1920s

"In 1927, the Mississippi swept across an area roughly equal in size to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined, leaving water as deep as thirty feet.... Close to a million people ... were forced out of their homes. Rising Tide is the story of this forgotten event. Rising Tide is an American epic about science, race, honor, politics, and society."

"A candid and fascinating portrait of the American composer. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Aaron Copland (1900-1990) became one of America's most beloved and esteemed composers. His work, which includes Fanfare for the Common Man, A Lincoln Portrait, and Appalachian Spring, has been honored by a huge following of devoted listeners. But the full richness of Copland's life and accomplishments has never, until now, been documented or understood. Howard Pollack's meticulously researched and engrossing biography explores the symphony of Copland's life..."

This book, written with Ken Burns, accompanies the PBS TV series of the same name. It traces the evolution of jazz from its birth in New Orleans through big band, swing, bebop, fusion, acid, and avant-garde. Covered also are the well-known and the not-so-known musicians of jazz - black and white. The photographs that accompany the text are fascinating.

In 1909, Ovington, W.E.B. Du Bois and 50 others founded the NAACP. This memoir chronicles her life, the politics of her era, the prejudice that civil rights workers faced, and what drew her - a white woman - to the struggle.

A young man from the South moves to Detroit and finds the land of honey, but also runs into the Klan of the '20s, and he is indicted for murder. A fascinating true story.

Focusing on the Chesapeake Bay area, Mills (a journalist and historian associated with the U.S. Naval Institute) depicts those on both sides of the law during prohibition--bootleggers, still-operators, and mobsters, as well as the police, federal agents, Coast Guardsmen, and temperance crusaders. His account draws from local lore, with the backing of newspaper reports and government documents.
(From the publisher's description)