My experience with history is one of units divided neatly and chronologically, with key figures guiding the helm of change. In CHILDREN OF FIRE (Hill and Wang, $30), Thomas C. Holt, a prominent historian at the University of Chicago, creates an intimate portrait of history as a lived moment, experienced by individuals. He opens his history of African-Americans when the first Africans were sold from a Dutch man-of-war in 1619 and continues through the twenty-first century and the historic election of the first African-American U.S. president. Although decisive figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama populate Holt’s narrative, so, too, do little known men and women, caught in the shifts of culture, policy, and social norms that have defined race relations and institutions of oppression in the U.S. Holt’s generational portrait is a nuanced look at lives mired in history, lives more complex and dynamic than the flattened accounts of history textbooks.