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History and Current Events March 2021
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| American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle GlaserWhat it's about: In 1961 New York City, pregnant teen Margaret Erle was sent to a maternity home, where she gave birth to a son she was forced to give up in a closed adoption.
Read it for: a heartwrenching exploration of America's postwar "adoption-industrial complex" that was fueled by secrecy and shame.
Try this next: For another illuminating history of mid-20th century adoption practices, check out Ann Fessler's The Girls Who Went Away. |
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Prey : immigration, Islam, and the erosion of women's rights
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The New York Times best-selling author of Infidel, Nomad and Heretic analyzes how waves of Islamic immigration are ushering in massive cultural changes and transforming sexual politics in Western Europe. 75,000 first printing
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| The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander LarmanWhat it's about: England's abdication crisis of 1936, which saw King Edward VIII stepping down from his royal duties to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
What's inside: recently declassified documents that offer new insights on Edward and Wallis' relationship, their Nazi sympathies, and more.
Who it's for: Fans of the Netflix series The Crown will enjoy this juicy account rife with plenty of royal intrigue and scandal. |
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The cunning of freedom : saving the self in an age of false idols
by Ryszard Legutko
"The book has two currents. The first is an analysis of the three concepts of freedom, which are called, respectively, negative, positive, and inner. Negative freedom is defined as an absence of coercion, positive freedom as an ability to rule oneself and rule others, inner freedom as being oneself, that is, being an author of one's decisions. Each concept is analyzed both in terms of its development in the history of ideas and in terms of its internal logic. The major problem of negative freedom is to find widely accepted rules according to which this freedom can be distributed. The major problem of positive freedom is to define what constitutes a free person. The major problem of inner freedom is how to correlate it with the proper interpretation of the human self. The book advances the thesis - and this constitutes the other current of its narrative - that we have been witnessing the advent of a new form of despotism, much of it being the effect of the dominant position of liberalism. Precisely because it took a reductionist position, liberalism has impoverished our view of freedom, and consequently, our notion of human nature with its political, moral, and metaphysical dimensions"
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999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
by Heather Dune Macadam
What it's about: In 1942, the Slovakian government paid the Nazis approximately $200 per person to deport hundreds of Jewish women to Auschwitz. Told they were being recruited for factory work, the women were among the first of the concentration camp's 1.3 million prisoners.
Why you should read it: Written to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation, this heartwrenching history collects interviews with survivors, family members, and witnesses, as well as testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
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| The Spy Who Couldn't Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI's Hunt for... by Yudhijit BhattacharjeeWhat it's about: In the late 1990s, disaffected National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) employee Brian Regan attempted to sell classified information to foreign governments, though his efforts were thwarted by confusing encryption methods attributed to his dyslexia.
Why you might like it: This fast-paced chronicle of a little-known scheme will appeal to fans of stranger-than-fiction crime stories like Ben Mezrich's Sex on the Moon. |
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| Operation Columba: The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance... by Gordon CoreraWhat it is: a dramatic and vivid account of British military intelligence gathering in Nazi-occupied western Europe, which was conducted by dropping more than 16,000 homing pigeons into the region.
Read it for: author Gordon Corera's droll and lively writing style.
Want a taste? "If the Nazis come through your door, you might be able to explain away a pigeon but not a radio transmitter." |
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| The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage by Mara HvistendahlWhat it's about: In 2011, three Chinese scientists were arrested for stealing hybrid seeds from an Iowa cornfield and sending them to China.
Why you should read it: Pulitzer Prize finalist Mara Hvistendahl's accessible latest offers insights on the China-United States trade war.
Reviewers say: "Not since Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest has a cornfield produced so much excitement" (Booklist). |
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| The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch What it's about: the Hickey Plot, a 1776 scheme orchestrated by prominent New York politicians to kidnap and murder George Washington.
Read it for: the thrilling immediacy of the fast-paced prose; the evocative account of a Revolutionary-era New York City in turmoil.
Why it matters: Washington's counterintelligence unit, led by future Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, inspired the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) nearly two centuries later. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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