History and Current Events
December 2025

Recent Releases
The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding
by Joseph J. Ellis

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis follows up The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783 with an incisive exploration of how America's Founding Fathers were complicit in slavery and Indigenous dispossession despite their calls for universal freedom. Further reading: Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution by Woody Holton.
Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy
by Julia Ioffe

In this "pensive account of a revolution betrayed" (Kirkus Reviews), Moscow-born journalist Julia Ioffe's National Book Award finalist (as of publication time) explores a century of feminist history in Russia, revealing how women's freedoms after the Russian Revolution have devolved under the regime of Vladimir Putin. Try this next: Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women by Kristen Ghodsee.
We Survived the Night
by Julian Brave NoiseCat

Blending elements of memoir and reportage with oral storytelling traditions, Tsq̓éscen̓ First Nation filmmaker and activist Julian Brave NoiseCat spotlights contemporary Indigenous life in North America, highlighting the triumphs and travails of misrepresented communities. Try this next: Sugarcane, NoiseCat's documentary for which he became the first Indigenous American filmmaker nominated for an Academy Award; Rez Rules: My Indictment of Canada's and America's Systemic Racism Against Indigenous Peoples by Chief Clarence Louie.
 
Also available in audiobook on CloudLibrary
Dead and Alive: Essays
by Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith's wide-ranging and witty latest collects 30 essays and talks penned during the last ten years, offering the author's reflections on pop culture, politics, loss, aging, and more. For fans of: Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson.
2025 Debuts
On My Honor: The Secret History of the Boy Scouts of America
by Kim Christensen

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Kim Christensen's posthumous exposé unflinchingly examines decades of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America, whose known victims number 82,000 and counting. Further reading: Scout Camp: Sex, Death, and Secret Societies Inside the Boy Scouts of America by James Renner.
Lost at Sea: Poverty and Paradise Collide at the Edge of America
by Joe Kloc

Journalist Joe Kloc's compelling debut details how the anchor-outs, an impoverished Sausalito, California community living in abandoned boats, have navigated eviction, homelessness, and dehumanization in their efforts to maintain their way of life. For fans of: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.
Contact your librarian for more great books!