Sunday, July 12, 2026

Ten titles to help you understand America

NPR staff and critics tagged ten books to help you understand America as its 250th birthday. One title on the list:
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families, by Judith Giesberg

In 2017, historian Judith Giesberg and her team of graduate student researchers launched a website called the "Last Seen" project. It now contains over 5,000 ads placed in newspapers by formerly enslaved people hoping to find family members separated by slavery. The ads span the 1830s to the 1920s and serve as portals "into the lived experience of slavery." In Last Seen, her book drawn from that monumental website, Giesberg closely reads 10 of those ads placed in search of lost children, mothers, wives, siblings and comrades who served in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War.
— Maureen Corrigan, book critic, Fresh Air
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue