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History and Current Events May 2019
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| The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story by Cara RobertsonWhat it is: a fast-paced account of the notorious 1893 Lizzie Borden murder trial that utilizes court transcripts, newspaper accounts, and recently discovered letters written by Borden herself to argue that the jury who acquitted her got it wrong.
About the author: Debut author Cara Robertson is a lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk who spent 20 years researching the Borden case.
Who it's for: true crime aficionados and amateur sleuths. |
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Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel
by Matti Friedman
A meticulously researched chronicle of the Arab Section, Israel's first spy organization, details how undercover intelligence operatives in 1948 Beirut risked or lost their lives in support of Israeli statehood.
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Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance
by Nick Estes
In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.
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Women Warriors: An Unexpected History
by Pamela D Toler
Reveals how women have stepped out of traditional female roles throughout history to take up arms or assume leadership positions in transformative ways—from Britain Celtic tribe leader, Boudica, to Battle of Little Bighorn Cheyenne warrior, Buffalo Calf Road Woman.
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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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| Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah ChurchwellWhat it is: an evocative social history that explores how "the crime of the decade," an unsolved 1922 double homicide, may have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write The Great Gatsby.
Why you might like it: Thrilling, rich in detail, and sprinkled with a hint of gossip, Careless People blends aspects of biography, history, and true crime to vividly recreate the glamorous milieu of the Roaring Twenties. |
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| The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political... by Linda GordonWhat it's about: the "second Ku Klux Klan," which attracted millions of middle-class northern and midwestern Americans throughout the 1920s.
How it happened: Klan leaders, many of whom were elected government officials, amplified xenophobic fears by arguing for "100 percent Americanism" amid the country's influx of immigrants.
Don't miss: Linda Gordon's incisive discussion of the Klan's 500,000 women members, who played significant roles in the organization. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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