In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, we have prepared a book list that includes titles on the history of abortion rights and the people who fought for them.

From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the invention of braille to the science of echolocation, Dr. M. Leona Godin explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with her own story of gradually losing her sight, in her book There Plant Eyes. Educators are already finding that There Plant Eyes

Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian, Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present. He explores how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled

Whether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In this bold new book, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US’s history of settler

The 21st century began optimistically in Latin America. Left-leaning leaders armed with programs to reduce poverty and reclaim national wealth were seeing results—but as the aughts gave way to the teens, they began to fall like dominos. Where did the dreams of this “pink tide” go? Look no further than the original culprits of Latin

As California swelters in unprecedented heat and lack of rain, it finds itself in the middle of yet another historic drought. Mark Arax’s assessments of the state’s perennial issues with water resources in his critically acclaimed The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California are more urgent and relevant than ever. The Dreamt Land is a

Contributed by Neal Gabler, author of Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour, 1932-1975 What happened to America?  What happened to bring us to this moment of deep and perhaps unbridgeable polarization, of disorder and chaos, of skepticism about science, institutions, even the very idea of fact itself, of rising white supremacy, of

By Martin J. Sherwin The Cuban Missile Crisis ended peacefully because neither President John Kennedy nor Premier Nikita Khrushchev wanted a war. It ended peacefully because Fidel Castro frightened Khrushchev into believing that the United States was about to start a war. It ended without a war because America’s ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai

Contributed by Margaret MacMillan, author of War: How Conflict Shaped Us Let me start with what my book is not about. It is not a history of war, although it contains many historical examples. Nor is it, unlike the many books that line the shelves of libraries or bookshops, devoted to a particular campaign or

Beaten Down, Worked Up is a stirring and essential look at labor in America, poised as it is between the tumultuous struggles of the past and the vital, hopeful struggles ahead.    Beaten Down, Worked Up Award-winning journalist and author Steven Greenhouse guides us through the key episodes and trends in history that are essential

Robert K. Massie, a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and biographer who is best known for chronicling the history of Russia through his insightful books on its most fascinating and consequential figures, passed away on Monday, December 2, 2019, at age 90. A native of Lexington, Kentucky, Massie studied American history at Yale and European history at

UPDATE: Julia Lovell, author of Maoism: A Global History, has been declared the winner of the 2019 Cundill Prize. Alan Taylor, Chair of the Jury, praised Lovell: “Her book will dazzle readers with lucid and vivid insights into the power of a protean, and often deadly, ideology – and its enduring impact on our world