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History & Current Events November 2025 |
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Kuleana
by Sara Kehaulani Goo
From an early age, Sara Kehaulani Goo was enchanted by her family's land in Hawai'i. The vast area on the rugged shores of Maui's east side extends from mountain to sea, encompassing ninety acres of lush, undeveloped rainforest jungle along the rocky coastline and a massive sixteenth-century temple with a mysterious past. When Sara returns to Maui from the mainland, she reconnects with her great-uncle Take and uncovers the story of how much land her family has already lost over generations, centuries-old artifacts from the temple, and the insidious displacement of Native Hawaiians by systemic forces.
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Nagasaki
by M. G. Sheftall
On August 6, 1945, the United States unleashed a weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen. Then, just three days later, when Japan showed no sign of surrender, the United States took aim at Nagasaki. Rendered in harrowing detail, this historical narrative is the second and final volume in M. G. Sheftall's series Embers. Sheftall has spent years personally interviewing hibakusha, the Japanese word for atomic bomb survivors. These last living witnesses are a vanishing memory resource, the only people who can still provide us with reliable and detailed testimony about life in their cities before the bomb.
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A Noble Madness
by James Delbourgo
From Roman emperors lusting after statues, to modern-day hoarders, James Delbourgo tells the extraordinary story of fanatical collectors throughout history. He explains how the idea first emerged that when you look at someone's collection, you see a portrait of their soul: complex, intriguing, yet possibly insane. What Delbourgo calls "the Romantic collecting self" has always lurked on the dark side of humanity, but this dark side has a silver lining. Because obsessive collectors are driven by passion, not profit, they have been countercultural heroes in the modern imagination.
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Resist
by Rita Omokha
In Resist, Rita Omokha charts the last century of black activism, from the early years of renowned activist Ella Baker, an HBCU student who established critical grassroots organizing networks in the 1920s, and others she inspired, who fought for policy changes in the wake of the unjust trial of the Scottsboro Nine, to the first glimpse of allyship in the Bates Seven and a renewed examination of the Black Panthers, all the way to the current generation. Rita also draws on her own experiences as a Black immigrant living in America, offering a unique and insightful perspective on this ongoing struggle for justice.
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With Her Own Hands
by Nicole Nehrig
Knitting, sewing, embroidery, and quilting throughout history, these and other forms of textile work have often been dismissed as merely women's work and attached to ideas of domesticity and obedience. Yet, as Nicole Nehrig explores in this book, textile work has often been a way for women to exercise their power. When their voices were silenced and other avenues were closed off to them, women used the tools they had to seek freedom within their restrictive societies. As Nehrig shows, textiles have been a way for women to explore, create, process, and convey thoughts and experiences in powerful ways throughout history.
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Breakneck
by Dan Wang
For close to a decade, technology analyst Dan Wang has been living through the country's astonishing, messy progress. China's towering bridges, gleaming railways, and sprawling factories have improved economic outcomes in record time, but rapid change has also sent ripples of pain throughout the society. This reality is not a paradox, but rather a feature of China's engineering mindset. In Breakneck, Wang blends political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal a provocative new framework for understanding China, one that helps readers see America more clearly, too.
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Plundered
by David W. Swanson
Two of the world's greatest crises, systemic racism and environmental destruction, share the same origin story. Both are rooted in economic forces that exploit and oppress both people and land. Swanson shows how humans have failed as caretakers of creation, and how that failure has resulted in the exploitation of people and the extraction of natural resources. Racial and ecological injustice share the same root cause that turns people and the natural world into commodities that are only valued for their utility. Swanson shows how humans can become communities of caretakers, restoring the relationship with creation and each other.
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Rehab
by Shoshana Walter
People who suffer from addiction need treatment. Today, more people have access to treatment than ever before. So why isn't it working? The answer is that in America, where anyone can get addicted, only certain people get a real chance to recover. Despite record numbers of overdose deaths, the default response is still to punish, while rehabs across the United States fail to incorporate scientifically proven strategies and exploit patients. Most have heard a great deal about the opioid crisis foisted on America, but little about the other half of this epidemic, the reason why so many remain mired in addiction.
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Rebel Russia
by Anna Arutunyan
The Russian rebel in his epic battle against the Leviathan of the Russian state has enthralled readers and writers for decades. The rebel's story is almost always a sad one that ends in exile, imprisonment, or martyrdom, leaving but a seed for the future reform of the Leviathan which he or she had taken on. The brave words and deeds of dissidents have often shaped the course of Russian history. Through the stories of prominent rebels, Anna Arutunyan explores how the rebel and the Tsar defined each other through a centuries-long dance of dissent and repression and how their work continues today.
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Unforgiving Places
by Jens Ludwig
What if everything that is known about gun violence is wrong? In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago in the hope of answering a big question: why do US cities have so much gun violence, and is there anything to be done about it? Almost two decades later, his answers are nothing he ever expected. This is the sweeping account of a multi-decade mission to identify the real drivers of violent crime in the American City. Blending the original work of a renowned social scientist with first-person dispatches from a largely caricaturized place, Ludwig expands and redefines this American challenge.
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