Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Jennifer Bort Yacovissi, author of Up the Hill to Home and president of the Washington Independent Review of Books:

Votes for Women!: American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot by Winifred Conkling. “Conkling’s book, written for young adults, is an excellent history for all readers, detailing the long, tangled, and sometimes violent path to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920,” says Yacovissi. “Given the current political engagement of teens embodied in a number of movements, perhaps the most useful lesson for this book’s target audience is the unflagging determination with which two generations of women pressed what often seemed like a hopeless cause. Winning a pitched political fight is rarely brief or straightforward, but the victory, almost always, goes to the side that refuses to give up.”

Patriotic Pick is a monthly feature in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Patriotic Picks is a monthly feature in partnership with the Washington Independent Review of Books.