History and Current Events
by Jelani Cobb and David Remnick, editors
What it is: an insightful anthology of New Yorker pieces on Black culture, life, and politics, published from the 1960s to the present.
Featuring: essays from James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Hilton Als, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sarah M. Broom, Jamaica Kincaid, and more.
Further reading: Say Their Names: How Black Lives Came to Matter in America.
by Joseph J. Ellis
What it is: a thought-provoking history of the American Revolution that explores the complexities and contradictions of the colonists' fight for independence, which they referred to as "The Cause."
Read it for: a richly detailed rethinking of a pivotal era, written with wit and nuance by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis.
Don't miss: profiles of forgotten figures including Mohawk chief Joseph Brant and Billy Lee, George Washington's enslaved valet.
by Anita Hill
What it's about: the pernicious impact of systemic gender-based violence and aggression in American society.
Why you should read it: Brandeis University professor Anita Hill's impassioned latest offers an incisive blend of analysis and reflections of her experience testifying against Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991 for sexual harassment.
Try this next: Me Too movement founder Tarana Burke's Unbound.
by Eli Saslow
What it is: a sweeping and heart-wrenching oral history chronicling the hardships of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What's inside: interviews with a diverse group of subjects including healthcare workers, teachers, business owners, and election officials.
Reviewers say: "This powerful, unputdownable account should be required reading" (Publishers Weekly).
by Abe Streep
What it's about: During the 2017-2018 season, the Arlee Warriors, an underfunded high school basketball team on Montana's Flathead Indian Reservation, set their sights on the state championship title.
Read it for: an inspiring and action-packed tale of a community's triumph over adversity.
You might also like: Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Seasonon the Navajo Nation by Michael Powell.
by Jessica McDiarmid
What it is: a heart-wrenching exposé on British Columbia's Highway 16, known as the "Highway of Tears" because of the disappearances or murders of many Indigenous girls and women in the area.
Why it matters: Journalist Jessica McDiarmid's "powerful must-read" (Booklist) illuminates how these unsolved and underreported crimes are a microcosm of the systemic forces that continue to fail vulnerable Indigenous populations throughout Canada.
by Kliph Nesteroff
What it is: a compelling and well-researched history of Native representation and influence in the American comedy scene.
Featuring: profiles of groundbreaking comics including Will Rogers and Charlie Hill (whose famous punchline serves as the book's title); interviews with currently working comedians.
Did you know? Native performers' origins can be traced to the late 19th-century, when many were forced to serve as attractions in Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows to avoid jail time.
by Lauren Redniss
Welcome to: Oak Flat, a federally protected region of Arizona situated 15 miles west of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation.
What you should know: Sacred to numerous tribes, this area is also of great interest to mining companies, which have been trying to gain access to its copper deposits for decades.
Why you might like it: This journalistic work of "visual nonfiction" follows two families, one Apache and one white, as it reveals the natural and human history of a unique place.
by Claudio Saunt
What it's about: the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which forcibly displaced 80,000 Native Americans from their land.
Why it matters: Historian Claudio Saunt's incisive account debunks the myth that removal was unavoidable and reveals the political machinations behind the state-sponsored "exterminatory warfare."
Reviewers say: "forces a new reckoning with American history" (Publishers Weekly).
by David J. Silverman
What it's about: the complex 50-year alliance between the Wampanoag tribe and European colonizers that ended with King Philip's War, a three-year conflict that almost completely annihilated the Wampanoag.
What sets it apart: This impassioned narrative centers the Wampanoag people's experiences, offering insights into why the alliance was brokered and how the tribe persisted in the face of devastation.
Don't miss: profiles of Wampanoag activists, including Frank James (1923-2001), who established the National Day of Mourning in 1970.
68 Calhoun St.
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Original source can be found here.
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