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History and Current Events September 2026 |
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Japan's Infamous Unit 731: First-Hand Accounts of Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program
by Hal Gold
This is a riveting and disturbing account of the medical atrocities performed in China during WWII. Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments in the name of science and Japan's wartime chemical and biological warfare research. Author Hal Gold draws upon a wealth of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities. The book presents the words of former unit members themselves, taken from remarks they made at a traveling Unit 731 exhibition held in Japan in 1994-95. They recount vivid first-hand memories of what it was like to take part in horrific experiments on men, women and children, their motivations and reasons why they chose to speak about their actions all these years later. A new foreword by historian Yuma Totani examines the actions of Unit 731, the post-war response by the Allies and the lasting importance of the book. Japan's Infamous Unit 731 represents an essential addition to the growing body of literature on the still unfolding story of some of the most infamous war crimes in modem military history. By showing how the ethics of normal men and women, and even an entire profession, can be warped by the fire of war, this important book offers a window on a time of human madness and the hope that history will not be repeated.
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| The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything by Kathryn Jezer-MortonThe Cut columnist Kathryn Jezer-Morton (Wake Up: Essays on Redefining Our Relationship with Time and Technology) utilizes intimate interviews with everyday social media users to explore how social media complicates identity and impacts how people represent (or mis-represent) themselves to others. Try this next: All the Feels: How to Stay Human in the Digital World by Pamela Pavliscak. |
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| The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818-1915 by Joseph KellyHistorian Joseph Kelly's well-researched revisionist account explores the origins of American fascism in the Antebellum South, detailing how the 1818 Missouri Compromise helped advance the ideology. Further reading: The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy by Steven J. Ross. |
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Old Glory: Iconic Flags and the Stories They Tell of America's 250-Year History
by Roland Miller
A collection of profiles of 50 historically significant American flags that chronicle the history of the country, timed to celebrate our nation's 250th anniversary Few symbols hold the gravity and inspiration of the American flag. It has encouraged heroics in trying times, soothed the nation after tremendous trauma, brightened the eyes of citizens, and offers comfort and hope. Beginning with the flag's earliest incarnation, a banner of alternating red and white stripes that hung on Boston's Liberty Tree years before there was a United States, Old Glory tells an intertwined story of fifty flags and fifty milestone moments that, woven together, create a unique portrait of the nation's history and the flag that represents it. There's the Betsy Ross flag, of course. The country's first official ensign, its arrangement of stars and stripes became the template for flags to follow, though the story of how it came about may be more legend than fact. There's the massive garrison flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 and inspired what would soon be known as The Star- Spangled Banner. How massive? Each star was two feet in diameter. Again and again, we explore the symbiosis of the flag and history: The flag that cradled the dying Lincoln. A suffragette flag with just four stars, representing the first four states that gave women the power to vote. The flag that the crew of Apollo 11 planted on the moon. The flag raised at Ground Zero. And flags in pop culture, from Wonder Woman's costume to Jasper Johns's breakthrough paintings to the flag's use as a motif throughout Easy Rider. For over 250 years the flag has stood as a symbol of democracy and freedom, a way to express America's ideals, an image to rally around. These fifty profiles of flags through history are one more way to understand and celebrate the grand and complicated experiment that is the United States.
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The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic
by Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell's most urgent book yet: a provocative investigation of America's epidemic of gun violence. The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why? In this groundbreaking book, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American peculiarity--how the world's wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world's poorest countries. Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy? In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it.
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| Tin Can Coast: A History of Industry, Greed, and Fishing in the Golden State by Joseph OgilvyIn his sweeping and eye-opening debut, chef and author Joseph Ogilvy explores the complexities of the California coast, detailing how the area's industries and ecosystems have been shaped by the exploitation of immigrant laborers. For fans of: The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California by Mark Arax. |
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The Vampire's Cult: The Untold Story of Obsession, Control, and a Shocking Small-Town Murder
by Chet Hardin
A self-proclaimed vampire.His harem of witches.And the small-town murder that shocked America.When twenty-four-year-old Sydney Loofe disappeared after a Tinder date, the quiet town of Wilber, Nebraska was stunned. Days later, her dismembered body was found scattered across nearby fields--and the horrifying truth began to emerge. Sydney hadn't just met the wrong man. She had crossed paths with a deeply disturbed psychopath and his dangerous accomplice.In The Vampire's Cult, investigative journalist Chet Hardin exposes the twisted world of Aubrey Trail, an aging con man who presented himself as an all-powerful being, and Bailey Boswell, the woman who called herself his queen. Together, they lured vulnerable young women into a spiral of sex, theft, and psychological manipulation--with deadly consequences.Through exclusive interviews, firsthand reporting, and chilling detail, Hardin unravels the making of a modern cult--and the social desperation that feeds it. In an era defined by false realities and toxic charisma, The Vampire's Cult reveals just how easily darkness can disguise itself as devotion.
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