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VB Reads...The Armchair Historians

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Book lovers, you have heard the old adage "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it!" Well, here is your chance to prepare yourself for the future. Join the Village Books Armchair Historians Book Group - "understanding the past!"

We meet the second Monday of every month from 7pm to 8:30pm in the Writers' Corner at Village Books to chat, discuss, and dissect the most current and interesting history being written. We will cover all eras and topics in our quest to "know history". Join us! Authors DO NOT attend.


 

1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus By Charles C. Mann Cover Image
$19.00
ISBN: 9781400032051
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - October 10th, 2006

Monday, October 8th, 7:00pm

Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man's first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.


Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI By David Grann Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780307742483
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - April 3rd, 2018

Monday, November 12th, 7:00pm

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

 


Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War By Stephen R. Platt Cover Image
$18.95
Email or call for price.
ISBN: 9780307472212
Published: Vintage - December 11th, 2012

Monday, December 10th, 7:00pm

The story begins in the early 1850s, the waning years of the Qing dynasty, when word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces, led by a failed civil servant who claimed to be the son of God and brother of Jesus. The Taiping rebels drew their power from the poor and the disenfranchised, unleashing the ethnic rage of millions of Chinese against their Manchu rulers. This homegrown movement seemed all but unstoppable until Britain and the United States stepped in and threw their support behind the Manchus: after years of massive carnage, all opposition to Qing rule was effectively snuffed out for generations. Stephen R. Platt recounts these events in spellbinding detail, building his story on two fascinating characters with opposing visions for China's future: the conservative Confucian scholar Zeng Guofan, an accidental general who emerged as the most influential military strategist in China's modern history; and Hong Rengan, a brilliant Taiping leader whose grand vision of building a modern, industrial, and pro-Western Chinese state ended in tragic failure. 


Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman By Robert K. Massie Cover Image
$22.00
ISBN: 9780345408778
Availability: Not in-stock currently-usually arrives within 1-14 business days
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - September 18th, 2012

Monday, January 14th, 7:00pm

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure German princess who became one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history. Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into empress of Russia by sheer determination. For thirty-four years, the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution. Catherine's family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies--all are here, vividly brought to life.


The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies By Alan Taylor Cover Image
$20.00
Email or call for price.
ISBN: 9780679776734
Published: Vintage - October 4th, 2011

Monday, February 11th, 7:00pm

In the early nineteenth century, Britons and Americans renewed their struggle over the legacy of the American Revolution, leading to a second confrontation that redefined North America. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor's vivid narrative tells the riveting story of the soldiers, immigrants, settlers, and Indians who fought to determine the fate of a continent. Would revolutionary republicanism sweep the British from Canada? Or would the British contain, divide, and ruin the shaky republic?


Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth By Reza Aslan Cover Image
$20.00
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ISBN: 9780812981483
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - September 9th, 2014

Monday, March 11th, 7:00pm

Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction. He explores the reasons the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity.


The China Mirage: The Hidden History of  American Disaster in Asia By James Bradley Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780316196680
Availability: Not in-stock currently-usually arrives within 1-14 business days
Published: Back Bay Books - May 3rd, 2016

Monday, April 8th, 7:00pm

From the 1850s to the origins of the Vietnam War, Bradley reveals how American misconceptions about China have distorted our policies and led to the avoidable deaths of millions. The China Mirage dynamically explores the troubled history that still defines U.S.-Chinese relations today.