History & Society : NPR

In her memoir, Negroland, Margo Jefferson describes growing up black and affluent in 1950s Chicago. Jefferson tells Fresh Air it was a world of sophistication — and snobbery.

Damon Tweedy discusses race and medicine in his new memoir Black Man in a White Coat. "There's been a long history of African-Americans being mistreated by the health care system," he says.

NPR's Robert Siegel speaks with author Timothy Snyder about his new book, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. He says Nazi Germany's strategy was the destruction of states.

With a scarcity of jobs during the Depression, more than a million people of Mexican descent were sent to Mexico. Author Francisco Balderrama estimates that 60 percent were American citizens.

Qais Akbar Omar's memoir has been translated into more than 20 languages. But his outspoken criticism of Afghanistan's government has created problems for him and his family back in Kabul.

In his new book, Stephen Breyer details cases involving the interdependence of law in the U.S. and other countries. No branch of government can avoid dealing with global issues any more, he said.

In 2010, Mayor Cory Booker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg devised a plan to improve Newark's failing schools. Dale Russakoff recounts their efforts in The Prize.

Author Sherry Turkle is concerned that we are outsourcing too many of our conversations to screens and robots. "Face to face conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do," she says.

In Children of Monsters, Jay Nordlinger looks at the lives of, among others, Romano Mussolini, Saif Al-Islam Gadhafi and one man who claimed to be Hitler's son.

How can women and men navigate the demands of a career and a family? Working couples must make sacrifices when balancing work and family — and there are often stigmas that come with both.

Author D. Watkins says that crack destroyed his East Baltimore neighborhood, and he explains how the real day-to-day of selling drugs is nothing like the movies. His new book is The Beast Side.

Fifty years ago, the Immigration Act lifted an old quota system that favored immigrants from Europe. But before it passed, one congressman made a change — one he thought would limit the act's impact.

Twenty years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a Jewish religious zealot. Dan Ephron, author of Killing a King, discusses the assassination and its effect on the peace process.

When Kelly and Wayne Maines adopted identical twin boys in 1997, they didn't anticipate raising one of their sons as a daughter. They tell their story, with author Amy Ellis Nutt, in Becoming Nicole.

Pulitizer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff's last book was a best-seller about Cleopatra. Now, the Massachusetts native is out with a history of a subject closer to home: the 1692 Salem witch trials.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg became a cultural icon about the time she turned 80 and became known as "Notorious RBG" — a most unusual identity for a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

As she approached 60, the co-founder of Ms. magazine says, she entered a new phase in life, one in which "you can do what you want." Steinem's new memoir is My Life on the Road.

In her new book, Stacy Shiff evokes the world of Salem, Mass., and the bitter winter of 1692 when 19 people were hanged for witchcraft. Reviewer Maureen Corrigan calls The Witches a "haunting" tale.

Historian Mary Beard says many of our popular notions about the empire are based on culture — like the play Julius Caesar or the film Gladiator — rather than fact. Her new book is called SPQR.

Map: Exploring the World is a new collection of maps, selected by an international panel of cartographers, academics and collectors, spanning everything from the Aztecs to modern digital imaging.

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