Driven West : Andrew Jackson's trail of tears to the Civil War

 by A J Langguth. Excluding the most die-hard southern apologists, there is a consensus among historians that the original sin of slavery lay at the root of the sectional strife that developed into the Civil War. Within that consensus, however, there remains considerable debate. Why, for example, did the strife break out into a full-blown civil war, and why did it break out when it did? Langguth asserts that the uprooting of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes under the Jackson administration set in motion a train of events that led to the Mexican War. To illustrate his argument, Langguth traces four decades of American history between the end of the War of 1812 and the end of the Mexican War. He does so primarily by providing examinations of the personalities and actions of key players in those decades, including Henry Clay, John Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, and Cherokee leaders Major Ridge and John Ross. Langguth may not prove a direct line of causation to the Civil War, but he writes well and provides interesting insights into the actions of these men. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

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)

Mao's great famine : the history of China's most devastating catastrophe, 1958-1962

 by Frank D. Kotter. From 1958 to 1962, Mao Zedong oversaw a massive collectivization, announced to the world as his "Great Leap Forward," an attempt to push China, both agriculturally and industrially, into the 20th century. Instead Mao destroyed the lives of millions of Chinese, forcing them to work under inhuman conditions on "the people's" farms. A devastating famine that killed approximately 30 million resulted from poor planning, execution, and widespread corruption. When even Mao's closest colleagues began to point out this folly, Mao consolidated his power and continued down this road of devastation with the "Great Cultural Revolution" (1966-76). Dikotter (Sch. of Oriental & African Studies, Univ. of London; The Discourse of Race in Modern China) writes a compelling account of the Great Leap Forward. Verdict Aided by newly released historical documents detailing the savage infighting and backstabbing of those in power and the extent of the nationwide damage, Dikotter has produced one of the best single-volume resources on the topic. Although a scholarly, heavily footnoted work, its flowing narrative-effectively a cautionary tale on the destructive powers of misguided ambition and blind hubris-reads well. Recommended for specialists as well as interested general readers. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Let the swords encircle me : Iran - a journey behind the headlines

 by Scott Peterson. Few nations contain such stark, violent, and dangerous contradictions as the Iran depicted in this revelatory panorama. Christian Science Monitor correspondent Peterson (Me Against My Brother) presents a country at war with itself: a puritanical, xenophobic theocracy lording over a hedonistic, Western-oriented youth culture; an impoverished economy awash with an oil-rich elite; a quasi-democracy where free-wheeling election debates coexist with a lawless police state and torture chambers. (His narrative culminates with a gripping account of the bloody government crackdown on demonstrators protesting the 2009 presidential election.) Drawing on years of in-country reporting, Peterson pieces together a mosaic of discordant scenes, taking the reader to an American flag-burning rally that embarrasses many of its attendees, a museum dedicated to the country's history of torturing dissidents, and a ski resort where young couples court arrest by kissing in public. He sketches a colorful gallery of Iranians, including mullahs and politicians, heavy-metal rockers, avant-garde artists, dour war veterans steeped in a cult of martyrdom, and callow lotharios. Incisive, humane, and full of vivid reportage, Peterson's sprawling study is perhaps the best account we have of Iran's complex, embattled reality. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Cradle of gold : the story of Hiram Bingham, a real-life Indiana Jones, and the search for Machu Picchu

 by Christopher Heaney.  On an archaeological trip to Peru on July 24, 1911, Hiram Bingham, an American explorer and history professor at Yale, happened upon the ruins of the Inca city of Machu Picchu. Although the site was already known to the local native people, Bingham made the Machu Picchu ruins famous and received acclaim as their "discoverer." Heaney presents a well-researched and very readable biography of Bingham from his childhood in Hawaii as the son of missionaries, through his education and careers as historian, educator, explorer, and finally politician. He probes the depths of Bingham's work and character, examining setbacks, scandals, and achievements and skillfully unraveling Bingham's role in the controversy that still exists today between the government of Peru and Yale University over the ownership of the Machu Picchu burials and artifacts. Heaney shows Bingham as a complex and ambitious man inculcated with the racial attitudes of his time, but he also convincingly shows that despite his shortcomings, Bingham made a significant contribution to the study of South American archaeology and Inca history. The book's title is something of a misnomer, as Bingham found no gold at Machu Picchu, and the name "cradle of gold" is used in the text to refer to a different Incan archaeological site that Bingham visited. VERDICT Recommended for history and archaeology enthusiasts interested in a detailed account of the life of an archaeological icon. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)