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History and Current Events June 2026 |
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Injustice Town: A Corrupt City, a Wrongly Convicted Man, and a Struggle for Freedom
by Rick Tulsky
A New Yorker Best Book of 2026 Comprehensive and sobering. Tulsky details McIntyre's na ve certainty that the truth would come out during his trial, his alternation between hope and despair as his case went through the legal system, and the many obstacles before his eventual exoneration, in 2017. A worthy entry in the canon of American injustice.--The New Yorker Yet another maddening, frustrating, overwhelming, outrageous, and unbelievable story of corrupt justice in America. This one, though, is handled by Rick Tulsky, a dogged investigator, journalist, lawyer, advocate, and gifted writer.--John Grisham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Firm and Framed The powerful story of a falsely imprisoned man and a sweeping indictment of a city and the criminal justice system by a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist. A tour de force of reporting and revelation: it is the best expose of corruption I have ever read. Anybody who cares about what is happening in America should read it.--Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights and The Mosquito Bowl When the bodies of two Black men were found sitting with a crackpipe in a parked car in a rundown section of town in 1994, it seemed just another day in Kansas City, Kansas. The swift arrest and conviction of a seventeen-year-old Black kid from a broken home raised no eyebrows either. And yet, thirty years later, Lamonte McIntyre would prove to be the David that took down the Goliath of corruption that had long controlled the city's power structure and enveloped the city's justice system But the effort to prove Lamonte's innocence opened a Pandora's box. Before it was over, the fight to win Lamonte's exoneration exposed corrupt police and prosecutors, incompetent court-appointed defense lawyers, and a judge who violated ethical standards by his secret past relationship with the prosecutor, whom he favored in his rulings. Injustice Town follows Lamonte's case from its harrowing beginning to its triumphant end and beyond, including the legal tsunami that came in its wake, that engulfed prosecutors, attorneys, and judges. Most shockingly, the lead cop on the case was indicted by the Department of Justice for the widespread abuses he had committed years earlier on women in the Black community of Kansas City Kansas. Abuses documented by Lamonte's team. The criminal case ended, literally, with a bang, denying Lamonte and those whom the detective hurt, the chance for them to seek their own justice. Rick Tulsky, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, goes beyond the courthouse, exposing the ways in which corruption flourished for decades in an erstwhile quiet Midwest town, a town once dedicated to justice and equality. A lawyer by training as well as a reporter, Tulsky's narrative not only brings Lamonte's story to vivid life, it will empower cities, counties, states, and everyday citizens with a blueprint for equal justice. At a time when the federal government is abdicating its responsibility for demanding fairness and justice, it is up to states, local governments, and we the people look to ways they can act. Vivid and unforgettable, Injustice Town tells the story of one man and shows us a vision of what a better future could be. Among the most vicious and systemic civil rights train wrecks in an American city.--Barry Scheck, cofounder of the Innocence Project In early printings of the book, the image of Tom Dailey is misidentified. The correction has been made to the ebook and later printings.
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Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945
by Ian Buruma
Crisply told and uncomfortably relevant. --The New York Times Book Review Exquisite. --Wall Street Journal A] far-reaching and masterly work. --Library Journal (starred review) An astonishing account of life under a murderous regime amid a great city's descent into utter annihilation In 1939, when Ian Buruma's epic opens, Berlin has been under Nazi rule for six years, and its 4.3 million people have made their accommodations to the regime, more or less. When war broke out with Poland in September, what was most striking at first was how little changed. Unless you were Jewish. Then life, already hard, was soon to get unfathomably worse. Buruma gives tender attention to the Jewish experience in Berlin during the war, weaving its thread into the broader fabric of this marvelously rich and vivid mosaic of urban life. The distillation of a broad-gauged reckoning with a vast trove of primary sources, including a surprising number of interviews with living survivors, the book is a study in extremes--depravity and resilience, moral blindness and moral courage, pious bigotry and unchecked hedonism. By 1943, with the German defeat at Stalingrad, ordinary life in Berlin would acquire an increasingly desperate cast. The last three years of the war in Berlin are truly a descent into hell, with a deranged regime in desperate free fall, an increasingly relentless pounding from Allied bombers, and the mounting dread of the approaching Soviet army. The common greeting of Berliners was now not Auf wiedersehen or Heil Hitler but Bleiben Sie brig--Stay alive. And by war's end Berlin's population had fallen by almost half. Among the people trying to stay alive in the city was Ian Buruma's own father, a Dutch student conscripted into forced labor in the war economy along with 400,000 other imported workers. Buruma gives due weight to his and their experiences, which give the book a special added dimension. This is a book full of tenderness and genuine heroism, but it is by no means sentimental: again and again we see that most people do not do the hard thing most of the time. Most people go along. It's a lesson that has not lost its timeliness.
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| Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by David EpsteinFeaturing notable case studies throughout history, journalist David Epstein's well-researched exploration of how limitations foster creativity is "a game changer" (Publishers Weekly) that's "for anyone who has ever been overwhelmed in a grocery aisle" (Booklist). Try this next: The Elements of Choice: Why the Way We Decide Matters by Eric J. Johnson. |
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| This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark by Craig FehrmanHistorian Craig Fehrman utilizes primary documents to offer fresh insights on the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition, featuring profiles of its lesser-known members including Shoshone translator Sacajawea and enslaved body servant York. Try this next: The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier by Megan Kate Nelson. |
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| Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History by Linford D. FisherBrown University historian Linford D. Fisher's sweeping and well-researched revisionist history reveals the enslavement of approximately 600,000 Indigenous North Americans between 1492 and the 19th century, detailing how the practice spurred land theft, forced removal, and the establishment of Indian boarding schools. Further reading: The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez. |
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| American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed by Isaac FitzgeraldIn his reflective and engaging travelogue, New York Times bestselling memoirist Isaac Fitzgerald (Dirtbag, Massachusetts) spends a year retracing 18th-century gardener John Chapman's (aka Johnny Appleseed) trail from Massachusetts to Indiana, sharing insights on American history and Chapman's role in it. For fans of: Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon; This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History by Beverly Gage. |
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Daughters of Daring: Hollywood Cowgirl Stunt Women
by Chris Enss
Discover the untold stories of the bold women who rode harder, roped faster, and stole the spotlight in early Hollywood. Since the famous first western movie, The Great Train Robbery, starring Broncho Billy Anderson, made its debut in 1903, cowboy heroes have continued their easily won dominance--but little has been written about the cowgirl stars and their fans. Young women looked up to independent cowgirl characters played by Barbara Stanwyck and Dale Evans in the 1940s and 1950s. Who were the stars before these women? Surprisingly, Hollywood was well-populated with leading cowgirls and real cowgirls. Early Hollywood actresses and stunt women kept the cowgirl spirit alive. They performed every conceivable feat of horsemanship and displayed professional skills coupled with their best efforts and devotion. For some of these working women, the financial rewards for their daring and athletic prowess were at least reasonable. Daughters of Daring is the story of more than a dozen trick ropers, bronc busters, and bulldoggers turned actresses who, like the early ranch women and rodeo competitors, had pluck and charm. These women performed their own stunts, riding horses at breakneck speed, firing guns, and capturing outlaws. Cowgirl actresses such as Ruth Roland, Helen Gibson, Texas Guinan, Marin Sais, Anne Little, Marie Walcamp, and Evelyn Selbie received top billing above the cowboy and his horse in hundreds of films. This is their story.
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| The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White... by Steven J. RossPulitzer Prize finalist Steven J. Ross' urgent and well-researched follow-up to Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America chronicles the evolution of fascist hate groups in the United States from the post-World War II era to the present. For fans of: Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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