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History and Current Events April 2026 |
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Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz
by József Debreczeni
József Debreczeni, a prolific Hungarian-language journalist and poet, arrived in Auschwitz in 1944; had he been selected to go left, his life expectancy would have been approximately forty-five minutes. One of the lucky ones, he was sent to the right, which led to twelve horrifying months of incarceration and slave labor in a series of camps, ending in the Cold Crematorium--the so-called hospital of the forced labor camp Dörnhau, where prisoners too weak to work awaited execution. But as Soviet and Allied troops closed in on the camps, local Nazi commanders--anxious about the possible consequences of outright murder--decided to leave the remaining prisoners to die in droves rather than sending them directly to the gas chambers. Debreczeni recorded his experiences in Cold Crematorium, one of the harshest, most merciless indictments of Nazism ever written. This haunting memoir, rendered in the precise and unsentimental style of an accomplished journalist, is an eyewitness account of incomparable literary quality. The subject matter is intrinsically tragic, yet the author's evocative prose, sometimes using irony, sarcasm, and even acerbic humor, compels the reader to imagine human beings in circumstances impossible to comprehend intellectually. First published in Hungarian in 1950, it was never translated into a world language due to McCarthyism, Cold War hostilities and antisemitism. More than 70 years later, this masterpiece that was nearly lost to time will be available in 15 languages, finally taking its rightful place among the greatest works of Holocaust literature.
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| Kennedy's Coup: A White House Plot, a Saigon Murder, and America's Descent Into Vietnam by Jack CheeversIn his richly detailed latest, political reporter Jack Cheevers (Act of War) utilizes previously unavailable government documents to chronicle the Kennedy administration's role in the 1963 ousting and assassination of South Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem. Try this next: All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer. |
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No One's Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There's Nowhere Else to Turn
by Kevin Hazzard
From the award-winning author of American Sirens and A Thousand Naked Strangers comes a real-life thriller about the most daring rescue in air-medical history. JULY 2014. Two American medical volunteers who joined the fight against the deadliest Ebola outbreak in world history have gotten infected. The virus kills in just over a week and they're trapped in a hot zone with the clock ticking. If there's going to be a rescue it has to happen now. The very notion of getting the patients out is a radical and dangerous idea. Bringing them home might cause an outbreak of Ebola here in the US. No one's certain if it can or should be done or if they'll even survive the flight. In fact, the only thing anyone can agree on is that there's just one group of people resourceful enough (or crazy enough) to pull this off. Thousands of miles away and deep in the north Georgia mountains, a phone rings at Phoenix Air. It's the US government calling with another impossible mission. Kevin Hazzard chronicles the ten frantic days that followed that phone call, dropping readers into the center of a first-of-its-kind international rescue. Phoenix Air, an eccentric band of engineers, pilots, and doctors with a reputation for doing things nobody else could, would become a lifeline to the world. Terrifying, fascinating, and inspiring, No One's Coming is a story of selfless heroes on both sides of the Atlantic who overcome the apathy and resistance of their own governments and communities, risking their lives to save others--once again proving that ordinary people are capable of overcoming the most extraordinary of problems. As contagions spring up around the world, this story of outbreaks and the people who fight them resonates more than ever.
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The Feather Wars: And the Great Crusade to Save America's Birds
by James H. McCommons
A definitive history of bird conservation in America. (Kirkus Reviews, starred)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. The campaign took place on many battlefields: society teas in Boston, hunt clubs on the East Coast, the mangroves in the Everglades, and in the editorial pages of newspapers and periodicals. From many corners of the country the bird protection movement was born and brought together a remarkable coalition of people and organizations to save America's birds. The Feather Wars is an entertaining and expansive work of American history, an incredible story about how disparate characters--progressive politicians, free-thinking society belles, nature writers and artists, bird-loving U.S. presidents, gunmakers, business titans, and brave game wardens--came together to save hundreds of species of birds. Heroes, martyrs, villains, and conflicted do-gooders--the early bird conservation movement had them all. Together they transformed how Americans thought and cared about birds, forever altering the American landscape.
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| 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. |
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Witness to War
by J. Mark Powell
From the first shots at Fort Sumter to the mourning of Lincoln's death-experience the Civil War as it happened, through the voices of those who were there.History comes to life in the words of those who lived through the American Civil War.The Civil War was one of the great events of United States history, and the widespread literacy of the mid-nineteenth century made it possible for an unprecedented number of Americans to record their thoughts, observations, descriptions, and opinions of the war. This book prints more than 500 letters-all of them in print for the first time-to reveal life during the Civil War. Presented chronologically from Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 through his assassination in 1865, the letters follow the entire arc of the Civil War as it unfolds in real time through the words of everyday people-military and civilian, Union and Confederate, white and black, men, women, and even a few children. In their own words, they offer deeply held opinions about Lincoln, slavery, abolition, and the war; sometimes humorous observations on the course of the conflict and its leaders; poignant expressions of grief for the fallen and longing for the absent; and unforgettable descriptions of combat from First Manassas to Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and more.Highlights from the letters include: People about here talk of nothing now but pork and politics. Pork, however, will soon be all sold, and then we'll hear of nothing but secession. South Carolina needs a good mauling.Them damn abolitionists are a blowing their horn, 'Why don't the army move?' I would like to have some of them down here with a knapsack on that weighs about 200 lbs. I would run them on the double quick all day long.I don't care how soon you desert and come home and your folks don't care either. How I wish you would have taken my advice and stayed at home with me. Oh Joe, desert and come home.I was under the enemy's fire for 7 days. You said something about the woods burning. They was burning some as the cannon fired them. We fought through the fires and whipped them back.The nation has met with a sore bereavement by the sudden death of our President. I hope they will find the vile assassin that perpetrated the hellish deed and make him stretch hemp on the first tree that they come to after they catch him.Witness to War lets the participants speak for themselves, offering a fresh, human perspective on a war that still holds and haunts us more than 150 years later.
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| The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster by Shelley PuhakWriter 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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| El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory by Jazmine UlloaIn her richly detailed debut, New York Times reporter Jazmine Ulloa spotlights the border town of El Paso, Texas, known as "the new Ellis Island," revealing over a century of its history through the experiences of five families who have shaped the area. Further reading: The Crossing: El Paso, the Southwest, and America's Forgotten Origin Story by Richard Parker. |
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