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Recommended historical books (10)
Travel the world without leaving your chair. If you are into historical here are some historical books from United States of America for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.

1.

A Small Corner of Hell by Anna Politkovskaya EN

0 Ratings
Description:
Chechnya, a 6,000-square-mile corner of the northern Caucasus, has struggled under Russian domination for centuries. The region declared its independence in 1991, leading to a brutal war, Russian withdrawal, and subsequent "governance" by bandits and warlords. A series of apartment building attacks in Moscow in 1999, allegedly orchestrated by a rebel faction, reignited the war, which continues to rage today. Russia has gone to great lengths to keep journalists from reporting on the conflict; consequently, few people outside the region understand its scale and the atrocities—described by eyewit... continue

2.

Beloved by Toni Morrison EN

Rating: 4 (14 votes)
Description:
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past. Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Sethe works at beating back the pas... continue

3.

Braiding Sweetgrass : Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
Explains how developing a wider ecological consciousness can foster an increased understanding of both nature's generosity and the reciprocal relationship humans have with the natural world.

4.

Brave the Wild River : The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa L. Sevigny EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
The riveting tale of two pioneering botanists and their historic boat trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition he... continue

5.

Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
Craig Thompson - the award-winning creator of Blankets and Good-Bye, Chunky Rice - spent three months travelling through Barcelona, the Alps, and France, as well as Morocco, where he was researching his next graphic novel, Habibi. Spontaneous sketches and a travelogue diary document his adventures and quiet moments, creating a raw and intimate portrait of countries, culture and the wandering artist.

6.

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters : The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
At the heart of Africa is Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal and unstaunchable war in which millions have died. And yet, despite its epic proportions, it has received little sustained media attention. In this deeply reported book, Jason Stearns vividly tells the story of this misunderstood conflict through the experiences of those who engineered and perpetrated it. He depicts village pastors who survived massacres, the child soldier assassin of President Kabila, a female Hutu activist who relives the hunting a... continue

7.

El Salvador in the Aftermath of Peace : Crime, Uncertainty, and the Transition to Democracy by Ellen Moodie EN

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Description:
El Salvador's civil war, which left at least 75,000 people dead and displaced more than a million, ended in 1992. The accord between the government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) has been lauded as a model post-Cold War peace agreement. But after the conflict stopped, crime rates shot up. The number of murder victims surpassed wartime death tolls. Those who once feared the police and the state became frustrated by their lack of action. Peace was not what Salvadorans had hoped it would be. Citizens began saying to each other, "It's worse than the war." El Salvador in t... continue

8.

For Rouenna by Sigrid Nunez EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
In this haunting novel, a friendship springs up between a writer and a retired army nurse who seeks her out decades after their childhood in the same housing project. "For Rouenna" is an unforgettable work about truth, memory, and unexpected heroism by one of the most gifted writers of her generation.

9.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
Yolanda Garcia is taking a trip to the Dominican Republic to revisit the country where she was born, and which her family was forced to flee for New York when she was a child. As they try to immerse themselves in the American way of life, Yolande and her three sisters will always see things through Dominican eyes.

10.

How the Word Is Passed : A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith, III EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith's revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks-those that are honest about the past and those that are not-that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves. It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving... continue