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History and Current Events September 2026 |
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A Moment in the Sun: Black Manhattan Before the Civil War
by Shane White
Dispelling the persistent narrative that abject poverty followed the end of slavery in New York City, acclaimed historian Shane White finally sets the historical record straight. A Moment in the Sun, a revisionist and immersive retelling of antebellum Manhattan, depicts a long-forgotten, nineteenth-century era when ordinary Black men and women, now free, "stood a brief moment in the sun" (W. E. B. Du Bois), ushering in a roughly half-century period when New York City bulged and thrummed with Black creativity and achievement nearly a hundred years before the storied Harlem Renaissance.
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| The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything by Kathryn Jezer-MortonThe Cut columnist Kathryn Jezer-Morton (Wake Up: Essays on Redefining Our Relationship with Time and Technology) utilizes intimate interviews with everyday social media users to explore how social media complicates identity and impacts how people represent (or mis-represent) themselves to others. Try this next: All the Feels: How to Stay Human in the Digital World by Pamela Pavliscak. |
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| The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818-1915 by Joseph KellyHistorian Joseph Kelly's well-researched revisionist account explores the origins of American fascism in the Antebellum South, detailing how the 1818 Missouri Compromise helped advance the ideology. Further reading: The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy by Steven J. Ross. |
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| But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our... by Kristen LopezIn her lively and richly detailed follow-up to But Have You Read the Book?: 52 Literary Gems That Inspired Our Favorite Films, pop culture essayist Kristen Lopez spotlights 40 literary romances and their film adaptations. For fans of: Falling in Love at the Movies: Rom-Coms from the Screwball Era to Today by Esther Zuckerman. |
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| Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of... by Micki McElyaIn her evocative and well-researched latest, historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Micki McElya details how the 1968 Miss America pageant, which was protested by civil rights and women's liberation activists (including the newly established Miss Black America organization), became a pivotal moment in American politics. Further reading: Looking for Miss America: A Pageant's 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood by Margot Mifflin. |
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American Made: Stories of Work from the WPA
by Book Author
A mesmerizing combination of voices. During the Great Depression, out-of-work writers--including Ralph Ellison and other now famous authors-- were hired to interview over 10,000 workers about their jobs and lives. The arrangement, funded by the New Deal's Federal Writers Project (a subset of the Works Progress Administration), gave us one of the most comprehensive looks ever into working conditions of the American people, especially blue-collar workers.
From meatpachttps://library.cityofcarrollton.com/Search/Results?join=AND&bool0%5B%5D=AND&lookfor0%5B%5D=9781540270221&type0%5B%5D=ISN&submit=Find&filter%5B%5D=&filter%5B%5D=availability_toggle%3A%22global%22&filter%5B%5D=&filter%5B%5D=&filter%5B%5D=&filter%5B%5D=&filtkers in Chicago to fishermen in Massachusetts, farmers in Nebraska, and construction workers building the New York City subway, these workers met with writers at kitchen tables, in break rooms, and in union halls. The results--most of which have never been published--were candid, compelling life histories. At a time when much is being said about bringing jobs back to the United States, American Made offers a curated selection of these accounts from back in the good old days, many of them from immigrants with stories of perilous journeys to the country to match their stories of work.
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The Manila Poker Club: Eisenhower, Quezon, and the Plan to Harbor Europe's Jews in the Philippines
by Mark Sy
In the late 1930s, as the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany and Austria intensified, five distinguished gentlemen met half a world away for regular late-night poker games.
What began as an excuse to drink whiskey, smoke cigars, and discuss the political events of the day resulted in an ambitious plan to rescue as many Jewish refugees as possible from the clutches of Hitler's Gestapo.This small group of men in Manila--Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, Philippine president Manuel L. Quezon, US high commissioner of the Philippines Paul V. McNutt, and Jewish American businessmen Alex and Philip Frieder--shared a sense of humor, a mutual respect for one another's cultures and people, and an innate desire to help a persecuted population.
They hatched an effort to welcome thousands of Jewish refugees to the Philippines, facing off against antisemitic and anti-immigrant resistance in their own countries, the spreading Nazi menace in Europe--and eventually the Japanese invasion of their Pacific safe haven.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Carrollton Public Library 1700 Keller Springs Road, Carrollton Texas 75006 4220 North Josey Lane, Carrollton Texas 75010 |
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