|
|
History and Current Events May 2025 |
|
|
|
|
Recent Releases - History |
|
|
|
Children of radium : a buried inheritance
by Joe Dunthorne
This extraordinary family memoir investigates the dark legacy of the author's great-grandfather, a talented German-Jewish chemist specializing in radioactive household products who wound up developing chemical weapons and gas mask filters for the Nazis. While he and his nuclear family escaped safely to Turkey before the war, Siegfried never got over his complicity, particularly after learning that members of his extended family were murdered in Auschwitz. Dunthorne traveled to Munich, Ammendorf, Berlin, Ankara, and Oranienbur to reckon with the remarkable, unsettling legacy of his family's past.
|
|
| The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to... by Joshua HammerRecounts the race among 19th-century scholars and adventurers to decipher cuneiform script, unraveling the history of ancient Mesopotamian civilizations while exploring the ruins of Persepolis and Ottoman territories during archaeology’s golden age. "Hammer makes this true story as exciting as any work of fiction; this is no dry recitation of events, but a lively, suspense-filled story of adventurers and their quest to be the first to unlock the hidden rooms of history. Quite simply a wonderful book." (Booklist) |
|
| The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America by Kostya KennedyReleased in time for the 250th anniversary of the event and featuring fresh insights, journalist Kostya Kennedy's accessible history chronicles Paul Revere's fateful midnight ride to warn American minutemen of the British army's impending arrival. He reexamines the famous midnight ride, revealing it as a complex, collaborative effort involving multiple riders and several near-disasters, while exploring its pivotal role in the early stages of the American Revolution through fresh archival research and overlooked historical accounts. |
|
|
|
Red Scare : blacklists, McCarthyism and the making of modern America
by Clay Risen
Red Scare presents a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. The cultural phenomenon, most often referred to as McCarthyism, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, coupled with the terrifying onset of the Cold War. "In examining this turbulent era from the vantage of our own charged moment, Risen goes beyond the spectacle to arrive at the gritty center. Frightening yet thoroughly affecting, Red Scare is propulsive history at its most striking." (Booklist)
|
|
|
|
Left for dead : shipwreck, treachery, and survival at the edge of the world
by Eric Jay Dolin
A best-selling and award-winning maritime historian presents this true story of five castaways—three British sailors and two Americans—abandoned on the Falkland Islands for a year and a during the War of 1812, showing individuals in wartime under great duress acting both nobly and atrociously as they struggle to survive. "This stunning account of shifting fortunes is riven with tension on every page, as Dolin provides detailed descriptions of bickering and backstabbing, tricky nautical maneuvers, and desperate survival techniques. It’s an edge-of-your-seat adventure." (Publishers Weekly)
|
|
Recent Releases - Current Events |
|
| There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian GoldstoneThe working homeless, trapped by skyrocketing rents and stagnant wages in gentrifying cities, are examined through the lens of five families in Atlanta, showing the human cost of homelessness for people with full-time jobs, revealing the extent and causes of a crisis where housing is treated as a privilege. "Goldstone weaves a richly detailed narrative of his subjects’ increasingly desperate struggles, and he offers a searing indictment of a greedy corporate real estate industry, which he consistently pegs as the culprit behind these woes. It’s a gripping, high-stakes account of America’s housing emergency." (Publishers Weekly) |
|
|
|
AI valley : Microsoft, Google, and the trillion-dollar race to cash in on artificial intelligence
by Gary Rivlin
This book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist follows leading figures in the AI field, exploring the latest breakthroughs and developments in Silicon Valley and offering insights into the future of this transformative technology. On this vast frontier, no one knows which of these companies will hit it big–or which will flame out spectacularly. In this riveting narrative marbled with familiar names such as Musk, Zuckerberg, and Gates, Rivlin chronicles breakthroughs as they happen, giving us a deep understanding of what’s around the corner in AI development.
|
|
|
|
One day, everyone will have always been against this
by Omar El Akkad
On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” In the reporter's first nonfiction title, El Akkad reckons with the broken promises of the West and the notion that there will always be those who are treated as not fully human. "A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy." (Kirkus Reviews)
|
|
|
|
Code name: Pale Horse : how I went undercover to expose America's Nazis
by Scott Payne
A retired FBI Special Agent who spent twenty-eight years in law enforcement recounts how he was able infiltrate the most dangerous neo-Nazi group in the United States and expose their members and rituals of hate. "Now retired, he intimates that there’s plenty more to be done to curb supremacist radicalism, now in the ascendant. An eye-opening look at the small but eminently dangerous radical right-wing fringe out there in the shadows." (Kirkus Reviews)
|
|
|
|
On my honor : the secret history of the Boy Scouts of America
by Kim Christensen
The book grapples with America's changing understanding of what it means to “make men,” and untangles the full story of the Boy Scouts of America, tracking its creation, growth, influence, and the massive generational trauma it has caused. "The discrepancy between the Boy Scouts of America’s wholesome image and its decades-long reality of rampant sexual abuse is uncovered in this harrowing, posthumously published debut account from Pulitzer-winning journalist Christensen." (Publishers Weekly)
|
|
|
|
All or nothing : how Trump recaptured America
by Michael Wolff
Takes readers on a journey accompanying Donald Trump on his return to power as only Michael Wolff, the foremost chronicler of the Trump era, can do it. Through personal access to Trump's inner circle, Wolff details a behind-the-scenes, revealing landscape of Trumpworld and its unlikely cast of primary players. Threading a needle between tragedy and farce, the fate of the nation, the liberal ideal, and democracy itself, All or Nothing paints a portrait of the demons, discord, and anarchy of American life under Trump.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
If you are having trouble unsubscribing to this newsletter, please contactthe Winfield Public Library
630-653-7599, 0S291 Winfield Rd.
Winfield, IL 60190
|
|
|