Books for Constitution Day

Constitution Day commemorates the formation and signing of the United States Constitution on September 17th, 1787. This collection of titles provides insight into how the Constitution has been amended and utilized to define the basic rights of United States citizens and highlights the cases and people who fought for those rights.

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Greg Grandin’s America, América: A New History of the New World

From Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Greg Grandin, America, América is the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere. It offers a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both.   1. Leaves of Grass Philosophy begins in wonder,” Socrates said. It matures, Hegel added, in terror, on the “slaughter bench” of history.

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Books for Labor Day

Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. We remember workers who have organized and fought throughout the labor movement to give workers the protections they have today, and those who continue to fight for equal and fair labor. The following books offer history and analysis of the labor

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Calvin Duncan and Sophie Cull’s The Jailhouse Lawyer

A searing and ultimately hopeful account of Calvin Duncan, “the most extraordinary jailhouse lawyer of our time” (Sister Helen Prejean), and his thirty-year path through Angola after a wrongful murder conviction, his coming-of-age as a legal mind while imprisoned, and his continued advocacy for those on the inside.   Prologue “Whether I shall turn out

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Alan Weisman’s Hope Dies Last

The bestselling author of The World Without Us returns with a book ten years in the making: a study of what it means to be a human on the front lines of our planet’s existential crisis. Hope Dies Last fills a crucial gap in the global conversation: Having reached a point of no return in

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The Fate of the Day Author Rick Atkinson Discusses George Washington and Personal Research Strategies

Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and #1 New York Times bestselling author of The British Are Coming, is renowned for vivid narratives of American military history. His latest book, The Fate of the Day, is the second volume of his acclaimed American Revolution trilogy. In this gripping installment, Atkinson chronicles the pivotal middle years of

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Lara Marlowe’s How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying

Publishing on the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine: The gripping, heartrending story, told in her own words, of a formidable 29-year-old woman serving as a commander on the front lines of the War in Ukraine — and an intimate, hair-raising look at modern warfare.   lynove, 2016 The Ukrainian army gives me very

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Brian Goldstone’s There Is No Place for Us

Through the “revelatory and gut-wrenching” (Associated Press) stories of five Atlanta families, this landmark work of journalism exposes a new and troubling trend—the dramatic rise of the working homeless in cities across America.   1 Britt scrutinized her face in the bathroom mirror, hoping she looked less tired than she felt. Sleep had been hard

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A Letter from Lara Marlowe, author of How Good It Is I Have No Fear OF Dying

I spent the last two weeks of August 2023 in Ukraine for The Irish Times, my third trip since February 2022. In the course of my reporting, I interviewed Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko for an article about women in the Ukrainian military. She is one of the most extraordinary people I have interviewed in 42 years of journalism.

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Michael Lewis’s Who Is Government?

The government is a vast, complex system that Americans pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone. Michael Lewis invited his

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Vaclav Smil’s How the World Really Works

How the World Really Works is an essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible—a scientist’s investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material

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