Ellen F. Brown and John Wiley, Jr., “Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind” (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2011)
Much ink has been spilled in telling the story of the making of Gone With the Wind– be it the book, the movie, or the subsequent musicals and merchandise. So it’s not only refreshing but downright com...
15 Maj 201238min
Matthew Dennis, “Seneca Possessed: Indians, Witchcraft, and Power in the Early American Republic” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010)
The birth of the American republic produced immense and existential challenges to Native people in proximity to the fledgling nation. Perhaps none faced a greater predicament than the Six Nations of t...
1 Maj 20121h 1min
Anna Krylova, “Soviet Women in Combat: A History of Violence on the Eastern Front” (Cambridge UP, 2010)
We’re all familiar with the film cliche of the little band of soldiers who in ordinary life never would have had met, but who learn to appreciate each other in the battles of World War II. All white, ...
27 Apr 20121h 24min
Leslie Brody, “Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford” (Counterpoint Press, 2010)
For years, biographers have been fascinated by the Mitfords, a quiet aristocratic British family with six beautiful daughters, nearly all of them famous for their controversial and stylish lives. Ther...
16 Apr 201253min
Heather Munro Prescott, “The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States” (Rutgers UP, 2011)
What would a Presidential campaign be without a good dose of reproductive politics? To be sure, many of us are surprised to see contraception, and not just abortion, called into question – but maybe t...
16 Apr 201243min
Charlotte Witt, “The Metaphysics of Gender” (Oxford University Press, 2011)
Is your gender essential to who you are? If you were a man instead of a woman, or vice versa, would you be a different person? In her new bookThe Metaphysics of Gender (Oxford University Press, 2011),...
15 Apr 20121h 11min
Elizabeth West, “African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction: Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature, and Being” (Lexington Books, 2011)
Elizabeth West has written an insightful study about the presence of African spirituality in the autobiographies, poetry, speeches and novels of African American women, ranging from Phylis Wheatley to...
9 Apr 201244min
Karen Abbott, “American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee” (Random House, 2012)
As a whole, the genre of biography trends towards linear narratives–wherein the events of a subject’s life are tracked in the order that they occurred. This makes sense, as it’s how we live our lives,...
2 Apr 201238min
