Monday, April 26, 2010

New History Books at the Library!

America and The Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation
by May, Elaine Tyler
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of FDA approval of an oral contraceptive for women (the pill) historian May, whose professional focus has been on marriage, divorce, and the family in America, offers a notably uncontentious précis of the pill's half-century in American life. (Booklist)



Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace
by Lieven, Dominic
For this groundbreaking contribution to the study of Napoléon's demise, historian Lieven researched once-forbidden Russian archives to tell the story from Emperor Alexander I's point of view, and from the perspectives of his officers and soldiers. On the ever-popular topic of the Napoleonic Wars, Lieven's distinctive achievement is a must-have. (Booklist)

Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West
by Wyman, Mark
Wyman details how the railroads were the means by which workers as well as crops were moved from place to place and how such "hoboes and tramps" came to occupy the lowest rung of the social order. With broader historic sweep than recent sugar-beet industry and migrant-labor studies, Wyman's book is highly recommended for both academics and the general public as a scholarly yet accessible history of a rather neglected topic of the American West. (LJ)

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