Helen Castor tells the story of Joan of Arc in the context of her times. The book is a history of the part of the Hundred Years' War in which Joan played a major role, and it begins with the English victory at Agincourt in 1415. Castor writes about the political factions, and shifting alliances, in France at the time, and about how Joan's appearance at the French Dauphin's court, followed by her victory at Orléans in 1429, changed the course of the war. She also writes...
February is Black History Month. The Shapiro Book Display will feature non-fiction books by black authors, in honor of past and current leaders, events, and movements. Be sure to stop by the lobby to see what's on display
Elephant Company by Vicki Constantine Croke is a biography of "Elephant Bill" James Howard Williams and the hundreds of elephants he worked with in Burma in the first half of the last century.
Rise of the Rocket Girls profiles multiple generations of women working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from the 1940s to present. The book highlights gender-based challenges as well as scientific ones, and accessibly explains engineering concepts. Readers who loved Hidden Figures will not be disappointed by this book.
While the start of the 2017 college football season is still a long way off, you can binge on the glorious and fascinating history of Michigan Football year round by visiting the library. The Hatcher and Shapiro Libraries have enough books about Bo Schembechler, the Big House, and our famous football rivalries to satisfy even the strongest appetite for gridiron history.
The Value of the Dollar is an interesting collection of historical information on topics ranging from the prices of different goods, the wages made by people in different jobs, and other measures of the value of the dollar over time.
Women in Early America (NYU, 2015), edited by Thomas Foster, is the latest in a line of scholarly histories examining the ways that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century women were actually key players in the economic, cultural, and political life of the American colonies despite the many legal and societal obstacles they had to overcome due to their gender. Most chapters in this wide-ranging work, each written by an expert in the field, focus on specific regions or identities. There is a chapter...
