2025 has been a memorable year. One of the things that strikes me most about this year is that we’re over a quarter of the way into this century. Weren’t we just counting down the seconds as the calendar page flipped over from the 20th century to the 21st? Even though it seems like just a moment has passed to me, so much has happened since 2000 — many things that have forever changed our world. Let’s take a look at some of the events and people from the last 25 years!
What has changed the most in our lives since 2000? My guess would be the mainstreaming of the internet. In “This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web” Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (aka the internet), explores the grand vision he had. Time has proven the internet to be a bold social experiment, powerful and, at times, problematic. Despite the downsides, Berners-Lee casts an optimistic light on the internet’s potential.
The internet and the technology it requires now touch nearly every aspect of our lives. We use it for education, for fun, for shopping and more. In “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google,” Scott Galloway offers a granular look into just how several major companies wrangled the internet to such an extent that it has become impossible for us to avoid using it, be it in our work or personal lives.
And, of course, there is Artificial Intelligence (AI). It seems to be everywhere these days and frankly, can be a bit overwhelming — is this a tool that will be useful or will it be the doom of us all? “How to Think About AI: A Guide for the Perplexed” by Richard Susskind provides a look into AI that explains not only what it is, but also both the good and the bad of what it could be.
Of course, any reflection on the past 25 years must include mention of the Covid-19 pandemic. I know for the remainder of my life there will probably always be a sense of “before” and “after.” We all experienced it, though each through our own lens. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow captures a number of individual experiences of the Pandemic in “Voices From the Pandemic: Americans Tell Their Stories of Crisis, Courage and Resilience.”
Historic hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy and the uncountable wildfires that have ravaged the western 
United States are also events that have ramped up in frequency over the last 25 years. Mike Tidwell’s “The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street” presents a look at climate change on the local level as he follows the very real effects it has on the oak trees in his neighborhood. Tidwell explores the larger implications of climate change, while offering a bit of hope in a discussion on possible solutions being undertaken to slow down and lessen the damage.
American politics, particularly the presidency, has been culturally front and center over the last quarter century. Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser under President Obama, reflects on the election of the country’s first African American President and the eight years that followed in “The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House.” The presidency also took a radical turn when businessman and reality star Donald Trump won the office in the 2016 election. The election in which he retook the office eight years later are recounted in “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America” by Josh Dawsey.
The past couple of decades have seen a lot of social movements including Black Lives Matter, the Indigenous Rights movement, Occupy Wall Street, the push for LGBTQ+ rights and the Climate Justice movement. The #MeToo movement resonated with many who discovered they were not alone in their experience of sexual abuse. Tarana Burke, the activist who started the movement, reflects on the experiences that lead her to it in “Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement.”
Of course I have barely scratched the surface of everything that has happened since 2000. But you can find books on all of those topics and more at the library. During the month of December, visit the “Literary Links” display at the library to take a walk down memory lane.
