Cairo: Histories of a City

Nezar Al Sayyad.

AlSayyad, professor of architecture, planning, and urban history at the University of California, Berkeley, has provided a timely and often surprising series of vignettes serving to trace the physical and cultural evolution of the city from the pharaonic period to the present. Each of the dozen vignettes covers a specific historical period, and AlSayyad includes many fascinating details about historical figures and their impact on the city as it grewfrom a tiny settlement to a great metropolis.--Booklist (Check Catalog)

The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs

Jim Rasenberger.

This focused account of the invasion and America's involvement draws new insights from material recently released by the CIA. Bound to be of interest, given the anniversary and current events in Cuba.--Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Rawhide down : the near assassination of Ronald Reagan

Del Quentin Wilber.

Wilber's gripping minute-by-minute account of the day that president Reagan (codename Rawhide) was shot reveals the major players in the drama, including the president's doctors, his would-be assassin, Secret Service agents, White House staffers, Vice President George H.W. Bush, and Nancy Reagan. The first time author, a reporter for The Washington Post, writes with particular empathy for the stunned, shaken doctors and nurses who made a massive effort to overcome the challenges of locating the bullet, repairing the lung, and fighting debilitating blood loss as the 70-year-old president's life hung in the balance--Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, Rfk, Carter, Ford, Reagan

Jeff Greenfield. Greenfield offers three what-if political tales with a familiar cast of Presidents and politicos operating in alternate but plausible historical circumstances. This is a particularly good contribution to the alternate history genre because it relies on nonfiction works, memoirs, and the author's experience as a political pundit. Greenfield's spirited writing reaches its high point when he describes how the Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in a limited nuclear war in 1962 during Lyndon Johnson's presidency (Johnson became President in January 1961, one month after president-elect Kennedy was killed in a bomb explosion). The second story explores Robert F. Kennedy's election and turbulent presidency, following the failed assassination attempt by Sirhan Sirhan after the 1968 California primary. The final scenario weaves a complex web of Gerald Ford defeating Jimmy Carter in 1976, followed by Ford's failed presidency, and the 1980 election of Gary Hart, who defeated Ronald Reagan in a close race.--Library Journal (Check Catalog)

The rise and fall of ancient Egypt

Toby Wilkinson.

Wilkinson, an award-winning Egyptologist who teaches at Oxford, provides a fine single-volume history of ancient Egypt that covers more than 3,000 years, from prehistory to the Roman conquest. He uses a conventional chronological approach that inevitably uses archaeological sources to provide examples. Like his colleagues, Wilkinson expresses admiration for the continuity, stability, and relative harmony of pharaonic Egypt. Yet he is strikingly at odds with other Egyptologists in his efforts to present the darker side of Egyptian life. This superbly written survey is ideal for general readers and likely to engender controversy among specialists.--Booklist (Check Catalog)

Battle of Britain

James Holland.

This massive volume is informative, enthralling, and moving often all three at once. It effectively combines narrative and analysis to tell the story of the confrontation between the Luftwaffe and RAF Fighter Command from May through October 1940. Genuinely brilliant.--Booklist (Check Catalog)

Odessa : genius and death in a city of dreams

By Charles King.

In his intricately researched new work, King (The Black Sea) brings to life the stories of the Russians, Jews, Turks, Greeks, Italians, Germans, and Romanians that make up the "quintessentially mixed city" of Odessa. Far from the Russian and Ukrainian seats of power, but close to Europe, Asia, and the Mediterranean states, Odessa has always been both a progressive, cosmopolitan trading port and a lawless outpost given to periods of violence, revolution, and economic depression. King effortlessly moves between the city's high points, like the booming grain trade in the late-18th and mid-19th centuries and urban development under the duc de Richelieu, and its desperate times, including the economic collapse associated with the Crimean War and the city's devastating Jewish holocaust at the hands of Romanian occupiers in the 1940s. King weaves into his history the lives of Alexander Pushkin, Isaac Babel, and Sergei Eisenstein, all of whom had connections to Odessa, a city still struggling to understand its place in the world. King's ability to lay bare the city's secrets both good and badgives a fascinating prism through which to observe.--Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan

By Francis West.

After making clear the ambiguity and confusion of current American policy, the author writes that America must stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes, learn to fight smarter and neutralize the enemy. He urges reducing conventional U.S. forces and building an advisory task force that can make the Afghan army as battle-ready as the Taliban. --Kirkus (Check Catalog)

The New York State Capitol and the Great Fire of 1911

  by Paul Mercer. In the early morning hours of March 29, 1911, a fire broke out in the New York State Capitol at Albany. By sunset, the entire western portion of the building had sustained extensive structural damage. Within lay the entire collection of the New York State Library, almost completely reduced to ashes. Founded in 1818, this had been one of the finest research libraries in the country and home to innumerable manuscript and printed rarities. In a particularly bitter irony, the fire struck as the overcrowded library was four months away from moving into new, spacious quarters under construction across the street. Miraculously there was only one fatality, an elderly watchman, Samuel Abbott, whose body was not recovered until several days later. Images of America: The New York State Capitol and the Great Fire of 1911 includes recently discovered photographs documenting the construction of the building, beginning in 1867, as well as eyewitness accounts of its destruction. --Summary (Check Catalog)