When People Were Things: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, and The Emancipation Proclamation by Lisa Waller Rogers

Barrel Cactus Press Review by Brian Tanguay Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in forty-one installments by the National Era, a prominent abolitionist newspaper. The story of a…

Railsong: A Novel by Rahul Bhattacharya

Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay Charulata Chitol is an unlikely heroine. The motherless daughter of a railway worker, Charu, as she’s known, lives with her father and brothers in India’s…

Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom by Greta Lynn Uehling

Rowman & Littlefield Review by Brian Tanguay Because of the passage of time and the velocity at which events unfold, it’s understandable that Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea has fallen…

I Could Be Famous: Stories by Sydney Rende

Bloomsbury Review by Brian Tanguay The epigraph to Sydney Rende’s debut collection of short stories is a quote from Sheila Heti’s novel, How Should A Person Be? “How should a…

Transformed by India: A Life by Stephen P. Huyler

Pippa Rann Review by Brian Tanguay I was intrigued by Stephen P. Huyler’s description of his early travels, long before smartphones, GPS, language translation, and social media. Travel was more…

What Is Free Speech? The History Of A Dangerous Idea by Fara Dabhoiwala

Belknap-Harvard University Review by Brian Tanguay I confess to not having given much thought to the historical origins of free speech before reading Fara Dabhoiwala’s marvelous history, What Is Free…

Repetition: A Novel by Vigdis Hjorth, Translated by Charlotte Barslund

Verso Review by Brian Tanguay It’s late November in Norway and the days are cold and short. A woman and her dog occupy a small cabin in a remote, forested…

Savings And Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank by Justene Hill Edwards

W. W. Norton & Company Review by Brian Tanguay The failure of banks and savings and loan institutions has a long history in the United States. Most people know something…

Seven Heavens Away: A Novel by Ashraf Zaghal

Anansi Review by Brian Tanguay Three Palestinian teenagers are hanging out on the streets of Jerusalem. They insult one another as teenage boys do, smoke cigarettes, and enjoy ice cream…

House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr. by Marion Orr

University of North Carolina Press Review by Brian Tanguay By the mid-1970s, Charles Diggs Jr. was arguably one of the most powerful members of the House of Representatives. The most…