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Historical Book Discussion - Upcoming Titles
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The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch
by Miles Harvey
August 5, 2025 - 10:00 a.m.
In 1843, James Strang vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to Mormonism. In the wake of the murder of the sect's leader, Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter purportedly from the prophet naming him successor, and persuaded hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared himself a divine king.
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The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season that Defined the American West
by Chris Wimmer
September 2, 2025 - 10:00 a.m.
Weaves together the timelines of the biggest legends in frontier mythology to demonstrate the overlapping context of their stories and to illustrate the historical importance of that summer, highlighting significant milestones in 1876—the inaugural baseball season of the National league, the invention of the telephone and more.
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Amelia Earhart: The Turbulent Life of an American Icon
by Kathleen C. Winters
October 7, 2025 - 10:00 a.m.
In a revisionist biography of Amelia Earhart that draws on contemporary accounts, airline records and other original research, the author paints a picture of a flawed heroine who was often reckless and lacked navigation skills, yet, along with her husband, was a master manipulator of the media.
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Gossip Men: J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation
by Christopher M. Elias
December 2, 2025 - 10:00 a.m.
Elias integrates biographies of the trio with a history of gossip magazines and their tactics--such as insinuation, guilt by association, hyperbole, and alarmism, not to mention cynicism, slang, and photographic manipulation--which all three used to consolidate their power. The story of security state masculinity reached its climax in the Army-McCarthy hearings, which were rife with insinuations and coded threats. Using gossip as a lens, Elias shifts our understanding of the development of American political culture.
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The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
by John "Chick" Donohue and J. T. Molloy
February 3, 2026 - 10:00 a.m.
A U.S. Marine Corps veteran-turned-merchant mariner recounts how in 1967 he accepted a neighborhood challenge to sneak into Vietnam, track down local friends on the front line and share beer over messages of love from home.
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Kent State: An American Tragedy
by Brian VanDeMark
March 3, 2026 - 10:00 a.m.
Brilliantly recreating the divided cultural landscape of America during the Vietnam War to provide a definitive history of the fatal Kent State University shooting in 1970, a noted historian focuses on the 13 victims, drawing on crucial new research and interviews, illuminating its causes and lasting consequences.
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