The Cost of Freedom: Voicing a Movement after Kent State 1970 is a multi-genre collection describing the May 4, 1970, shootings at Kent State University, the aftermath, and the impact on wider calls for peace and justice. Fifty years after the National Guard killed four unarmed students, Susan J. Erenrich has gathered moving stories of violence, peace, and reflection, demonstrating the continued resonance of the events and the need for sustained discussion. This anthology includes poetry, personal narratives, photographs, songs, and testimonies—some written by eyewitnesses to the day of the shootings—as well as speeches from recent commemoration events and items related to the designation of the site on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

President Nixon’s announcement on April 30, 1970, that US troops were invading neutral Cambodia as part of the ongoing Vietnam War campaign sparked a complicated series of events with tragic consequences on many fronts. In Cambodia, the invasion renewed calls for a government independent of western power and influence. Here at home, Nixon’s expansion of the war galvanized the long-standing anti–Vietnam War movement, including at Kent State University, leading to the tragic shooting deaths of four students on May 4, 1970.

For decades, the dramatic stories of World War II soldiers have been the stuff of memoirs, inter­views, novels, documentaries, and feature films. Yet the men and women who served in less visible roles, never engaging in physical combat, have received scant attention. Convinced that their depiction as pencil pushers, grease monkeys, or cowards was far from the truth, Rona Simmons embarked on a quest to discover the real story from the noncombat veterans themselves.

The National Road was the first major improved highway in the United States built by the federal government. Built between 1811 and 1837, this 620-mile road connected the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and was the main avenue to the West. Roger Pickenpaugh’s comprehensive account is based on detailed archival research into documents that few scholars have examined, including sources from the National Archives, and details the promotion, construction, and use of this crucially important thoroughfare.

An in-depth examination of the role of divine beings in Tolkien’s work, Tolkien’s Cosmology: Divine Beings and Middle-earth brings together Tolkien’s many references to such beings and analyzes their involvement within his created world. Unlike many other commentators, Sam McBride asserts that a careful reading of the whole of the author’s corpus shows a coherent, if sometimes contradictory, divine presence in the world.

For the majority of Southern Catholics, religion and politics were not a point of tension. Devout Catholics were also devoted Confederates, including nuns who served as nurses; their deep involvement in the Confederate cause as medics confirms the all-encompassing nature of Catholic involvement in the Confederacy, a fact greatly underplayed by scholars of Civil War religion and American Catholicism. Kraszewski argues against an “Americanization” of Catholics in the South and instead coins the term “Confederatization” to describe the process by which Catholics made themselves virtually indistinguishable from their Protestant neighbors.

Justice is blind, they say, but perhaps not to beauty. In supposedly dispassionate courts of law, attractive women have long avoided punish­ment, based largely on their looks, for cold-blooded crimes. The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial gathers the true stories of some of the most infamous femmes fatales in criminal history, collected by attorney and true crime historian Laura James. With cases from 1850 to 1997, these 32 examples span more than a century and cross cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic status. But all were so beautiful, as James demonstrates, that they got away with murder.

While a number of published collections of World War II letters are available to readers, few rise to the level of war literature. But A Young Sailor at War: The World War II Letters of William R. Catton Jr. is remarkable for the narrative skill, exuberance, and candor of its letter writer, and for his youthful but thoughtful commentary. Edited by his son Theodore, Catton’s letters give us a truly intimate look into an essential piece of history.

Funky Winkerbean, a newspaper staple since 1972, is one of the few comic strips that allows its characters to grow and age. With this ninth volume of the collected Funky Winkerbean, containing strips from 1996 through 1998, time continues to pass and events take place that will forever alter the lives of the core characters, even as new characters take the stage with stories to tell.

James Jessen Badal’s extensive research reveals how the citizens of Collinwood were desperate to find someone to blame. Rumor and suspicion splintered the grieving community. And yet they also rose to the challenge of healing: officials reached out to immigrant families unsure of their rights; city charities, churches, and relief agencies responded with medical help, comfort for the bereaved, and financial support; and fundraising efforts to assist families totaled over $50,000—more than $1 million today.