When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Virginia Hall was traveling in Europe. Which was dangerous enough, but as fighting erupted across the continent, instead of returning home, she headed to France. In a country divided by freedom and fascism, Virginia was determined to do her part for the Allies. An ordinary woman from Baltimore, MD, she dove into the action, first joining a French ambulance unit and later becoming an undercover agent...

At the outset of World War II, California agriculture seemed to be on the cusp of change. Many Californians, reacting to the ravages of the Great Depression, called for a radical reorientation of the highly exploitative labor relations that had allowed the state to become such a productive farming frontier. But with the importation of the first braceros-"guest workers" from Mexico hired on an "emergency" basis after the United States entered the war-an...