Washoe County Library System

Bunch rolls back some of the worst distortions concerning the Reagan myth: that Reagan was one of the most popular modern presidents; that his tax cut caused the bull market of the 1980s; and that he won the Cold War, and examines the Gipper's conservatist legacy as it continues to impact America's political and economic situation.

"Timely--as the 2012 presidential election nears--and controversial for its bracing iconoclasm, The Persistence of the Color Line is the first book by a major African-American public intellectual on racial politics and the Obama presidency. Renowned for his cool reason vis--vis the pitfalls and clichš of racial discourse, Randall Kennedy--former clerk to late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Harvard professor of law, and author of the New...

The invention of music notation by a skittish Italian monk in the eleventh century. The introduction of multilayered hymns in the Middle Ages. The birth of opera in a Venice rebelling against the church’s pious restraints. Baroque, Romantic, and atonal music; bebop and cool jazz; Bach and Liszt; Miles Davis and John Coltrane. In telling the exciting story of Western music’s evolution, Stuart Isacoff explains how music became entangled in politics,...

"From the daughter of one of America's most virulent segregationists, a memoir that reckons with her father George Wallace's legacy of hate -- and illuminates her journey towards redemption. Peggy Wallace Kennedy has been widely hailed as the 'symbol of racial reconciliation' (Washington Post). In the summer of 1963, though, she was just a young girl watching her father stand in a schoolhouse door as he tried to block two African-American students...

"The final book from David Graeber, the iconic intellectual, activist, and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Dawn of Everything"-- "The final posthumous work by the coauthor of the major New York Times bestseller The Dawn of Everything. Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies―vibrant,...

Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau. Three generations later, these names still evoke the horrors of Nazi Germany around the world. This book takes one of these sites, Dachau, and traces its history from the beginning of the twentieth century, through its twelve years as Nazi Germany's premier concentration camp, to the camp's postwar uses as prison, residential neighborhood, and, finally, museum and memorial site. With superbly chosen examples and an eye for...

"I Am Malala. This is my story. Malala Yousafzai was only ten years old when the Taliban took control of her region. They said music was a crime. They said women weren't allowed to go to the market. They said girls couldn't go to school. Raised in a once-peaceful area of Pakistan transformed by terrorism, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. So she fought for her right to be educated. And on October 9, 2012, she nearly lost her life...

"For nearly a century, the Rikers Island jail complex has stood on a 413-acre man-made island in the East River of New York. Today it is the largest correctional facility in the city, housing eight active jails and thousands of incarcerated individuals who have not yet been tried. It is also one of the most controversial and notorious jails in America. Which is why, when mayor Bill de Blasio announced in 2017 that Rikers would be closed within the...