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History and Current Events December 2025 |
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How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women
by Zoe Venditozzi
In the summer of 1563, Scotland was in a bad way. The land was poor, the people were poorer; crops failed, and people starved. In times like these, people looked for anyone to blame, and who easier than the Devil himself? Or, better yet, the women the Devil used to perform his evil deeds. It was in these circumstances that the men of Scotland drafted the Witchcraft Act of 1563. The Act had one basic aim: to stop the Devil and his lackeys (mainly women) from wreaking havoc on a country already beset with problems. And it was from there that the witch-hunt craze spread across the world--eventually landing in the USA. With the wit and humor that have been hallmarks of their popular Witches of Scotland podcast, Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi explain the process of identifying, accusing, trying, and ultimately killing a woman as a witch, revealing the inner workings of a world organized to protect the patriarchy and preserve the status quo--
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Winston and the Windsors: How Churchill Shaped a Royal Dynasty
by Andrew Morton
In Winston and the Windsors, Andrew Morton, one of the world's best-known biographers and a leading authority on celebrity, presents a meticulously researched joint biography of Winston Churchill and the House of Windsor. Throughout the course of his career and life, Churchill's connection to the Windsors fluctuated wildly. At times, he was the royal family's trusted confidant. At others, he was their leading antagonist. In exploring the complex dynamic between the two, Morton argues that, regardless of whether the attitudes of the royal family were warm or icy toward Churchill, their relationship was central to the twentieth-century history of the British monarchy. From the Churchill family's intricate relationship with the Crown, to Winston's initially begrudging but ultimately fruitful partnership with George VI, to his enduring fondness for Queen Elizabeth II, this fascinating narrative biography sheds new light on the ways the Crown not only shaped Winston Churchill's career, but the ways in which Churchill shepherded the monarchy into the modern era.
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Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime
by Sarah Weinman
An eye-opening story about the first major spousal rape trial in America and urgent questions it raised about women's rights that would reverberate for decades .In 1978, Greta Rideout was the first woman in United States history to accuse her husband of rape, at a time when the idea of marital rape seemed ludicrous to many Americans and was a crime in only four states. After a quick and conservative trial acquitted John Rideout and a defense lawyer lambasted that maybe rape is the risk of being married, Greta was ridiculed and scorned from public life, while John went on to be a repeat offender. Thrust into the national spotlight, Greta and her story would become a national sensation, a symbol of a country's unrelenting and targeted hate toward women and a court system designed to fail them at every turn .A now little-remembered trial deserving of close, wide, and lasting attention, Sarah Weinman turns her signature intelligence and journalistic rigor to the enduring impact of this case. Oregon v. Rideout directly inspired feminist activists, who fought state by state for marital rape laws, a battle that was not won in all fifty until as recently as 1993. Mixing archival research and new reporting involving Greta, those who successfully pressed charges against John in later years, as well as the activists battling the courts in parallel, Without Consent embodies vociferous debates about gender, sexuality, and power, while highlighting the damaging and inherent misogyny of American culture then and still now.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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