Archives de catégorie : History

ODE TO JOY de Sarah Gavron & Sophie Herxheimer

A gorgeous and moving graphic novel about one family’s struggle to survive in a concentration camp, and the persistence of art-making through the bleakest times.

ODE TO JOY
by Sarah Gavron & Sophie Herxheimer
Pushkin Press, May 2026

In 1943, Ib Katznelson was deported with the rest of his Jewish family to Terezín, also called Theresienstadt. Terezín was repurposed by the Nazis as a ‘show camp,’ a ghetto for the Jewish cultural elite, designed to deceive the prying Red Cross and conceal the horrifying truth behind Hitler’s death camps.

Ib didn’t speak about his experience for many years, but when he did, it was an incredible tale: in spite of the dreadful daily life of the camp, a rich cultural life proliferated. The incarcerated artists sustained their humanity by secretly continuing to make imaginative work that opposed the propaganda they were forced to produce for the ‘show camp’ by day. And, while many of these prisoners didn’t survive, much of their art does.

ODE TO JOY is a collaboration between Ib’s daughter-in-law, Sarah Gavron, and artist Sophie Herxheimer. Through stunning illustrations and text filled with pathos and peppered with wit, it blends the story of Ib and his parents and fellow prisoners along with that of his modern-day family, learning about the camp and their links to it for the first time.

Sarah Gavron is a British film director. Winner of a BAFTA and BIFA, among other awards, her films include Brick Lane, Suffragette, Village at the End of the World and Rocks.

Sophie Herxheimer is an artist and poet. Her work has been shown at Tate Modern, on a giant mural along the seafront at Margate and at her allotments! She has illustrated six collections of mythology and fairy tales. Her collection Velkom to Inklandt (2017) was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. Her book 60 Lovers to Make and Do (2019) was a TLS Book of the Year.

ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES: A GRAPHIC INTERPRETATION by Paul Peart-Smith

In stunning full color and accessible text, a graphic adaptation of the American Book Award winning history of the United States as told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples—perfect for readers of all ages.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES:
A Graphic Interpretation
by Paul Peart-Smith
Beacon Press, October 2024

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s influential New York Times bestseller exposed the brutality of the USA’s founding and its legacy of settler-colonialism and genocide. Through evocative full color artwork, renowned cartoonist Paul Peart-Smith brings this watershed book to life, centering the perspective of the peoples displaced by Europeans and their white descendants to trace Indigenous perseverance over four centuries against policies intended to obliterate them.

Recognized for his adaptation of W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk and his extensive expertise in the comics industry, Peart-Smith collaborates with experienced graphic novel editor Paul Buhle to provide an accessible introduction to a complex history that will attract new generations of readers of all ages. This striking graphic adaptation will rekindle crucial conversations about the centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regime that has largely been omitted from history.

Paul Peart-Smith is a celebrated cartoonist of over 35 years, with experience in concept art, graphic design, and animation. Having studied to be an Illustrator in Cambridge, England, he has worked on comics for2000 AD, including Slaughter Bowl from its digital-only collections. He is the illustrator and adapter of W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation. He lives in Tasmania, Australia.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma in a tenant farming family. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. Dunbar-Ortiz is the winner of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize and a recipient of the American Book Award (2015) for An Indigenous History of the United States. The author or editor of numerous books, including Not “A Nation of Immigrants,”she lives in San Francisco. Connect with her at reddirtsite.com or on Twitter @rdunbaro.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CLIMATE FOLLY de Tim & Emma Flannery

In this entertaining and at times terrifying book Tim and Emma Flannery tell the story of how human beings have tried to change the weather.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CLIMATE FOLLY
by Tim & Emma Flannery
Text Publishing Australia, October 2026

In this entertaining and at times terrifying book Tim and Emma Flannery tell the story of how human beings have tried to change the weather. It’s a long story that goes back to priests and shamans who prayed to weather gods and sang and danced to make it rain. It’s a story of shysters and charlatans and snake-oil salesmen. And it’s a story of shocking schemes to reshape nature.

Climate shapes species and plays a key role in evolution. But we are the only species that has ever dreamed of making the weather suit ourselves. And now that we are in danger of triggering catastrophic global warming, the history of human climate folly is more alarming than ever. Hitler, for instance, wanted to drain the Mediterranean. In the 1950s Soviet and US governments contemplated nuking the Arctic ice cap in order to create a warmer climate.

These schemes seem ludicrous to us, but are they any stranger than the idea that we can arrest runaway climate change by burying our carbon emissions deep in the earth or by seeding clouds with sulphur to block out the sun.

This book reveals an outrageous history of dreamers and schemers who wanted to bend the climate to their will.

Tim Flannery is a paleontologist, an explorer, a conservationist and a leading writer on climate change. His books include the award-winning international bestseller The Weather Makers, and Here on Earth, Atmosphere of Hope and Europe: The First 100 Million Years, as well as his previous collaboration with his daughter, Emma Flannery, Big Meg.

Emma Flannery is a scientist and writer. She has explored caves, forests and oceans across most of the globe’s continents in search of elusive fossils, animals and plants. Her research and writing on geology, chemistry and palaeontology has been published in scientific journals, children’s books and a number of museum-based adult education tours.

THE LOST VOICES OF POMPEII de Jess Venner

THE LOST VOICES OF POMPEII will transport readers into the final 24 hours of the ancient city, vividly detailing the lives of seven diverse characters. Through a blend of meticulous research and compelling storytelling, this book brings Pompeii’s last day to life in a way that is both immersive and unforgettable.

THE LOST VOICES OF POMPEII:
The Last 24 Hours
by Jess Venner
HarperCollins, Spring 2026
(via Northbank Talent Management)

In her thrilling new take on the ancient city, Dr Jess Venner casts aside traditional archaeological and historical perspectives to immerse readers in the vibrant daily lives of its inhabitants. We meet Julia Felix, a successful female entrepreneur defying Roman convention; a slave who gains his freedom during a night of revelry; and politician Gaius Cuspius Pansa who is hosting the Plebian Games at the amphitheatre.

Using real historical figures the book plausibly recreates their final day before the eruption; a fresh narrative approach that brings the ancient streets to life through the eyes of those who lived, worked, loved, and ultimately met their fate there.

Dr Jess Venner is an award-winning ancient historian and archaeologist, and a world-leading expert on Pompeii and Herculaneum. She is currently an academic at the prestigious Institute of Classical Studies in London and was elected as an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society for her contributions to history. She has a following of over 140,000 engaged history fans on TikTok as @lifeinthepastlane_, and has appeared in publications such as The Times, The Mirror, The Daily Star, and Ancient History Magazine.

MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS d’Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfiction debut with this personal and thought-provoking work that explores the journeys and possibilities of Black women throughout American history and in contemporary times.

MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS: Essays & Writings
by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Harper, June 2025
(via The Gernert Company)

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads.
Traditional African/Black American cultures present the crossroads as a place of simultaneous difficulty and possibility. In contemporary times, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the phrase “intersectionality” to explain the unique position of Black women in America. In many ways, they are at a third crossroads: attempting to fit into notions of femininity and respectability primarily assigned to White women, while inventing improvisational strategies to combat oppression.

In MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS, Jeffers explores the emotional and historical tensions in Black women’s public lives and her own private life. She charts voyages of Black girlhood to womanhood and the currents buffeting these journeys, including the difficulties of racially gendered oppression, the challenges of documenting Black women’s ancestry; the adultification of Black girls; the irony of Black female respectability politics; the origins of Womanism/Black feminism; and resistance to White supremacy and patriarchy. As Jeffers shows with empathy and wisdom, naming difficult historical truths represents both Blues and transcendence, a crossroads that speaks.

Necessary and sharply observed, provocative and humane, and full of the insight and brilliance that has characterized her poetry and fiction, Misbehaving at the Crossroads illustrates the life of one extraordinary Black woman—and her extraordinary foremothers.

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a fiction writer, poet, and essayist. She is the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club Pick, The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was nominated for the National Book Award, and five poetry collections, including the NAACP Image Award-winning The Age of Phillis, also nominated for the National Book Award. She teaches at the University of Oklahoma, where she holds the Paul and Carol Daube Sutton Chair in English.