Wilton Library: History and Current Events: April 2026

Recent Releases

The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for...
by Emily Galvin Almanza

Co-founder and executive director of Partners for Justice and former public defender Emily Galvin Almanza presents a thought-provoking and incisive examination of the failures of the American criminal justice system and offers solutions for reform.

The Emerson Circle: The Concord Radicals Who Reinvented the World
by Bruce Nichols

A lively and captivating journey through the world of the Transcendentalists, America's first group of public intellectuals, whose visionary ideas reinvented our culture and politics and remain an inspiration today. With vivid storytelling and thought-provoking insights, the books invites us to reimagine the power of ideas to change the world--just as Emerson and his circle did nearly two centuries ago.

The Promise of a Nation: Commemorating 250 Years of Patriotism, Resilience, and Aspirations from the National Collection
by Smithsonian Institution

Celebrate 250 years of American history--and witness the nation's decade-by-decade evolution--in this gorgeously illustrated volume featuring more than 600 Smithsonian objects.

This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History
by Beverly Gage

Take the ultimate road trip into the American past to see the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans learn--and fight--about our history.

Safe Passage: The Untold Story of Diplomatic Intrigue, Betrayal, and the Exchange of American and Japanese Civilians by Sea During World War II
by Evelyn Iritani

In the fall of 1943, during some of the Pacific theater's bloodiest battles, the United States and Japan pulled off a diplomatic coup--the exchange of civilians caught on the wrong side of the battlefield after Pearl Harbor.

A Terrible Intimacy: Interracial Life in the Slaveholding South
by Melvin Patrick Ely

A revelatory new account of slavery, uncovering a surprising web of relationships between Black and white people that ranges far beyond the familiar template of master-slave dynamics These webs of interaction make clear that white Americans recognized the humanity of their Black neighbors, even as they remained committed to a system that abused and sometimes terrorized them.

Advance Britannia: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1942-1945
by Alan Allport

In this sequel to his prizewinning Britain at Bay, Alan Allport completes his superlative history of Britain's role in World War II, once again weaving together the political, military, social, and cultural to tell a multifaceted story of a country forced to endure the profound stresses of total war. Now, Britain is no longer at bay. But any victory remains far off, and its costs will be great. Can the British win the war without sacrificing so much along the way that they then lose the peace?

Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family -- And the World
by Gabriel Sherman

The real succession story of the Murdoch empire, Bonfire of the Murdochs is a richly textured narrative where each child plays their predestined role in a blood feud that explodes in a courtroom showdown. There, Murdoch's children weaponize his own secrets against him. It is a tragedy Shakespeare would have appreciated, where getting everything you want costs everything you love.

Contact your librarian for more great books!