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History and Current Events October 2026 |
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National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America by Michael AuslinThomas Jefferson was not the obvious choice to draft a statement of principles explaining why the American colonies were breaking ties with the King of England. Yet his soaring rhetoric, refined in small but indelible ways by Benjamin Franklin, would unite even the most bitter rivals around a common ideal. Michael Auslin tells the inspiring story of our most revered founding document, as a physical object and a set of ideals that have made America what it is today. Through it all, as the country has grown from 4 million to 40 million to 400 million, Jefferson's words have inspired immigrants to become American and fueled implausibly varied causes, from abolitionists, suffragists, socialists and civil rights leaders to groups waging war on the US Government. Over time, as Jefferson hoped, the principles set forth in the Declaration became a beacon to the world. But what lessons should we take from them today? Can this statement of ideals in whose name the signers pledged their lives and sacred honor bring a fractured nation together? As we gather to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our bold experiment in democracy, Auslin reminds us that this enduring document was an eloquent statement of the principles that, for all our differences, still bind us together. For fans of: Tom Paine's War: The Words |
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Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America's Future by Fergus M. BordewichFergus M. Borderwich tells the spectacular story of America's hundredth birthday bash--the country's first world's fair and a moment of reckoning for a nation barrelling toward the Gilded Age. Those who were there felt that the wheel of history itself had turned before their eyes. Held at Fairmount Park, in Philadelphia, the Great Centennial Exhibition of 1876 attracted 10 million Americans--nearly 20 percent of the population, among them P. T. Barnum, Frederick Douglass, and Mark Twain--and visitors from around the world, including the emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro (who couldn't get enough of the exhibition). This celebration of America's first century came at a moment when its future seemed more precarious than ever--as big money threatened to overwhelm the government, underpaid workers waged the first national labor strike, feminists demanded rights for women, Native tribes went to war to repel the advancing settlement in the West, and Black Americans struggled to exercise their hard won freedom. Try this next: |
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From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan by Suzy HansenSuzy Hansen went looking for the truth behind the headlines of the Turkish president Erdoğan's authoritarian turn, a catastrophic regional war, and an accelerating geopolitical crisis. She asks: Was Turkey a harbinger of what would soon arise in other countries, the resurgence of authoritarianism? Or do the lives of this neighborhood, and the transformations of Erdoğan's Turkey, reveal a more complex story? During a decade spent reporting from Karagumruk, she discovered the neighborhood's secrets and got to know its people: Ismail, the longtime muhtar, or neighborhood councilman; Huseyin, a loyalist for Erdoğan's Islamic nationalist AK party; and Ebru, a real estate agent and mother with ambitions to unseat Ismail. Through these local perspectives, Hansen connects the events unfolding in Karagümrük to the forces roiling Turkey, the Middle East, and the world, capturing the sweep of the last ten years in microcosm. Further reading: |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Forsyth County Public Library
585 Dahlonega Street, Cumming, Georgia 30040
770-781-9840ForsythPL.org |
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