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History and Current Events July 2026 |
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The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History
by Odd Arne Westad
A Foreign Policy most anticipated book of the year From a renowned Yale historian comes a chilling look at the looming threat of the next Great Power war and the urgent interventions necessary to avoid it in the twenty-first century. The vast majority of people alive today have come of age in a world of remarkable stability, presided over by either one or two Superpowers. This is not to say the world has been peaceful; but it has, to a great extent, been predictable. As an increasing number of Great Powers jostle for regional supremacy, as well as competitive advantage in nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and trade, our world has become more fragile, unpredictable--and combustible. The outbreak of global war among today's Great Powers seems increasingly likely. Such war, as Odd Arne Westad powerfully argues in this urgent book, would be of a magnitude and devastation never before seen. To understand the threats that face us in this complex new terrain, we must look to the lessons of the past, and especially the late nineteenth and early twentieth century--a time when Great Powers clashed and sought regional dominance, nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had failed them; a time when tariffs increased, immigration and terrorism were among the biggest issues of the day, and a growing number of people blamed the citizens of other countries for their problems. A time, in other words, that carries eerie parallels with our own.
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Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online
by Fortesa Latifi
A searing investigation into the child influencer industry and the perils of childhood internet fame, Like, Follow, Subscribe is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the costs of internet fame, and the ethics of online content.What is it like to grow up with a camera in your face 24/7? To have your childhood moments sold as content to millions online? What happens when someone who works in a largely unregulated multi-billion-dollar industry sells away their childhood and has no financial safety net as an adult? What does it feel like to have your private moments--your medical diagnoses, your first period, your first break up, your tantrums, potty-training, and breastfeeding-weaning--broadcast to an audience of millions? Like, Follow, Subscribe shines a spotlight on the deeply troubling world of the child influencer industry. Journalist Fortesa Latifi dives into the lives of children whose parents mine their everyday activities for monetizable content, exposing issues like privacy violations, financial abuse, and the absence of child labor protections. Through expert interviews with psychologists, labor scientists, and even former child influencers and family vloggers, she uncovers the pressures, trauma, and consequences for children thrust into the spotlight. This timely and eye-opening book doesn't just reveal the harm of toxic social media culture: it also provides a roadmap to better regulating influencer families, safeguarding children, and questioning the role of audiences in perpetuating these cycles of exploitation.
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| The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright: The True Story of Mass Murder in Paradise by Casey ShermanJournalist Casey Sherman's richly detailed true crime account chronicles the shocking 1914 murders and arson that took place at architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin compound in Wisconsin. Among the victims were Wright's mistress, her two children, and four staffers; the suspected murderer died by suicide while being apprehended, leaving his motives a mystery. For fans of: Saving Sin City: William Travers Jerome, Stanford White, and the Original Crime of the Century by Mary Cummings. |
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Battle of the Arctic: The Maritime Epic of World War II
by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
From the bestselling author of Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man and Enigma: The Battle for the Code, the story of unsung American heroism in World War II's maritime epic in the Arctic. No campaign during World War II contained more spinetingling drama, outstanding courage, and heartbreaking tragedy than the Arctic convoys. Yet they--and the multifaceted battle of the Arctic that had to be fought to get them through to Russia--remain one of the war's most under-celebrated feats. As this book's title implies, Battle of the Arctic tells a unique story. For much of the conflict was complicated by terrific storms, snow, ice, fog, whales and Arctic mirages, so that what is chronicled at times sounds like a cross between the nightmarish torment experienced by both Shackleton in his ship Endurance and Scott of the Antarctic, and an Arctic version of Robinson Crusoe. The action unfolded as Allied naval and merchant seamen, airmen, submariners, soldiers and intelligence officers delivered on their countries' promise to take arms to Russia notwithstanding the German attempts to hunt them in their aircraft, U-boats and surface fleet spearheaded by Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. When ships were attacked and went down in seas so cold that a man could die after just five minutes of immersion, it triggered events reminiscent of the do-or-die moments during the sinking of the Titanic. Men perished one by one in lifeboats and as castaways on deserted Arctic islands where they were stalked by polar bears. Frostbitten and wounded survivors ended up in Russian hospitals so primitive that amputations were carried out without anaesthetics. Other survivors, while stranded for months in the communist state they were aiding, experienced the murky worlds of the NKVD and the gulag as well as famine and prostitution. Using new material unearthed in American, British, Russian and German archives, as well as Polish, Norwegian, French and Dutch sources, and a remarkable collection of vivid witness accounts brought together at the passing of the last survivors, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore can at last shine a revealing light on this extraordinary tale that oscillates between the sailors' eye view on the front line, and the controversies that infuriated world leaders.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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