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Stanley's book was written before the 2024 election, which makes its message and his predictions all the more chilling. The book gives a brisk overview of how authoritarian governments around the world bend historical knowledge and teaching to their own purposes. For many years now, we have heard a relentless drumbeat about how it is important that students develop skills in STEM. But authoritarians know the value of history -- that's why they relentless try to erase pasts of groups they wish to harm and shore up a version of history that suits their political purpose. Stanley's book demonstrates that in order to shore up democracy, we need citizens to have the skills that come from humanistic disciplines.

I do not recall reading this book when I was a youth, but picked it up recently on the recommendation of a good friend. This is a bracing, unflinching look at Black life in the U.S. South on the cusp of the Great Depression. Taylor does not condescend to her young audience; the horrors of racism (including lynching) are on full display, even as they are viewed through the eyes of the protagonist, a nine-year-old girl, Cassie Logan. But the heart of the novel was Cassie's loving and supportive family, who refuse to be beaten down by circumstance and fight tenaciously to hold on to what is theirs. The novel pulls no punches on the grim reality of white racism in the United States, but also demonstrates the powerful bonds that keep the Logan family united, and the painful sacrifices they make to preserve their livelihood.

Many books are about something that happened ... Lepler's intriguing study is about something that didn't. There is no canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via Nicaragua. But it certainly was not for a lack of effort by nineteenth century dreamers, government officials, and charlatans. Lepler has done a lot of deep investigatory work in multiple archives on multiple continents, and I was patricianly grateful for the close attention that she paid to the mechanics of diplomacy during a time when slow communication meant that people in the field had much more leeway to execute plans.

This marvelous novel is like picking up an object and turning it over in one's hands, seeing different aspects from different angles which make one appreciate the whole in new ways with each turn. Adichie writes about four women, living variously in Nigeria, Guinea, and the United States, and the ways in which their lives intersect. Different chapters take up each character and we see events from their own vantage point as well as the gradual reveal of a larger story based on a horrific moment in one of the characters' lives. Each character reflects on the men that they have dated, married, loved, rejected, accommodated, or resigned themselves to. Adichie is a brilliant writer, and I am particularly stuck by how she writes about the expectations of individual characters, and how they balance their own internal feelings with the demands of the community around them -- sometimes supportive, sometimes incredulous. Each character has to deal with their own assessment of what they want, which can be difficult to articulate but always worth pursuing. Adichie is also wonderful in the details — that sense of dread one can feel before clicking “join” on a Zoom meeting, for example.