History and Cultures

The letters and thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, members of the Corps of Discovery, their guide Sacagawea, and Captain Lewis’s Newfoundland dog, all tell of the historic exploratory expedition to seek a water route to the Pacific Ocean.

The perils of life under the brutal Pol Pot regime change a young woman’s life forever, as she and her family find themselves fugitives of war, without even their names to remind them of what they lost.

With considerable research and extensive interviews, Tim Weiner shows the grave miscalculations that have plagued the Central Intelligence Agency since its inception.

The Civil War was lost long before the first shot was ever fired, thanks to deep and violent divisions of class and political allegiance that resulted in “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

A man struggles to come to terms with his parents’ brutal past at Auschwitz in this seminal graphic novel.

Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution is beautifully rendered in this graphic novel series.

The “Hollywood” where Sammy Santos and Juliana Ríos live is not the West Coast one, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edge of a small town in southern New Mexico. Sammy and this friends—members of the 1969 high school graduating class—face a world of racism, dress codes, war in Vietnam and barrio violence. In the summer before his senior year begins, Sammy falls in love with Juliana, a girl whose tough veneer disguises a world of hurt.

When Harry Reasoner thrust a microphone at an angry mob, and yelled “I don’t care what you’re going to do to me, but the whole world is going to know it!” he spoke for all the reporters and photographers, black and white, north and south, who played a critical role in bringing the reality of the Civil Rights movement into the living rooms and consciousness of the American public.

Three generations of settlers and native Dakota weave a dark tale of family secrets and brutal injustice in Civil War era America.

The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair captured the imagination of the whole world, and also provided a playground for a cunning serial killer.

Pulitzer prizing winning journalist Horwitz uses humor and candor to literally follow in the footsteps of the first American explorers—from the Vikings and French utopians to America’s first African-American trailblazer—whose discoveries took place hundreds of years before the mythical landing on Plymouth Rock.

Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation—as well his own slaves. When he dies, things begin to fall apart at the plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave “speculators” sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.

In his day, Long Tack Sam was an acrobat, a magician, an entrepreneur, a world traveler, a celebrity, a father, a ladies man, and a husband. This graphic collage biography pairs narrative writing, handbills, photographs, and news clippings along with interviews, comics, and commentary to convey the inevitable effects of cultural shifts and global politics on individual lives.

“Ghetto nerd,” outcast, and anime-loving Oscar Wao is the latest in a long line of doomed generations to suffer the dreaded fuku curse of his native Dominican Republic. With humor and talent as his weapons, he perseveres, knowing “you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.”

What do the lack of Icelandic fisherman, the 2008 Chinese Olympics, and Easter Island tree cutters all have in common? Much more than you might think. Collapse explores the political, technological, and ecological decisions which merge in order to sustain or destroy societies.

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea is a black-and-white graphic novel by the Canadian Québécois author Guy Delisle. The novel details the months Delisle spent in Pyongyang while working for a French animation company.

From Hitler Youth to hunted “mischling,” Daniel’s world unravels when he discovers his mother’s hidden history “taints” him with Jewish blood and marks him for extermination.

In December 1937, the Japanese army invaded the ancient city of Nanking, systematically raping, torturing, and murdering more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. This book tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved many. 

A journalist explores the pristine “Emerald City,” the American government’s enclave in the middle of war-torn Baghdad.

“Who will remember the Armenians?” Hitler asked, referencing the Armenian genocide as his inspiration for the final solution. This brutal hidden chapter of history is seen through the eyes of 12-year-old survivor Vahan Kendarian, whose world was shattered within a matter of days.

“Rotten English” spans the globe to offer an overview of the best non-standard English writing of the past two centuries, with a focus on the most recent decades. The book collects the poetry, essays, short stories, and novels of the best in global vernacular writing from Mark Twain to Junot Diaz.

This non-fiction account of a medical crisis in the Hmong community is as compelling as any novel. When baby Lia is born to a Hmong family, she shows signs of possibly epilepsy. Conflicting medical opinions between the traditional Hmong and the American medical establishment show that neither side is completely right.

When Junior gets a chance to leave the reservation school and attend a far-away white high school, he must deal with prejudice not only from his new schoolmates, but from those he left behind.