With this unique anthology, Pulitzer winner Meacham (And There Was Light) aims to inspire by spotlighting tense moments of political polarization and conflicting viewpoints throughout American history. He does this by juxtaposing progressive and conservative texts, such as those defending slavery and those arguing for its abolition. Canonical works like the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, Martin Luther King’s “Promised Land” speech, the Declaration of the Rights of Women drafted at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, and Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus” are pitted against the likes of the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that upheld segregation and Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephen’s argument that slavery is morally good. These back-and-forths continue through the pro-peace and pro-war movements around both the Vietnam War and the “war on terror,” and around 20th-century fights for women’s rights, racial minority rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. While these documents are stirring and worthwhile, an astute reader already steeped in American progressive mythology will note that 20th-century battles and individuals that are less settled matters on the left get elided—there’s no Milton Friedman, no Henry Kissinger, and no one directly opposing them. Still, there’s much powerful thought to soak up here. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Historian De La Bédoyère (Populus) presents a darkly fascinating new transcription of the diaries of Samuel Pepys, a statesman and notorious womanizer whose private journals offer a shockingly candid glimpse of 17th-century England. Pepys, the author explains in his introduction, was the son of a “modest tailor” who witnessed the Great Fire of London and the execution of Charles I, survived the civil war, and rose through the ranks of Charles II’s government. Pepys also inexplicably “chose to record his private life in graphic and incriminating detail” in a secretive shorthand. Yet Bedoyere argues that “the true extent and implications of Pepys’s self-confessed adulterous activity, including the coercion and sexual violence... have often been... evaded” by previous transcriptions. They are presented here in full, including molestations of servant girls and assaults on his wife. Between these lurid scenes, there are frequent passages of “self-disgust or even loathing,” as Pepys seems to use his diary to both “help expiate his guilt” and “create a titillating record of... pleasure.” Besides the shocking confessions, the diaries are notable for Pepys’s frank assessments of the depravity of Charles II’s court and the horrors of the plague years, as well as for their distinctive form as a kind of proto–stream of consciousness. This unique work of scholarship conjures from the past a captivating if wretched figure. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this lively revisitation of the Seminole Wars, journalist and historian Holmes (12 Seconds of Silence) highlights the fortitude and clever military tactics of the rebels. The 1835 standoff between the Seminole tribes under Chief Micanopy and the U.S. government under President Andrew Jackson was precipitated by U.S. acquisition of Florida from Spain in 1821. Southern Americans rushed in to violently claim lands and expand slavery. When Jackson became president in 1829, he demanded the Seminoles relocate to Oklahoma; when some Seminoles refused, he sent the Army to forcibly remove them. Micanopy and his close “Fellowhood” of advisers, including a free Black American known as Abraham and the famous Creek warrior Osceola, were among those who encouraged the Seminoles to stay and fight. Abraham, Micanopy’s “sense bearer,” a position akin to prime minister or privy counselor, was able to move through both the Indigenous and white worlds, and frequently reconnoitered in the latter. Meanwhile Osceola led guerilla forces in lightning-quick attacks that then melted away into Florida’s inhospitable swamplands and nearly impenetrable interior. Holmes also spotlights the American military officers who led the invasion, and whose racist underestimation of their opponents, particularly because many were Black, led to the “costliest” conflict of the Indian Wars. Fast-paced and action-packed, it’s a riveting look at courage and military prowess displayed in the face of insurmountable odds. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

The ingenious debut treatise from legal scholar Ossei-Owusu asserts that the ways in which American lawyers are schooled and trained are a crucial factor in maintaining the inequities of the U.S. legal system. Having grown up in a Black working-class family in the Bronx, as a young law student Ossei-Owusu perceived himself as an outsider looking into the legal profession, and carefully observed its goings-on. Recapping his experiences as a law student, practicing lawyer, and now law professor, Ossei-Owusu points to discrepancies he encountered between the legal field’s claims of impartial justice and actual on-the-ground practices, which typically reinforced marginalization of minorities. He presents these gaps as not just a matter of hypocrisy but entrenched dissonance in the legal profession’s worldview. Starting with concepts typically covered in the first year of law school, Ossei-Owusu shows how students “are taught to approach legal problems with a distance that can push human suffering to the margins.” This separation between legal theory and lived experience, reinforced by lessons in “thinking like a lawyer,” only grows as graduates advance in their profession, becoming judges and policymakers. Though his account delves deeply into legal abstractions, Ossei-Owusu writes with ease and grace. This makes a cloistered world accessible to the lay reader and serves as an invaluable glimpse of how inequality is maintained in America. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

What do Superman, the teddy bear, and chattering wind-up teeth have in common? All were invented by first- and second-generation Jewish immigrants, writes sociologist Kimmel (Guyland), great-grandnephew of the founder of the Ideal Toy Corporation, in this eye-opening history. Modern American childhood was created by those who never experienced a carefree childhood themselves, Kimmel notes; Jews arriving from Eastern Europe to late-19th-century New York City encountered crushing poverty that meant children grew up “largely on the street.” Toymaking, meanwhile, was “small, relatively genteel, and almost entirely Protestant,” with toys made mostly in Europe, until WWI embargoes helped the American toy industry boom. Plus, as the U.S. moved away from stern Puritanical ideals about “idle hands” and toward a sense of childhood as a separate stage of development filled with play, Yiddish notions of children as blessings fit nicely into the new progressive mold. Among the creators profiled are the Hassenfield brothers, rag sellers who eventually founded Hasbro; children’s book authors like Maurice Sendak; and Jewish woodcarvers who fashioned elaborate carousels. The book pops with gleeful toy history (like Ideal Toy Company’s “Baby Jesus doll,” which the pope inexplicably endorsed but no one bought), though Kimmel sometimes overreaches (it seems unlikely that Spider-Man is even “indirectly inspired” by a spider that saved King David). It’s an entertaining exploration of the sweeping influence of immigrant artists on American life. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Journalist Hattem debuts with a deeply reported look at the new patterns of migration resulting from climate change. Hattem notes that humans “are an innately migratory species” and that environmental changes have always spurred migration but asserts that what is novel about the current moment is the pace of change. He takes readers to Bangladesh—“one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world”—where, due to displacement caused by river erosion, nearly 10 million people are considered “climate migrants.” In northwest Bangladesh, the average household has been displaced a whopping 4.6 times. He also presents the case of Guatemala, where increasing droughts will have nearly two million climate migrants on the move northward through Mexico by 2050, according to the World Bank. Excoriating anti-migrant narratives in the West as racist, Hattem notes the irony that if Western leaders really wanted to reduce migration, they would focus on combatting climate change and “make it easier for people to stay in place.” He observes that many people would indeed prefer to remain in place, and makes plain that mass migration can amount to a devastating cultural erasure, as with the case of Bangladesh’s Munda people, a rural, forest-worshipping Indigenous sect, whose way of life has been threatened by “climate induced scattering.” The result is an informative and troubling snapshot of the current state of the climate crisis. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Brand strategist and longtime yoga practitioner Norton draws inspiration from his years on the mat for his wry debut collection of life advice. Each chapter is anchored by an aphoristic piece of wisdom the author has overheard in yoga class. Some of the advice is familiar; “If you feel overwhelmed, just do the next right thing,” he writes, is a reminder that there’s rarely a “correct” next decision. (The best choice is to pick an option that’s feasible and enjoyable, because “at the very least, it’s better than no move at all.”) Elsewhere, he uses the instruction “Close your eyes so you’re not comparing yourself to others in the room” to emphasize how growth and fulfillment come from within. Norton entertains with his self-aware humor and fun pop culture references (ranging from Amélie to Jessica Lange), though he can go off-track, as with a rambling meditation on Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential bid (“The reason we can’t stop talking about Hillary is because her loss shattered our individual and collective worlds”). The result is an approachable and low-pressure, if uneven, guide to self-reflection and personal change. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this scrupulous study, anthropologist Roberts (God’s Laboratory) mines her fieldwork in Mexico City to upend judgmental Western notions of addiction. Drawing from a local philosophy that sees compulsion in the context of its circumstances, she distinguishes between addictions, which happen in community and can be connective, and vices that draw people apart. (The same substance, like alcohol, can be an addiction when used at parties, or a vice when someone isolates themselves while drinking.) Tracing the history of the term addiction, she explains how its 16th-century meaning as “devotion, loyalty, attachment... especially pertaining to the worship of God” was slowly pathologized in the West as post–Protestant Reformation individualism took hold. The focus on personal morality and self-control, she writes, transformed addiction “from being viewed as a regular part of the human condition to a disease” and thus a source of shame, while discounting its structural roots, including economic inequality. As an alternative, she suggests embracing a definition of addiction that centers “devoted and connected pleasure,” reduces shame, and embraces community. While she sometimes leans into extremes (“What if abject junkies could revere heroin for all to see, instead of isolating themselves, ashamed in vice?”), Roberts does a masterful job of excavating the social and cultural roots and ramifications of addiction, exploring along the way AA’s questionable methods (some argue that it replaces one kind of addiction with another), her own disordered eating history, and more. It’s a worthy take on a challenging topic. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Research-based insight meets practical guidance in this straightforward debut guide to the first six years of a child’s development from psychologist Schwarzlmüller. Rather than getting bogged down by complex child-rearing strategies, she encourages parents to simply interact with their children, alternately leading and following them. Following infants might look like learning to read their facial expressions and cues, and for toddlers, letting them make messes while learning to feed themselves. Leading might look like setting limits and boundaries (for instance, creating a “yes space” at home that’s safe for toddlers to explore while still firmly redirecting them from stoves and stairs), finding appropriate tasks that small children can assist with, and helping kids interpret their playmates’ behavior (“Those friends would like to use the sand pail too”). Both leading and following build trust and mutual respect in the parent-child relationship, according to Schwarzlmüller. Throughout, she walks readers through scenarios with a fictional child, “Alex,” that are meant to illustrate development across ages; it’s an effective device, giving readers a glimpse into what behaviors are typical and what might need extra attention. This is a valuable resource for parents of young children. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this affecting and wide-ranging essay collection, novelist Neugeboren (Whatever Happened to Frankie King) reflects on his career and literary friendships, his time caring for his brother who had a mental illness, and his Jewish identity. The title essay draws parallels between Neugeboren’s youth in Brooklyn in the 1940s and ’50s and the work of Charles Dickens (his parents’ prized possession was a 20-volume set of the author’s complete works), noting his early life, like the lives of Dickens’s characters, was “determined by difficult economic circumstances, inhabited by eccentric larger-than-life characters, rooted in family feuds about inheritance and money, and steeped in scenes of intense, high drama.” In another piece, Neugeboren reflects on connecting with a distant cousin named Manya, whose stories of surviving Nazi concentration camps remind him “that a person who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.” Neugeboren’s personal struggles also get addressed, including the helplessness he felt trying to ease the suffering of his brother, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Elsewhere, he details his friendships with the late writers Martha Foley and Oliver Sacks, his efforts to balance a writing career with single fatherhood, and his political activism in the civil rights and anti-war movements. Neugeboren’s poignant and contemplative prose results in a rich portrait of a writer’s life. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink