"At age sixty I was ordered to serve as a porter for a white person in a New York hotel, at age eighty to hang up a white guest’s coat at a Washington club where I was not an employee but a member." ~ John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), American historian, Mirror to America
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New and Recently Released!
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| The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind... by Thomas AsbridgeMedieval chivalry required knights to engage in bloody warfare and brutal tournaments in addition to fulfilling the civil expectations of loyalty to their feudal lords. William Marshal was called the "greatest knight" because he excelled in all aspects of knighthood: prevailing in battle, supporting his sovereigns (including Eleanor of Aquitaine and England's Henry II), and managing his own wealth and estates. Historian Thomas Asbridge paints a vivid portrait of Marshal in The Greatest Knight while detailing the customs of chivalry and the 12th-century political context of Marshal's life. This biography will enthrall anyone interested in British history or fascinated by Arthurian chivalric romance. |
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| When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill ManningDuring World War II, when American soldiers needed the morale boost that reading can supply, the War Department commissioned the production and shipment of over 1,300 titles in editions that fit into uniform pockets. The books included everything from Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to collections of popular comic strips to Plato. In When Books Went to War, author Molly Guptill Manning vividly details not only the Armed Services Editions project but the troops' responses to the books, recounted in letters home and later recollections. This fascinating slice of history will captivate both book lovers and World War II buffs. |
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Focus on: African American History
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| The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations by Ira BerlinThis 400-year history of the African-American experience traces four pivotal migrations: the transatlantic slave trade; the relocation of slaves from the coast to antebellum Southern plantations; the "great migration" of black Americans from the rural South to industrial cities in the North; and, since the late 1960s, the arrival of black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe. Historian Ira Berlin focuses on how these movements -- both forced and voluntary -- have shaped African-American history and culture, and his book provides an "insightful meditation on the physical and cultural journeys" (Kirkus Reviews) of African Americans. |
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| The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero's Life and Legacy Revealed Through... by Medgar Wiley Evers; Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable, editorsThe Autobiography of Medgar Evers depicts his life and his work with the NAACP in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s. Evers himself didn't have a chance to write his life story, since an assassin's bullet cut his life short in the midst of his efforts to promote voting rights for African Americans. This book, therefore, consists of letters, speeches, telegrams, and other documents, with background and contextual commentary by historian Manning Marable and Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams. It offers an informative, moving, and sobering account of civil rights work in the Deep South along with a portrait of Evers as a family man and diligent NAACP Field Secretary. |
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| Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New... by Gilbert KingIn this riveting account of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall's criminal defense work early in his legal career, author Gilbert King depicts a 1949 rape case whose ramifications went well beyond the courthouse to lynching and general destruction in the black community of Groveland, Florida. Devil in the Grove, which won a 2013 Pulitzer Prize, vividly depicts the racism and corruption that ruled parts of the South after World War II. For more on white bigotry in the 20th-century South, read David Beasley's Without Mercy. |
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| American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt by Daniel RasmussenThe New Orleans revolt of January 1811, which was the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history, is seldom recalled in history books. Historian Daniel Rasmussen, in this first book-length account of the events, details the massive uprising, its rapid suppression, and the subsequent reprisals against the rebels. Because officials and planters suppressed information about the events and labeled the insurrection a crime rather than a revolt, it neither led directly to other rebellions nor made a significant mark on American history. American Uprising brings this event out of the shadows and persuasively connects it to the larger picture of slavery and the plantation system. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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