An earthquake didn’t hit San Francisco in 1978, but by all other accounts it was an earth-shaking year. The city was wracked by political assassination, the arrival of punk rock, and an unlikely resurgence from the Giants baseball... Read More

Born in 1859 into wealth and political power—his father was a Supreme Court justice; he served in Congress—George Shiras III’s long life spanned the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, and the New Deal. James H. McCommons’s engaging... Read More

Throughout the ages, humans have always found ingenious ways to kill each other, but a bloodletting milestone was surely reached when the great powers of the classical world—the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, et... Read More

Little known outside of Palestine, Sophie Halaby was a Russian-Arab painter, Jerusalemite, and member of a prominent Christian family. Laura S. Schor’s "Sophie Halaby in Jerusalem" is a careful, elegant portrait that highlights the... Read More

When Leah Webb’s first baby developed serious food allergies and intolerance, the public health professional retooled her family’s diet and adopted a hypervigilant awareness of foods. When her second child was diagnosed with cystic... Read More

The experience of living as an out LGBTQ+ American has changed a lot in a short amount of time, leading to significant generational differences. Perry N. Halkitis explores those differences in "Out in Time", interviewing men from three... Read More

"We Are the Land" is a unique and evocative Irish travelogue. In her travel memoir "We Are the Land", Leslie Lee ventures to the country of her ancestors: Ireland. Deciding it was time to see where her family came from and eager to share... Read More

Joe Neal served thirty-two years in Nevada’s state legislature. He was the first African American state senator in the notoriously unequal state’s history and emerged as an important voice for civil rights and economic opportunity.... Read More