Looking at the Past To Understand the Present | Nonfiction Previews, Mar. 2022, Pt. 2 | Prepub Alert

From Lincoln and Truman to women throughout history. 

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Bird, Christiane. A Block in Time: A New York City History at the Corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street. Bloomsbury. Mar. 2022. 384p. ISBN 9781632867421. $28. HISTORY

Chollet, Mona. In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial. St. Martin’s. Mar. 2022. tr. from French by Sophie R. Lewis. 288p. ISBN 9781250271419. $28.99 SOCIAL SCIENCE

England, Vaudine. Fortune’s Bazaar: The Making of Hong Kong. Scribner. Mar. 2022. 352p. ISBN 9781982184513. $27. HISTORY

Frank, Jeffrey. The Trials of Harry S. Truman: The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945–1953. S. & S. Mar. 2022. 576p. ISBN 9781501102899. $32.50. CD. BIOGRAPHY

Galor, Oded. The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality. Dutton. Mar. 2022. 416p. ISBN 9780593185995. $28. Downloadable. HISTORY

Haynes, Natalie. Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths. Harper. Mar. 2022. 320p. ISBN 9780063211315. $26.99; pap. Harper Perennial. ISBN 9780063139466. $17.99. LITERARY CRITICISM

Kershaw, Alex. Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II. Dutton Caliber. Mar. 2022. 368p. ISBN 9780593183748. $30. lrg. prnt. Downloadable. HISTORY

Kleiman, Kathy. Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer. Grand Central. Mar. 2022. 432p. ISBN 9781538718285. $30. BIOGRAPHY/SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Lowenstein, Roger. Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War. Penguin Pr. Mar. 2022. 432p. ISBN 9780735223554. $30. Downloadable. HISTORY

Rappaport, Helen. After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris from the Belle Époque Through Revolution and War. St. Martin’s. Mar. 2022. 336p. ISBN 9781250273109. $29.99. CD. HISTORY

Ranging from when New York City was inhabited by the Lenape people to the present day, from grubby brothels to chic hotels, Bird tells the story of New York by focusing on A Block in Time that’s bounded east-west by Sixth and Seventh avenues and north-south by 23rd and 24th streets and is overlooked by the famous Flatiron Building (45,000-copy first printing). Chief editor for Le Monde diplomatique, Chollet argues In Defense of Witches, whom she sees as symbolic of female resistance to male oppression throughout history, with the women most likely to be perceived as witches—independent-minded, childless, or older—still being outcast today (75,000-copy first printing). Having reported from Hong Kong as well as South East Asia, journalist England offers Fortune’s Bazaar, the story of kaleidoscopic Hong Kong through the diverse peoples who have made the city what it is today (75,000-copy first printing). A former senior editor at The New Yorker and author of the multi-best-booked Ike and Dick, Frank returns with a reassessment of our 33rd president in The Trials of Harry S. Truman. Influential Brown economist Galor, whose unified growth theory focuses on economic growth throughout human history, tracks The Journey of Humanity to show that the last two centuries represent a new phase differentiated from the past by generally better living conditions but also a radically increased gap between the rich and the rest. Following A Thousand Ships, which was short-listed for Britain’s Women’s Prize for Fiction and a best seller in the United States, Haynes’s Pandora’s Jar belongs to a growing number of titles that put the female characters of Greek mythology front and center as less passive or secondary than they’ve been regarded (25,000-copy hardcover and 30,000-copy paperback first printing). In Against All Odds, popular historian Kershaw tells the story of four soldiers in the same regiment—Capt. Maurice “Footsie” Britt, West Point dropout Michael Daly, soon-to be Hollywood legend Audie Murphy, and Capt. Keith Ware, eventually the most senior US general to die in Vietnam—who became the four most decorated U.S. soldiers of World War II. After World War II, six women were given the daunting task of programming the world's first general-purpose, all-electronic computer, called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) and meant to calculate a single ballistic trajectory in 20 seconds rather than 40 hours by hand; internet law and policy specialist Kleiman interviewed four of the women over two decades, eventually writing Proving Ground and producing the award-winning documentary The Computers (50,000-copy first printing). From former Wall Street Journal reporter andNew York Times best-selling author Lowenstein (e.g., When Hubris Failed), Ways and Means shows how President Abraham Lincoln and his administration parlayed efforts to fund the Civil War into creating a more centralized government. New York Times best-selling author Rappaport (Caught in the Revolution) shows what happened After the Romanovs to the aristocrats, artists, and intellectuals who fled the Russian Revolution for Paris (60,000-copy first printing).

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Barbara Hoffert

Barbara Hoffert (bhoffert@mediasourceinc.com, @BarbaraHoffert on Twitter) is Editor, LJ Prepub Alert; winner of ALA's Louis Shores Award for reviewing; and past president, awards chair, and treasurer of the National Book Critics Circle, which awarded her its inaugural Service Award in 2023.

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