Fourth of July came and went, but post-pyrotechnics, it’s worth remembering the people that lost their freedoms in the political fireworks. Ellee Dean reviews the first two books in the new, eight-volume Penguin Library of Native American History, and asks the question, what if casinos and reservations were our conciliatory prize?

ROADTRIP NATION: A Guide to Discovering Your Path In Life landed in our mailbox last week. Usually we're not big fans of motivational, Chicken Soup for the Young Person's Soul fodder--and the subtitle definitely made us gag. However. RTN is something special. It is a self-help text, but it's more about the how and why and here's how you can do it, too, your own way, than it is about getting across some kind of cheesy catch-phrase.