Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is an extraordinary account of renters and landlords in Milwaukee. It forces the reader to understand the urban housing market as not just a consequence but also a cause of poverty. Desmond will be at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016. Festival events are free and open to the public.
In July 2012 three protesters, including an elderly nun, broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In Almighty, Washington Post reporter Dan Zak uses their story to illuminate a movement of dissenters against nuclear weapons. Zak will discuss the book at the East Tennessee History Center Auditorium in Knoxville on August 4, 2016, at 7 p.m.
April 15, 2016 In 1616: The World in Motion, Thomas Christensen describes a time of great change, remarkable people, and global connections. Christensen will discuss the book at Rhodes College in Memphis on April 21, 2016, at 6 p.m. and at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library in Memphis on April 23, 2016, at 1 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
March 24, 2016 Alan Taylor won the second of his two Pulitzer Prizes in History for The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832. On March 31, 2016, at 6 p.m. at the University Center Theatre on the campus of the University of Memphis, Taylor will deliver the Belle McWilliams Lecture in American History on the subject of “The Economy of Violence: The American Revolution in the South.”
March 9, 2016 In A Massacre in Memphis, Stephen V. Ash tells the story of three days in May 1866 when white mobs rampaged through communities of newly freed blacks, shaping the history of Memphis and the nation. Ash will discuss the book at Rhodes College in Memphis on March 17, 2016, at 6 p.m.
February 5, 2016 Peniel Joseph’s Stokely: A Life details the life and importance of revolutionary icon Stokely Carmichael with such skill that it won the National Book Award from the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis. In honor of the award, Joseph will speak at 11 a.m. on February 11, 2016, at the University of Memphis.
