Books

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• 12/13/2020
  

  How Hudson Stuck's Ascent of Denali Boosted Recognition of Indigenous Alaskans

  by Patrick Dean

  Hudson Stuck came to America from England in 1885 and lived a life that echoed the era's adventure books, with one important twist. He leveraged his fame from summitting North America's highest peak to advocate for the rights of native Alaskans, beginning with insisting that the mountain he climbed be known by its indigenous name, Denali. 

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• 12/13/2020
  

  Reflections on Fredrik Logevall's "JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956"

  by Sheldon M. Stern

  Fredrik Logevall's new JFK biography is one of the first by a historian who did not personally experience the Kennedy years. Longtime JFK Library historian says this is all to the good, as Logevall makes extensive use of available primary sources to place Kennedy's political and diplomatic views in the context of his formative experiences in wartime. 

• 
• 12/13/2020
  

  Review of Robert Putnam’s "The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again"

  by Walter G. Moss

  Robert Putnam's book on the "Great Divergence" toward economic inequality, political polarization and social fragmentation contains ample historical generalization, but asks big questions that it will be worth historians' time to engage. 

• 
• 12/6/2020
  

  How Wood Helped America Become Great – But Mislay its Sense of History

  by Roland Ennos

  Industrializing America's infrastructure was much more likely than Europe's to be made of wood. This accident of nature and geography helped drive rapid expansion, but today means much of the 19th century built environment of the United States has vanished. 

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• 12/6/2020
  

  How Venetians Invented Health Care

  by Meredith F. Small

  It's been widely discussed during this pandemic year that Venetians invented the quarantine. But the author of a new book on Venice's history of innovation argues that it was just one of the public health measures for which we can thank them.

• 
• 12/6/2020
  

  Is There Anything Left to Learn about Hitler?

  by James Thornton Harris

  Volker Ullrich presents a picture of a leader whose "egocentrism... inability to self-criticize…tendency to overestimate himself... contempt for others and lack of empathy" made him willing to destroy his nation along with himself, but warns that the Third Reich was "a dictatorship of consent." 

• 
• 11/8/2020
  

  How Two French Introverts Quietly Fought the Nazis

  by Jeffrey H. Jackson

  Two introverted French Lesbian artists conducted a campaign of subversion against the Nazis occupying the Island of Jersey that a trial judge called "more dangerous than soldiers." A new book explains how.

• 
• 10/25/2020
  

  An Interview with Ian W. Toll, author of "Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945"

  by James Thornton Harris

  "Military histories have tended to take a “stay in your lane” approach, adhering to accounts of battles and operations. I prefer to weave the strands of politics and foreign policy into the fabric of the narrative."

• 
• 10/18/2020
  

  Where In The World Are You? How My Great-Grandmother’s Letters Helped Me Locate My Great-Uncle after 78 Years

  by Hazel Gaynor

  "Disaster and tragedy are often where we find our strongest bonds, and as we find ourselves separated from family and distanced from loved ones, stories of community and shared hope are, arguably, more important than ever."

• 
• 10/18/2020
  

  "The Silent Guns of Two Octobers" Reviewing a New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

  by Sheldon M. Stern

  Longtime JFK Library historian Sheldon Stern offers a review of a new book on the diplomatic resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

• 
• 10/11/2020
  

  Paris, City of Dreams: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann and the Creation of Paris

  by Jeff Roquen

  Nothing can compare to a visit to Paris, but until international travel resumes, readers can learn how the modern city was built through Mary McAulliffe's book. 

• 
• 10/4/2020
  

  Andrew Rotter's "Sensual Empires: Britain and America in India and the Philippines"

  by Shannon Bontrager

  Andrew Rotter extends recent work in sensory history to the study of imperialism, documenting how British and American colonialism depended on the connection between sensory experience and racial and nationalist ideology.

• 
• 9/27/2020
  

  Was Charles Lindbergh a Man Who Got Away?

  by Lise Pearlman

  A new book reexamines the possible role of Charles Lindbergh himself in the 1932 kidnapping of his son, once the "crime of the century."  

• 
• 9/27/2020
  

  The Troubling History of a Black Man's Heart

  by Chip Jones

  What Virginia doctors saw as a triumphant achievement was a devastating indictment of medical racism and institutional disregard for the dignity of a Black man and his family.

• 
• 9/20/2020
  

  Rick Perlstein’s Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976-1980

  by James Thornton Harris

  Rick Perlstein's latest volume in his study of the rise of the conservative movement focuses on the coming of Reaganism, but sheds light on how we got Trump.

• 
• 9/20/2020
  

  “We Are Ourselves”: Review of For Workers’ Power: The Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton

  by Eric Laursen

  Maurice Brinton--the pseudonym of a British neurologist--authored an influential series of works of radical political thought that urged the British left to move away from rigid party structures and doctrinal disputes toward social movements. 

• 
• 9/13/2020
  

  Native Actors Outside the Frame

  by Liza Black

  Liza Black's new book traces the lives of prominent and anonymous Native actors, examinng the way that Hollywood films exploited their labor and images while spinning narratives that justified the historical conquest of Native lands.

• 
• 9/13/2020
  

  Richard Haass on the Need for Historically Informed Policy in a Changing World

  by David O'Connor

  "A democracy requires that its citizens be informed, and it was evident far too many citizens in the United States and other countries could not be described as globally literate."

• 
• 9/6/2020
  

  A Coup of "Clerqs"?: Anne Applebaum's "Twilight of Democracy" Reviewed

  by David O'Connor

  Anne Applebaum's new book looks with concern at the rise of right-wing populism in Europe and the loyal party functionaries who enable its march. 

• 
• 8/30/2020
  

  The Proud City: Patrick Abercrombie's Unfulfilled Plan for Rebuilding London

  by Simon Jenkins

  In 1942, the British government endorsed a plan that turned the Blitz into an opportunity for massive centrally-planned rebuilding of London. This was a break from the previous anarchic pattern of development, and, for better or worse, today's eclectic metropolis owes its form to the failure of the plan.