"'It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution,' Tania Branigan writes. During this decade of Maoist fanaticism between 1966 and 1976, children turned on parents, students condemned teachers, and as many as two million people died for their supposed political sins, while tens of millions were hounded, ostracized, and imprisoned. Yet in China this brutal and turbulent period exists, for the most part, as...

"Adam Nicolson crafts a geography of the ancient world and a brilliant exploration of our connections to the past"--

"In Civil War by Other Means, Jeremi Suri, shows how the victory of the Union was never secure and the resistance to it began immediately. Key Confederate figures fled to exile in Mexico after their defeat and returned when they could safely resume their former lives once the threat of Northern domination had been quashed. Many antebellum influences and attitudes lived on secretly, and their creeping influence gradually overwhelmed Lincoln's vision...

"How did a European social dance craze become part of an American presidential election? Why did the recording industry become racially divided? Where did rock 'n' roll really come from? And how do all these things continue to reverberate in today's world?Revolutions in American MusicThrough the music of each decade, we come to see anew the social, cultural, and political fabric of the time. Broyles combines broad historical perspective with an eye...

"A chronicle of Vienna's Golden Age and the influence of Sigmund Freud on the modern world by a clinical psychologist whose mystery novels form the basis of PBS's Vienna Blood series. Some cities are like stars. When the conditions are right, they ignite, and burn with such fierce intensity that they outshine every other city on the planet. Vienna was one such city and, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was the birthplace of the modern mind...

"An entertaining documentary that explores the African culture of Colombia through music. The film presents the music of the Sons of Benkos, one of the most important Black leaders in the fight for freedom during the times of slavery in Colombia. The film also shows the evolution of Afro-Colombian music over time through the fusion of Cuban and contemporary African rhythms with traditional Afro-Colombian music."--Container

"A young adult nonfiction book on how Albany High School handles a racist social media incident that incurs lasting and devastating consequences"--

"A gardener's pandemic journal that combines memoir with an exploration of the natural world both inside and outside the garden. In March 2020, Margot Anne Kelley was watching seeds germinate in her greenhouse. At high risk from illness, the planning, planting, and tending to seedlings took on extra significance. She set out to make her pandemic garden thrive but also to better understand the very nature of seeds and viruses. As seeds became seedlings,...

"An intimate study of Abraham Lincoln's powerful vision of democracy, which guided him through the Civil War and is still relevant today-by best-selling historian and three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize Abraham Lincoln grappled with the greatest crisis of democracy that has ever confronted the United States. While many books have been written about his temperament, judgment, and steady hand in guiding the country through the Civil War, we know...