Culpeper County Library271 Southgate Shopping Center, Culpeper, Virginia 22701 | 540-825-8691https://www.cclva.org |
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History and Current Events February 2026 |
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The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
by Richard Bell
Historian Richard Bell reveals the full breadth and depth of America's founding event: the American Revolution was not only the colonies' triumphant liberation from the rule of an overbearing England, it was also a cataclysm that pulled in participants from around the globe and threw the entire world order into chaos. Repositioning the Revolution at the center of an international web, Bell's narrative ranges as far afield as India, Africa, Central America, and Australia. As his lens widens, the 'War of Independence' manifests itself as a sprawling struggle that upended the lives of millions of people on every continent and fundamentally transformed the way the world works, disrupting trade, restructuring penal systems, stirring famine, and creating the first global refugee crisis--
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Off the Scales: The Inside Story of Ozempic and the Race to Cure Obesity
by Aimee Donnellan
The inside story of the creation of Ozempic and its revolutionary impact on public health.A cure for obesity has long been the holy grail for the pharmaceutical industry, one that seemed unattainable until recent breakthroughs in type 2 diabetes research led to the development of Ozempic, a weight loss medication that activates a hormone in the stomach called GLP-1, making people feel fuller for longer. The treatment is so effective that it is already disrupting many industries--from healthcare to fast food to fashion--and it has quickly made its creator, Denmark's Novo Nordisk, the most valuable company in Europe. But the impact of GLP-1s goes far beyond billion-dollar profits; a true long-term cure for obesity could save 40 percent of American adults from dangerous, preventable illnesses. And as more potential benefits emerge, one question looms in the minds of investors, healthcare workers, and politicians: Are these drugs too good to be true? In Off the Scales, Reuters journalist Aimee Donnellan illuminates the history of a medical breakthrough that is poised to change the world, while raising difficult social questions about inequality and morality. Through original reporting and rigorous research, she forecasts the future of GLP-1s and examines what their explosive popularity tells us about our ideals of beauty and the lengths to which people will go in order to become thin. Along the way, Donnellan profiles the scientist whose contributions to the discovery of GLP-1 were overlooked, documents her fight for recognition while her colleagues were thrust into the limelight, and offers new insights into the ways that the food and beauty industries made billions while promoting unhealthy and unrealistic body image standards and accelerating the obesity crisis. She also provides firsthand accounts of several early Ozempic users and the transformative effect the drug has had on their weight loss journeys. Off the Scales is an informative and entertaining study of the unexpected consequences of finally getting what we've wanted for so long.
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Presidential Seclusion: The Power of Camp David
by Charles Ferguson
Behind the gates of Camp David--where presidents find solitude, forge diplomacy, and shape history in absolute secrecy. The Presidential Retreat Camp David is shrouded in mystery, and rightfully so. The hidden retreat atop the Catoctin Mountains is the one place the President, First Family, and invited guests can gather in absolute secrecy for relaxation, rejuvenation, and world-changing decisions. Because of this dedication to privacy, and a desire to maintain the mystery and exclusivity of the last bastion of solitude for the President, few comprehensive accounts exist detailing the storied history of Camp David and the role the Spirit of Camp David plays in world affairs. Presidential Seclusion provides an exclusive account of the mysterious and storied retreat. Extensively researched from Presidential Archives as well as from the pages of Presidential memoirs, this non-partisan, informative account weaves exclusive stories into a tapestry revealing the importance of Camp David on diplomacy and world history. Written by the former Camp David Historian, this personalized tour of the exclusive retreat makes tree-shrouded trails, majestic vistas, and rooms where history happened over the last 80 years accessible to everyone. As you read, the Spirit of Camp David is revealed to infuse everyone who works and visits the President's private mountain retreat, mainly how Camp David personally affected its primary guests, the fifteen First Families fortunate to call the private retreat a second home.
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| The Great Resistance: The 400-Year Fight to End Slavery in the Americas by Carrie GibsonHistorian Carrie Gibson's (El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America) sweeping history illuminates four centuries of enslaved people's resistance to the Atlantic slave trade and "insists on the primacy of the enslaved themselves as agents of their own liberation"(Kirkus Reviews). Further reading: Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World by Sudhir Hazareesingh. |
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| 24 Hours at the Capitol: An Oral History of the January 6th Insurrection by Nora NeusEmmy Award-nominated producer and freelance journalist Nora Neus' compelling follow-up to 24 Hours in Charlottesville is a nail-biting, minute-by-minute oral history of the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack, featuring never-before-heard firsthand accounts from lawmakers, staffers, and police officers who were there. Further reading: Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th by Mary Clare Jalonick. |
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Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress
by Lorissa Rinehart
The first major biography of Jeannette Rankin, a groundbreaking suffragist, activist, and the first American woman to hold federal office.Few members of Congress have ever stood more alone while being true to a higher honor and loyalty.--President John F. Kennedy on Jeannette Rankin Born on a Montana ranch in 1880, Jeannette Rankin knew how to ride a horse, make a fire, and read the sky for weather. But, most of all, she knew how to talk to people and unite them around a shared vision for America. It was this rare skill that led her to become the first woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. As her first act, Rankin put forth the legislation that would become the Nineteenth Amendment. During her two terms, beginning in 1917 and in 1941, she introduced and lobbied for legislation strengthening women's rights, protecting workers, supporting democratic electoral reform, and promoting peace through disarmament. As Congress's fiercest pacifist, she used her vote to oppose the declaration of war against the German Empire in 1917 and the Japanese Empire in 1941, holding fast to her belief that you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. A suffragist, peace activist, workers' rights advocate, and champion of democratic reform who ran as a Republican, Rankin remained ever faithful to her beliefs, no matter the price she had to pay personally. Despite overcoming the entrenched boys' club of oligarchic capitalists and career politicians to make enormous strides for women in politics, Rankin has been largely overlooked. In Winning the Earthquake, Lorissa Rinehart expertly recovers the compelling history behind this singular American hero, bringing her story back to life.
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| Polar War: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic by Kenneth R. RosenJournalist Kenneth R. Rosen's compelling debut blends science writing, travelogue, and geopolitical analysis to detail how the Arctic could become the site of a new cold war, with Russia, China, and America all vying for control of the complex region. Try this next: So You Want to Own Greenland? Lessons from the Vikings to Trump by Elizabeth Buchanan. |
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| Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America's New Age of Disaster by Jacob SoboroffMSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff's urgent and affecting chronicle of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires blends personal reflections (Soboroff's childhood home was destroyed) with accounts from meteorologists, firefighters, politicians, and area residents. For fans of: Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson. |
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The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History
by Vanessa S. Williamson
Americans have always fought over the meaning of freedom and equality. What is not commonly recognized is that these battles, from the framing of the Constitution to the decades-long backlash to the civil rights movement, have largely revolved around one issue-taxes. In The Price of Democracy, Vanessa S. Williamson challenges the myth that Americans are instinctively anti-tax, revealing that fights over taxes have always been proxies for deeper conflicts over who is included in We the People. Poorer people have repeatedly built movements that sought to tax all Americans to create a more equal and democratic nation. Wealthy people have responded by constraining the power to tax and stifling democracy through voting restrictions, gerrymandering, and violence. Yet as hard as anti-tax crusaders have fought to create an America that redistributes not from rich to poor, but from non-white people to rich white people, the battle rages on. The Price of Democracy uncovers how fights for fiscal fairness have defined American history, delivering a powerful message to the present: that taxes are the public's most powerful weapon in the fight for a real democracy-- Provided by publisher.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Culpeper County Library271 Southgate Shopping Center, Culpeper, Virginia 22701 | 540-825-8691https://www.cclva.org |
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