Think small in a big way. Discover the social, political, and economic ramifications of history by reading a book that examines a single event, individual, or innovation. These microhistories are available to borrow from the Lititz Public Library.
Paper: Paging Through History by Mark Kurlansky
Over more than two thousand years, a simple and essential technology has supported the spread of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, political systems and art.
Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
The powers of fire, water, air, and earth change nature’s bounty into delicious food, providing cooks the opportunity to shape society.
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach
Scientists work to conquer a soldier’s most challenging adversaries like panic, exhaustion, heat, noise, diarrhea, and more.
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The author weaves science, social history, and personal narrative to tell the story of heredity and its surprising influence on personality, identity, and choice.
The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World by Greg King and Sue Woolmans
Was the Sarajevo assassination of the Austrian heir and his wife a conspiracy designed to lead Europe into war?
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
The assassination of President Garfield led to a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power over the administration of government and the nation’s future.
The Mapmaker’s Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder and Survival in the Amazon by Robert Whitaker
In the early 18th century, a French scientist and his wife, part of an expedition to measure the precise shape of the earth, were stranded on opposite ends of the Amazon and endured a twenty-year separation.
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
On May 1, 1915, with WWI raging a luxury ocean liner sailed out of New York for Liverpool even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone.
Pickett’s Charge: A New Look at Gettysburg’s Final Attack by Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D.
On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, an infantry assault consisting of nine brigades resulted in casualties of over 50% for the Confederates and a huge blow to Southern morale.
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Drawing on interviews, police files, tapes and diaries, the author presents a profile of the teenage killers and reviews the portrayal of the event by the media.
American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin
In February 1974, the heiress to the Hearst family fortune was kidnapped by a group of self-styled revolutionaries and then made the stunning decision to join her captors’ crusade.
Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers by Simon Winchester
With a geological history that includes tremendous earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis, an overview of the Pacific Ocean profiles dictators in Manila, aboriginals in northern Queensland, the Alaska Highway, isolated Pitcairn Islands, South Korea and China.
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
Hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by industrial tycoons, an earth dam burst in May 1889, sending a wall of water down a mountain and through Johnstown, killing more than 2,000 people.
The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport
Diaries and letters from the perceptive four grand duchesses and their friends show turmoil within their family and the approach of the Russian Revolution.
November 4, 2016