History and Current Events
May 2025
Recent Releases
Four Red Sweaters: Powerful True Stories of Women and the Holocaust
by Lucy Adlington

Bestselling author and clothes historian Lucy Adlington's well-researched follow-up to The Dressmakers of Auschwitz focuses on four Jewish girls whose experiences during the Holocaust unexpectedly intertwined thanks to their treasured red sweaters. Try this next: All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family's Keepsake by Tiya Miles.
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America
by Brian Goldstone

In a sobering and richly detailed expansion of his viral 2019 article "The New American Homeless," journalist Brian Goldstone follows five Atlanta families experiencing homelessness despite having full-time jobs. Further reading: Seeking Shelter: A Working Mother, Her Children, and a Story of Homelessness in America by Jeff Hobbs.
The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to...
by Joshua Hammer

Journalist Joshua Hammer's (The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu) fast-paced latest chronicles the mid-19th century race among archaeologists and scholars to decode cuneiform script. This evocative adventure tale will appeal to fans of Margalit Fox's The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code. 
The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America
by Kostya Kennedy

Released in time for the 250th anniversary of the event and featuring fresh insights, journalist Kostya Kennedy's accessible history chronicles Paul Revere's fateful midnight ride to warn American minutemen of the British army's impending arrival. Further reading: The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson.
Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children
by Noliwe Rooks

Scholar Noliwe Rooks' thought-provoking history examines how school desegregation efforts in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education have adversely impacted Black students. Further reading: Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing.
Focus on: Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
Asian American Histories of the United States
by Catherine Ceniza Choy

Exploring themes of violence and resistance, Catherine Ceniza Choy's insightful and well-researched work offers illuminating perspectives on the erasure of Asian Americans from United States histories. Further reading: My Life: Growing Up Asian in America edited by the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE).
The Making of Asian America: A History
by Erika Lee

Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Adult Nonfiction in 2016, Erika Lee's sweeping survey of Asian immigration in the United States eschews monolithic conceptions of Asian identity by detailing the specific experiences of people from various ethnic groups. Try this next: The Souls of Yellow Folk by Wesley Yang (the title riffs off of W.E.B. Du Bois' classic work). 
The Eagles of Heart Mountain: A True Story of Football, Incarceration, and Resistance in...
by Bradford Pearson

Journalist Bradford Pearson's well-researched history spotlights the little-known story of the Eagles, a high school football team of Japanese American boys interned at Wyoming's Heart Mountain Relocation Center during World War II. Try this next: Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown.
Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now
by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang

This engaging collection of essays, interviews, playlists, illustrations, and memes explores how Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have impacted politics and popular culture in the last 30 years. Further reading: Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian American Pop Culture edited by Eric Nakamura.
Contact your librarian for more great books!
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