History and Current Events
April 2026

Recent Releases
The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for...
by Emily Galvin Almanza

Co-founder and executive director of Partners for Justice and former public defender Emily Galvin Almanza presents a thought-provoking and incisive examination of the failures of the American criminal justice system and offers solutions for reform. For fans of: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander; Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy
by Josh Ireland

Writer and editor Josh Ireland's fast-paced and compelling history details Soviet espionage efforts during World War II, focusing on the 1940 assassination of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. For fans of: The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre.
American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union...
by Jon Meacham (editor)

Edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham and spanning 1619 to the present, this thought-provoking anthology explores the promises and failures of American democracy, featuring primary sources including speeches, letters, poems, and more. Try this next: Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, edited by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer.
The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster
by Shelley Puhak

Writer and poet Shelley Puhak's (The Dark Queens) nuanced and demythologizing latest examines the life and exploits of 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman Elizabeth Báthory, whose conviction of (and imprisonment for) torturing and murdering 80 girls and women was the result of a smear campaign. It's "a stunning feminist reconsideration of one of history's most reviled villainesses" (Publishers Weekly). Try this next: When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold by Alia Trabucco Zerán.
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