History and Current Events
August 2021
Recent Releases
An Atlas of Extinct Countries
by Gideon Defoe

What's inside: An irreverent survey of 48 nations that no longer exist, accompanied by illustrated maps and cheeky footnotes.

Featuring: The Great Republic of Rough and Ready, the California town that seceded from the Union in 1850; an extraterritorial maternity ward in Canada, where Princess Margriet of the Netherlands was born in 1943. 

Also available in eBook on Hoopla
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and...
by Kate Moore

What it's about: In 1860, independent-minded housewife and mother of six Elizabeth Packard was committed to an asylum by her husband, enduring three years of abuse alongside other "hysterical" women.

What happened next: Throughout her institutionalization, Packard documented her experiences, becoming a tireless activist for women's rights and mental health reform.

Also available in eBook on Hoopla
The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID
by Lawrence Wright

What it is: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright's well-researched and comprehensive chronicle of the first year of COVID-19. 

Read it for: A sobering account of how bureaucratic red tape, government malfeasance, and misinformation spurred the disease's spread, featuring interviews with scientists and public health experts.

Did you know? In May 2020, Wright published the eerily prescient pandemic thriller The End of October.  
Contact your librarian for more great books!