Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island
by Mike Pitts

A vital and timely work of historical adventure and reclamation by British archeological scholar Mike Pitts—a book that rewrites the popular yet flawed history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and uses newly unearthed findings and documents to challenge the long-standing historical assumptions about the manmade ecological disaster that caused the island's collapse.

The Chosen and the Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States
by David J. Silverman

In his game-changing new book The Chosen and the Damned, David J. Silverman traces four centuries of Native American history, from the bloody wars for territory that were waged across the colonies to the war of extermination justified as “Manifest Destiny”; from the creation of reservations and forced recruitment into boarding schools to the rise of the Red Power movement and beyond. He reveals how Native people cultivated a distinctive “Indian” identity that contributed to their resistance and resilience as modern tribal people, while also producing contentious disputes within tribes about whether people of mixed race can truly be called kin.

Boston, 1776: A Rogue Tour of Revolution City
by J. D. Dickey

From the harbor wharves and seedy brothels to renowned assembly halls like Old South Meetinghouse and Faneuil Hall, Boston, 1776 leads us on a vivid tour of the vital hub of the Revolutionary War. At every stop along the way, we encounter iconic names like Revere and Adams, but also the forgotten men and women who bled and brawled for freedom in every corner of Boston. Upon America's 250th anniversary, Boston, 1776 portrays the Cradle of Liberty and the American Revolution as never before: raw, radical, and roaring with life.

Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play
by Keza MacDonald

In Super Nintendo, lifelong gamer and a renowned video games journalist Keza MacDonald traces Nintendo back to its quirky beginnings in 1889. Leaping from game to game, she tells the remarkable story of the people who brought us Super Mario Bros., Zelda, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, and more—not to mention the SNES, N64, Game Boy, Wii, Switch, and a host of other wacky gizmos—and charts the delights they've offered over the decades. MacDonald draws on private interviews with icons like Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, who continues to leave his stamp on the company, and takes readers on a trip to the secretive Nintendo HQ—making her one of the few Western journalists to have set foot inside the building.

The Feather Wars: And the Great Crusade to Save America's Birds
by James H. McCommons

From the time the country was founded, early Americans assumed that the land's natural resources were infinite, including its birds, which were zealously hunted for food, game, and fashion. With the rapid extinction of the passenger pigeon--a bird once so numerous that its flocks darkened the sky in flight—many realized actions needed to be taken if other birds were to be saved. What followed was both a spiritual awakening and a great crusade to save birds and their habitat.

Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage
by Heather Ann Thompson

On December 22, 1984, in a graffiti-covered New York City subway car, passengers looked on in horror as a white loner named Bernhard Goetz shot four Black teens, Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur, at point-blank range. He then disappeared into a dark tunnel. Drawing from never-before-seen archival materials, legal files, and more, Heather Ann Thompson narrates the Bernie Goetz Subway shootings and their decades-long reverberations, while deftly recovering the lives of the boys whom too many decided didn't matter. Fear and Fury is the remarkable account and a searing indictment of a crucial turning point in American history.

The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII
by Mark Braude

In 1925, the Indianapolis-born Janet Flanner took an assignment to write a regular 'Letter from Paris' for a lighthearted humor magazine called The New Yorker. She'd come to Paris to with dreams of writing about Beauty with a Capital B. Her employer, self-consciously apolitical, sought only breezy reports on French art and culture. But then she woke to the frightening signs of rising extremism, economic turmoil, and widespread discontent in Europe. While working tirelessly to alert American readers to the dangers of the Third Reich, Flanner covered the crimes, capture, highly politicized trial, and public execution of a German con-man and murderer. 

Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas about Women
by Sarah Ruden

Where do damaging ideas about women come from? The belief that granting women reproductive freedom poses a threat to a natural order—to "traditional" values—is a myth that has long dominated American politics, providing justification for increasing control over women's bodies and lives. Acclaimed translator and independent scholar Sarah Ruden exposes how an ideology that vilified women in service of authoritarianism and power took hold across history, unearthing the evolution of a deep radicalism that still rages into the 21st century.

Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age
by Ibram X. Kendi

Great replacement theory was coined in 2011 by a French novelist who argued that Black and Brown immigrants were invading Europe, brought by shadowy elites to replace the White population. From there, politicians and theorists in the United States and elsewhere repackaged it as a story of globalists welcoming migrant criminals and promoting diversity to take away the jobs, cultures, electoral power, and very lives of White people. Over time, great replacement theory has expanded those under threat to include citizens, men, Jews, Christians, heterosexuals, and ethnic majorities in countries as distinct as Russia, El Salvador, Brazil, Italy, and India, all targeted with the message that they are facing an existential attack that only a strongman can prevent. In Chain of Ideas, internationally bestselling author Ibram X. Kendi offers an unsettling but indispensable global history of how great replacement theory brought humanity into this authoritarian age—and how we can free ourselves from it.

The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History
by Odd Arne Westad

The outbreak of global war among today's Great Powers seems increasingly likely. Such war, as Odd Arne Westad powerfully argues in this urgent book, would be of a magnitude and devastation never before seen. To understand the threats that face us in this complex new terrain, we must look to the lessons of the past, and especially the late nineteenth and early twentieth century--a time when Great Powers clashed and sought regional dominance, nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had failed them; a time when tariffs increased, immigration and terrorism were among the biggest issues of the day, and a growing number of people blamed the citizens of other countries for their problems.

Banning Books in America: Not a How-To
by Book Author

This is a book about banned books in the U.S.—about reading them, teaching them, and assigning them under the shadow of political pressure not to. Banning Books in America features novelists on banning and being banned, arguments about the histories and politics of book banning, readings of banned books in national and international contexts, and responses to new legislation by anti-censorship advocates, teachers, and librarians. Together, these writers and educators provide a view from the trenches of the wars on reading and on educational freedom.

Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship Across America
by Andrew McCarthy

Who Needs Friends charts McCarthy's journey over nearly ten thousand miles behind the wheel, following him on often-unexpected travels through Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, the Chihuahuan Desert, the Rocky Mountains with one driving purpose: to reconnect. Along the way he talks to countless men about their male friendships, from cowboys and blues musicians to preachers and rootless teens. What began as a simple desire to catch up with a few friends turned into a deep exploration of the challenges and rewards that men experience in forming bonds with each other. In McCarthy's own words, It turns out that guys have a difficult time with friendship. But that's not the way it needs to be.

Our next discussion:
Tuesday, April 28, 6:30 pm
Library Conference Room on the Lower Level
If you're a history buff and enjoy reading non-fiction, you might enjoy our new History Book Club! The club meets on the last Tuesday of each month at 6:30pm, but we do recommend confirming details on our events calendar in case of changes. Copies of our next book are on reserve at the Circulation Desk. We hope to see you there!

The Monster's Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World
by David K. Randall

One of Smithsonian Magazine's Ten Best Books of 2022 A gripping narrative of a fearless paleontologist, the founding of America's most loved museums, and the race to find the largest dinosaurs on record.