Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary People Discovered Their Pasts

By Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

The complex immigrant story of the United States viewed through extensive genetic and genealogical research into the backgrounds of 12 ethnically diverse, famous Americans.
Renowned scholar Gates (African American Studies/Harvard Univ.; The Signifying Monkey, 2010, etc.), who narrated the recent PBS mini-series on which this book is based, selected people of accomplishment who interested him, including writers, a director, a chef, a musician, a comedian, a physician, a figure skater, even a queen. With the assistance of genealogical researchers and geneticists, he explored their very different backgrounds and shared his findings with his subjects—not only about their named ancestors but also about what their genes revealed about their family trees. After an introduction and some explanatory notes about DNA testing, Gates offers 12 similarly structured chapters. First he briefly cites the subject's accomplishments, tells why he or she is part of the project and provides a brief biographical sketch. In the next section, the author puts the ancestors' personal stories into a broader historical context. Finally he tells each subject what the DNA tells him about the subject's ancestral lineage, where his ancestors probably lived in the distant past, how they are linked with others on the human family tree and what percentage of the subject's heritage is European, African or Asian/Native American. Each chapter concludes with the subject's reaction to the facts and the linkages that Gates has uncovered for them—e.g., Mike Nichols was thrilled to learn that he is a distant cousin of Albert Einstein, and Malcolm Gladwell was stunned to learn that his mixed-race Jamaican ancestors were slave-owners. Other subjects include such luminaries as Meryl Streep, Yo-Yo Ma, Stephen Colbert, Mario Batali and Mehmet Oz.
While the personal discoveries provide human interest in a sometimes tedious recitation of genealogical information and technical genetic data, it is the broader sweep of history and the causes and ramifications of human migrations that engage the reader and give the book its impact.

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A Nation Rising: Untold Tales of Flawed Founders, Fallen Heroes, and Forgotten Fighters from America's Hidden History

By Kenneth C. Davis

Bestselling author Davis reprises the "hidden" concept that enlivened his America's Hidden History by pulling stories out from the crucial first fifty years of the nineteenth century and probing their complexities. Hidden, indeed, were aspects of these episodes: Burr's 1807 trial with its political intrigue; the "Bible Riots" in Philadelphia reflecting the anti-immigrant sentiments of the times; a mutiny aboard a slave ship that exemplifies the destructive grip of racism on personal and national life. Davis raises the issues of ambition, power, intolerance, civil rights, freedom of the press, and more that frustrated our beginnings and shape our present still.

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Aftermath : following the bloodshed of America's wars in the Muslim world

 by Nir Rosen. This could not be a more timely or trenchant examination of the repercussions of the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Journalist Rosen has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and Harper's, among other publications, and authored In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq (2006). His on-the-ground experience in the Middle East has given him the extensive contact network and deep knowledge advantages that have evaded many, stymied by the great dangers and logistical nightmares of reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan. This work is based on seven years of reporting focused on how U.S. involvement in Iraq set off a continuing chain of unintended consequences, especially the spread of radicalism and violence in the Middle East. Rosen offers a balanced answer to the abiding question of whether our involvement was worth it. Many of his points have been made by others, but Rosen's accounts of his own reactions to what he's witnessed and how he tracked down his stories are absolutely spellbinding. --Booklist (Check catalog)

Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America

By Daniel R. Biddle & Murray Dubin
 
Killed in an 1871 Philadelphia Election Day riot to keep blacks from voting, Octavius Valentine Catto (1839–71) was a gifted schoolteacher, spellbinding classical orator, and first-rate second baseman. Most important, he was a civil rights activist. With fellow blacks who called themselves a "band of brothers," Catto pushed to desegregate streetcars, secure voting rights, and demand rigor in schools in Pennsylvania and its self-styled City of Brotherly Love during the turbulent Civil War era. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Biddle and his retired Philadelphia Inquirer colleague Dubin here recount Catto's life. In brightly written, accessible, detail-packed prose, they follow Catto from birth in Charleston, SC, through his family's move north, his schooling, and his camaraderie with the likes of black leaders such as Frederick Douglass. The captivating story illustrates the too often neglected street battles for black rights in northern cities long before the hot summers of the 1960s. VERDICT Biddle and Dubin have produced an entrancing portrait of a leading Renaissance man for equal rights; their book demands attention from students of the theme, time, and place. Nothing matches it at the moment as a prequel to Thomas J. Sugrue's much-noted Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North.

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Year of meteors : Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the election that brought on the Civil War

 by Douglas R. Egerton. In the wake of the first election of an African American as President of the United States, Egerton (history, LeMoyne Coll.; Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America) examines the importance of race in the presidential election of 1860, when a relatively unknown candidate came from behind to be elected to the nation's highest office. Following the fortunes of Democrat Stephen Douglas, Republican Abraham Lincoln, and a host of others significant to the election, Egerton highlights the central role played by race in the dynamics of political party, sectionalism, and politics generally in the election after which the nation was plunged into Civil War. VERDICT Heavily documented, relying on substantial primary and manuscript sources, this book sheds new light on an often researched topic. All those with an interest in the importance of race in the nation's history will want to acquire this highly readable work, even if they own other recent studies of the election, such as Gary Ecelbarger's The Great Comeback: How Abraham Lincoln Beat the Odds To Win the 1860 Republican Nomination. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)