawa - the last great clash of the Second World War, and one that had profound consequences for the modern world. For eighty-three blood-soaked days, the fighting on the island of Okinawa plumbed depths of savagery as bad as anything seen on the Eastern Front. When it was over, almost a quarter of a million people had lost their lives, making it by far the bloodiest US battle of the Pacific. In Okinawa, the death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide, convinced by Japanese propaganda that they would otherwise be raped and murdered by the enemy. On the US side, David argues that the horror of the battle ultimately determined President Truman's choice to use atomic bombs in August 1945.
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No man's land : the trailblazing women who ran Britain's most extraordinary military hospital during World War I by Wendy MooreIn September 1914, a month after the outbreak of the First World War, two British doctors, Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson, set out for Paris. There, they built a makeshift hospital in Claridge's, the luxury hotel, and treated hundreds of casualties carted in from France's battlefields. Until this war called men to the front, female doctors had been restricted to treating only women and children. But even skeptical army officials who visited Flora and Louisa's Paris hospital sent back glowing reports of their practice. Their wartime hospital was at the cutting edge of medical care -- they were the first to use new antiseptic and the first to use x-ray technology to locate bullets and shrapnel. In No Man's Land, Wendy Moore illuminates this turbulent moment when women were, for the first time, allowed to operate on men. Even as medical schools still denied them entry, Suffragettes across the country put down their bricks to volunteer, determined to prove the value of female doctors. Within months, Flora and Louisa were invited by the British Army to set up two more hospitals-the first in northern France and the second a major military hospital in the heart of London. Nicknamed the "Suffragettes' Hospital," Endell Street became renowned as "the best hospital in London," thanks to its pioneering treatments and reputation for patriotism. It was also one of the liveliest, featuring concerts, tea parties, pantomimes, and picnics, in addition to surgeries. Moreover, Flora and Louisa were partners in life as well as in work. While they struggled to navigate the glass ceiling of early twentieth-century medical care, they also grappled with the stresses and joys of their own relationship. But although Flora, Louisa, and Endell Street effectively proved that women doctors could do the work of men, when the war was over, doors that had been opened were slammed shut. Women found themselves once more relegated to treating only women and children, and often in the poorest neighborhoods. It was not until World War II that women were again permitted to treat men. Drawing from letters, memoirs, diaries, army service records, and interviews, Moore brings these remarkable women and their patients to life and reclaims this important, spirited history. At a time when women are campaigning as hard as ever for equality, the fortitude and brilliance of Flora and Louisa serve as powerful reminders of what women can achieve against all odds.
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Hitching for hope : a journey into the heart and soul of Ireland
by Ruairí McKiernan
"What does the future have in store if politicians aren't beholden to the people, if the pace of development is compromising mental health, and if so-called progress is triggering ecological collapse? How do we maintain hope in such troubled times? In the wake of one of Ireland's worst economic recessions and a period of personal burnout from years of relentless social campaigning and organising, Ruairí McKiernan set out to answer these questions after he was invited to speak about citizens' views of Ireland. How, he wondered, might he use this platform to capture people's stories in an honest and authentic way-to give voice to the multitudes that so often go unheard? During his teenage years, McKiernan developed a fondness for hitchhiking. This fading form of travel taught him to connect with strangers, to trust in the unknown and to embrace the unexpected: precisely the kind of experience he was looking for. By turns exciting, provocative and sincere, Hitching for Hope: A Journey into the Heart and Soul of Ireland is the tale of a pilgrimage both deeply personal and explicitly political. McKiernan embarks without an itinerary, not knowing with whom he may speak, what he may hear or where he may sleep each night. As he reflects on his past, faces his fears, and listens to the struggles, hopes and dreams of Ireland's people, he excavates a human resilience often obscured by the media. Our modern world is rife with twists and turns as numerous and daunting as the roads that wind across the Irish countryside. However, when we will ourselves to take a leap, to stick out our thumbs when the going gets tough and to lend a hand (or a ride) to others in need, we harness a collective power that cannot be shaken"
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Fighting for Space : Two Pilots and Their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight by Amy Shira TeitelSpaceflight historian Amy Shira Teitel tells the riveting story of the female pilots who each dreamed of being the first American woman in space. When the space age dawned in the late 1950s, Jackie Cochran held more propeller and jet flying records than any pilot of the twentieth century-man or woman. She had led the Women's Auxiliary Service Pilots during the Second World War, was the first woman to break the sound barrier, ran her own luxury cosmetics company, and counted multiple presidents among her personal friends. She was more qualified than any woman in the world to make the leap from atmosphere to orbit. Yet it was Jerrie Cobb, twenty-five years Jackie's junior and a record-holding pilot in her own right, who finagled her way into taking the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts. The prospect of flying in space quickly became her obsession. While the American and international media spun the shocking story of a "woman astronaut" program, Jackie and Jerrie struggled to gain control of the narrative, each hoping to turn the rumored program into their own ideal reality-an issue that ultimately went all the way to Congress. This dual biography of audacious trailblazers Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb presents these fascinating and fearless women in all their glory and grit, using their stories as guides through the shifting social, political, and technical landscape of the time.
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| Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq by Sarah GliddenWhat it's about: Accompanying two journalist friends and an Iraq War veteran during a Middle East trip to report on the impact of the war, cartoonist Sarah Glidden grappled with ethical quandaries as she learned about the complexity of the journalistic process.
Art alert: Delicate pastel watercolors complement Glidden's thought-provoking and empathetic insights into life in conflict-riven areas. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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