History Book Festival to host free presentations Sept. 27
The ninth annual History Book Festival will present 20 author talks on a wide variety of topics Saturday, Sept. 27, all free of charge.
Three of the authors who will discuss their latest works are Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Margalit Fox and Fara Dabhoiwala.
In “Happy Land” by Perkins-Valdez, a young woman named Nikki wonders why her grandmother has been a stranger for years. When Nikki receives an urgent request to visit her in the hills of western North Carolina, she hopes to find out the truth. Instead, Mother Rita tells Nikki an incredible story of a kingdom of freed people on that very mountain and her ancestor, Luella, who would become its queen. It will be up to Nikki to protect her family’s land and legacy before they, like so much else, are stolen away.
The community partners in support of Perkins-Valdez’ presentation are the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice and the Delaware Historical Society.
Fox’s book, “The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss,” addresses the life and times of America’s first great organized-crime lord, a nice Jewish mother named Mrs. Mandelbaum. In 1850, an impoverished 25-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Manhattan. By the 1870s she had become the country’s most notorious “fence” — a receiver of stolen goods — and criminal mastermind. But Mrs. Mandelbaum wasn’t just a successful crook. She was a business visionary, one of the first entrepreneurs in America to systemize the scattershot enterprise of property crime.
Seaside Jewish Community has signed on as a community partner in support of Fox’s presentation.
In his book, “What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea,” Dabhoiwala shows how free speech, viewed in pre-modern society as both hazardous and unnatural, was reinvented in the 1700s as an unalloyed good, with enormous consequences for society today. The author shows how the origins and evolution of free speech have less to do with the high-minded pursuit of liberty and truth than with the self-interest of the wealthy, greedy and powerful. The community partner in support of Dabhoiwala’s presentation is the ACLU of Delaware.
To learn more, go to historybookfestival.org.
