Ruby Sisson Library

Americans like to insist that we are living in a postracial, color-blind society. In fact, racist thought is alive and well; it has simply become more sophisticated and more insidious. And as historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas in this country have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course...

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask--but Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life--from cheating and crime to sports and child...

Frankie Stein was created in a laboratory, and when she enters Mount Hood High School camouflaged as a "normi," all she wants is to fit in, but it takes the help of another new student who believes that everyone should be treated equally before Frankie even has a chance.

As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. Erin Gruwell confronted a room of "unteachable, at-risk" students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature, and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust - only to be met by uncomprehending looks ... With powerful entries from the students' own diaries and a narrative text by [her,...

This is a vibrant and varied collection of first person accounts from prominent figures about the experience of growing up between cultures. America Ferrera has always felt wholly American, and yet, her identity is inextricably linked to her parents' homeland and Honduran culture. Speaking Spanish at home, having Saturday-morning-salsa-dance-parties in the kitchen, and eating tamales alongside apple pie at Christmas never seemed at odds with her American...

Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it? Because most of what we're consuming today is not food, and how we're consuming it - in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone - is not really eating. Instead of food, we're consuming "edible foodlike substances" - no longer the products of nature but of food science. Many of them come packaged with health claims that should be our first...

The author explores his theory that the food industry's used three essential ingredients to control much of the world's diet. Traces the rise of the processed food industry and how addictive salt, sugar, and fat have enabled its dominance in the past half century, revealing deliberate corporate practices behind current trends in obesity, diabetes, and other health challenges.

From the author of the NEW YORK TIMES Bestselling book, Me and White Supremacy, comes the Young Readers' edition that teaches you how to explore and understand racism and white supremacy. Together, we will learn how to do our part to change the world. This powerful and thought-provoking guide includes: Content that is approachable and applicable for those with and without white privilege; definitions and history of various topics; "let's break it...

Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' thirty-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite 'better half' against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides. Surrounding him are...

A book inspired by the History Network show explores unexplained mysteries, including what the government is hiding in Area 51, and what happened to the Confederacy's nineteen million dollars in gold and silver at the end of the Civil War.