History and Current Events February 2026 |
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The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan by Lyse DoucetThe story of a hotel. The story of a nation. When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world. More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls.
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Winston and the Windsors: How Churchill Shaped a Royal Dynasty by Andrew MortonIn "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. 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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The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany--And the Spy Who Betrayed Them by Jonathan FreedlandWhen the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth. Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer's afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo. How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap? Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich's cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?
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Focus on: Black History Month
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Black History Is for Everyone by Brian Jones In "Black History Is for Everyone", Brian Jones offers a meditation on the power of Black history, using his own experiences as a lifelong learner and classroom teacher to question everything--from the radicalism of the American Revolution to the meaning of race and nation. With warmth and immersive storytelling, Jones encourages us to delve deeper into our collective history, explores how curiosity about our world is essential--and reminds us that with stakes so high, the effort is worth it.
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In the Light of Dawn: The History and Legacy of a Black Canadian Community by Marie CarterIlluminating two hundred years of lost Black History through the lens of an iconic abolitionist settlement, "In the Light of Dawn" shines a spotlight on the Dawn Settlement, a historic abolitionist community in rural Ontario led by Reverend Josiah Henson (the real Uncle Tom of Harriet Beecher Stowe's landmark anti-slavery novel), and reveals how the town's scope and impact eclipses previously narrow interpretations as a failed utopian colony at a terminus of the Underground Railroad.
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