After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home-only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically transformed in her absence. Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an eighteen-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation's foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom perished along the way. The frequency of these tragedies...

"For five centuries, right up to the present, Americans and Europeans have benefited enormously from an astonishing history of exploitation of the people and natural resources of a country in the heart of Africa; the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The people of Congo are fighting back, risking their lives to resist and alter the deadly status quo. And human rights movements led by young people in the US and Europe are supporting those Congolese...

"More than just a cookbook, Decolonize Your Diet redefines what is meant by 'traditional' Mexican food by reaching back through hundreds of years of history to reclaim heritage crops as a source of protection from modern diseases. Authors Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel are life partners; when Luz was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, they both radically changed their diets and began seeking out recipes featuring healthy, vegetarian Mexican...

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants storm the American embassy in Tehran and capture dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal. There's a little-known footnote to the crisis: six Americans escape and a mid-level CIA agent named Antonio Mendez devises an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them.

Drawing on newly declassified files, this is the story of how a book forbidden in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West. In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout paid a visit to Russia's greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the manuscript of Pasternak's first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: "This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world." Pasternak...

What sparked the Tulsa race riot in 1921, and who was to blame for the destruction, injuries, and deaths that resulted? Light-skinned African American NAACP civil rights investigator Walter Francis White (1893-1955) was sent to Tulsa hours after the burning stopped to investigate the scene and in 1921 published his findings in a short 8-page report titled "The Eruption of Tulsa." The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when...

As Kurt Vonnegut, Indiana's most famous writer, once remarked, "Wherever you go, there is always a Hoosier doing something important there." A Flame Called Indiana features 65 writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry who have all had the pleasure of being Hoosiers at one time or another. Curated by the Indiana University Bloomington creative writing department, this diverse anthology features everything from the immigrant experience to the Indianapolis...

The stories of those pioneers who have survived captivity among Native American tribes during hostile outbreaks along frontier settlements are full of harrowing interest. Of particular interest is that told by Mary Schwandt (1848-1939) in her 1894 narrative, "The Story of Mary Schwandt: Her Captivity During the Sioux Outbreak of 1862." On the morning of the 18th of August, 1862, at about 6 o'clock, John Moore, a "half-breed trader," residing near...

Have you ever had a wild dream that you wanted to fulfill badly? However, resistance was your biggest enemy. You may have even talked yourself out of it. People thought you were crazy, but somehow inside of you it all made sense? This is what happened to Erica. Erica's life flipped upside down and was confronted with her existential crisis, huge familial struggles, issues to dream and lack of her own identity. She decided to explore the world and...

From horses to tobacco to bourbon, the barn is at the heart of Kentucky's heritage and industry and is a staple of the Bluegrass landscape. In Kentucky Barns: Agricultural Heritage of the Bluegrass, Carol Peachee showcases the barns with exquisite photography. From elegant Thoroughbred farms to historical treasures like the 1803 stone barn of Runnymede Farm in Bourbon County, Peachee travels across the state to capture and preserve the diverse architecture,...