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History and Current Events February 2026 |
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| The Great Resistance: The 400-Year Fight to End Slavery in the Americas by Carrie GibsonWhat it is: Historian 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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Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920
by Akhil Reed Amar
What it's about: Akhil Reed Amar recounts the dramatic constitutional debates that unfolded across eight decades, when four glorious amendments abolished slavery, secured Black and female citizenship, and extended suffrage regardless of race or gender.
Reviewers say: "An elegantly written and thorough survey of America’s second founding." (Publishers Weekly)
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| Polar War: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic by Kenneth R. RosenWhat it is: Journalist 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 SoboroffWhat it's about: MSNBC 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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Focus on: Black History Month
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State of Emergency: How We Win in the Country We Built
by Tamika D. Mallory
What it is: Drawn from a lifetime of frontline advocacy, organizing, and fighting for equal justice, this book shares the keys to effective activism both for those new to and long-committed to the defense of Black lives.
What it's about: From Minneapolis to Louisville, to Portland, Kenosha, and Washington, DC, America's reckoning with its unmet promises on race and class is at a boiling point not seen since the 1960s.
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Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America
by Nick Kotz
What it's about: Opposites in almost every way, mortally suspicious of each other at first, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., were thrust together in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Both men sensed a historic opportunity and began a delicate dance of accommodation that moved them, and the entire nation, toward the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Read it for: A dramatic narrative, rich in dialogue, that presents this momentous period with thrilling immediacy.
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King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life of Struggle Outside of the South
by Jeanne Theoharis
What it's about: The Martin Luther King Jr. of popular memory vanquished Jim Crow in the South. But in this myth-shattering book, award-winning and New York Times bestselling historian Jeanne Theoharis argues that King's time in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago--outside Dixie--was at the heart of his campaign for racial justice.
Read it for: A bold retelling, in which King emerges as someone who not only led a movement but showed up for other people's struggles.
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The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America
by Mark Whitaker
What it's about: Malcolm X has become as much of an American icon as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King. But when he was murdered in 1965, he was still seen as a dangerous outsider.
Read it for: Insight into Malcolm's influence, and the deep imprint he has left on the cultural landscape of America.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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