history

"In 1838, a group of America's most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their mission, the fledgling Georgetown University. Journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns has broken new ground with her prodigious research into a history that the Catholic Church has edited out of its own narrative. Beginning in the present, when two descendants of a family enslaved by the church reconnect, Swarns follows their ancestors through the centuries to understand how slavery enabled the Catholic Church to establish a foothold in America and fuel its expansion. Ann Joice, a free Black woman and progenitor of the Mahoney family, sailed to Maryland in the 1600s as an indentured servant, but her contract was burned and her freedom stolen. Harry Mahoney, Ann's grandson, saved lives and a Church fortune with his quick thinking during the British incursions in the War of 1812. But when the Jesuits fell into debt and were at risk of losing Georgetown University, they sold 272 people, including Harry's daughter Anna, to plantation owners in the Gulf. Like so many of the families the Jesuits' sale tore apart, Anna would never again see her father or her beloved sister Louisa who stayed with Harry in Maryland. Her descendants would work for the Jesuits well into the 20th century. The two sides of the family would remain apart until Swarns' original reporting on the 1838 sale in the New York Times reunited them and led directly to reparations for all the descendants of the enslaved"--Provided by publisher.

"Explores 700 years of writers, thinkers, scientists and artists, all trying to understand what it means to be truly human"--Provided by publisher.

"Man-made climate change may have began in the last two hundred years, but humankind has witnessed many eras of climate instability. The results have not always been pretty: once-mighty civilizations felled by pestilence and glacial melt and drought. But we have one powerful advantage as we face our current crisis: history. The study of ancient climates has advanced tremendously in the past ten years, to the point where we can now reconstruct seasonal weather going back thousands of years, and see just how civilizations and nature interacted. The lesson is clear: the societies that survive are the ones that plan ahead"--Provided by publisher.

"From a . . . surgeon and historian with five decades of experience comes a . . . history of surgery's development--spanning the Stone Age to the present day--blending . . . medical studies with . . . storytelling. There are not many events in life that can be as simultaneously life-frightening and life-saving as a surgical operation. Yet, in America, tens-of-millions of major surgical procedures are performed annually but few of us pause to consider the magnitude of these figures because we have such inherent confidence in surgeons. And, despite . . . debates about healthcare and the . . . fascination with surgical procedures, most of us have no idea how surgeons came to be because the story of surgery has never been fully told. Now, [this book] . . . reveals the . . . history of surgery's evolution from its earliest roots in Europe through its rise to scientific and social dominance in the United States"--Provided by publisher.

Describes in human, political, and scientific detail the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the power of the atom, to the first bombs dropped on Japan.

"Investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom"--Provided by publisher.

"The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly out of pace with our age of smartphones and ridesharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people travel by bicycle than by any other form of transportation. Almost anyone can learn to ride a bike-and nearly everyone does. In Two Wheels Good, writer and critic Jody Rosen reshapes our understanding of this ubiquitous machine, an ever-present force in humanity's life and dreamlife-and a flashpoint in culture wars-for more for than two hundred years"--Provided by publisher.

A young adult adaptation of Tim Madigan's The Burning, which discusses the circumstances of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

"Throughout history and to this day, people of Asian descent have been at the forefront of artistic brilliance, scientific advancement, and athletic excellence"--Provided by publisher.