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History and Current Events November 2017
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| Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica BruderAuthor Jessica Bruder, who teaches at the Columbia School of Journalism, spent several years traveling with older Americans who have become itinerant workers in order to make ends meet. In Nomadland, she describes how they assume a "wheel estate" (instead of "real estate") existence as they travel from one seasonal job to the next, exchanging information on safe camping sites and enjoying the camaraderie of the road. Bruder vividly and sympathetically characterizes these "workampers" as she critiques the financial systems that have led them to adopt this solution. |
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| A First-Class Catastrophe: The Road to Black Monday, the Worst Day in Wall Street History by Diana B. HenriquesOn Monday, October 19, 1987, "Black Monday," the financial market fell 22.6 percent. It was the worst day in Wall Street history -- more so than the biggest decline during the crash of 1929. Offering accessible, jargon-free explanations, author Diana Henriques depicts the crisis in terms of changes in silver trading, the increased significance of financial futures trading, and the introduction of both institutional investors and computer-driven trades. She also demonstrates why the regulatory agencies were unprepared to deal with this perfect financial storm and argues for the establishment of more effective regulation. |
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Quackery : A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
by Lydia Kang
A darkly whimsical chronicle of medicine's greatest mistakes incorporates vintage images and ads for historical cures, from morphine for colicky babies and strychnine for impotence to leeches for the common cold and liquefied gold for immortality.
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Freud : The Making of an Illusion
by Frederick C Crews
A critical assessment of psychoanalysis and the views of its creator draws on previously restricted archives to reveal Sigmund Freud's blunders with patients, his misunderstandings about the psychological controversies of his time and how he advanced his career on the appropriated findings of others. By a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
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Word by Word : The Secret Life of Dictionaries
by Kory Stamper
"Brimming with intelligence and personality, a vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made - a must read for word mavens. Have you ever tried to define the word "is?" Do you have strong feelings about the word (and, yes, it is a word) "irregardless?" Did you know that OMG was first used in 1917, in a letter to Winston Churchill? These are the questions that keep lexicographers up at night. While most of us might take dictionaries for granted, the process of writing dictionaries is in fact aslively and dynamic as language itself. With sharp wit and irreverence, Kory Stamper cracks open the complex, obsessive world of lexicography, from the agonizing decisions about what and how to define, to the knotty questions of usage in an ever-changing language. She explains why the small words are the most difficult to define, how it can take nine months to define a single word, and how our biases about language and pronunciation can have tremendous social influence. Throughout Stamper brings to life the hallowed halls (and highly idiosyncratic cubicles) of Merriam-Webster, a surprisingly rich world inhabited by quirky and erudite individuals who quietly shape the way we communicate. A sure delight for all lovers of words, Harmless Drudges will also improve readers' grasp and use of the English language"
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| The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book by Peter FinnDoctor Zhivago, a novel published in translation during the late 1950s by Russian author Boris Pasternak, created a sensation in the West with its negative depiction of the Russian Revolution. The CIA recognized that the book could promote anticommunist sentiment within the Soviet Union, so they arranged to produce copies of the banned original Russian text and sneak them into Russia. The Zhivago Affair relates the exciting story of the book-smuggling, the severe consequences for Pasternak and his family, and the international controversy over the novel. |
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| The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal by David E. HoffmanIn 1978, at the height of the Cold War, Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet military engineer, began passing details of the USSR's technological developments to an American CIA agent in Moscow. Tolkachev's information allowed the U.S. to match and surpass Soviet weapons development, justifying the astronomical sums the CIA paid him. In this riveting, well-researched book, author David Hoffman traces the heart-stopping risks that marked both Tolkachev's activities and those of the CIA. The Billion Dollar Spy brings Tolkachev to life while revealing some of the most significant -- and dangerous -- intelligence gathering of the era. |
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Democracy : Stories From the Long Road to Freedom
by Condoleezza Rice
The controversial former Secretary of State traces her witness to key events throughout the past half century while assessing the evolution of global democracy and how it is under attack in all world regions.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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