Farrar Straus Giroux.

Farrar Straus Giroux

19 Union Square West, NY NY 10003

www.fsgbooks.com

Two outstanding histories are highly recommended picks for all levels of library: from college holdings to public libraries. Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat: A Brief History Of The Twenty-First Century (0374292884, $27.50) is an important survey of modern times, easily explaining complex foreign policy issues, economics, and how the 'flattening' of the world happened at the beginning of the 21st century. Growing links between nations have resulted in an increased pace for societies around the world: has it gotten too fast for stable social and political adjustment to keep up? If you want to live in the 21st century, better read this discussion to understand why life seems to be moving so quickly. Giles Milton's White Gold (0374-289352, $25.00) tells of one Thomas Pellow and Islam's million white slaves in the 18th century. Pellow and his fellow seamen were captured by Barbary corsairs: a network of Islamic slave traders who had declared war on Christendom and who had been attacking European countries and enslaving thousands of Europeans. Pellow was one of the few who survived to tell his tale, witnessing the imperial court and the plight of fellow slaves alike. Unpublished letters and manuscripts written by slaves contribute to a fast-paced account which reads with the drama of fiction and the facts of nonfiction.