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An astronomer traces the natural history of solar eclipses from supernatural to scientific phenomenon, showing us a more wonderful way to look up at the skyOn August 21, 2017, more than ten million Am

Something scary is happening to boys today. From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. The gender gap in col

From economic meltdowns to how people cooperate, there is much about the human world that eludes our understanding. John Miller, a leading expert in the computational study of complex adaptive systems

In 1973, a young filmmaker named George Lucas scribbled some notes for a far-fetched space-fantasy epic. Some forty years and $37 billion later,Star Warsrelated products outnumber human beings, a grow

The Austro-Hungarian army that marched east and south to confront the Russians and Serbs in the opening campaigns of World War I had a glorious past but a pitiful present. Speaking a mystifying array

In 1973, a young filmmaker named George Lucas scribbled some notes for a far-fetched space-fantasy epic. Some forty years and $37 billion later, Star Wars?related products outnumber human beings, a gr

The Austro-Hungarian army that marched eastward in the opening campaign of World War I was as disordered a force as the world had ever seen. Speaking a mystifying array of languages and carrying outd

As the income gap between developed and developing nations grows, so grows the cacophony of voices claiming that the quest to find a simple recipe for economic growth has failed. Getting Better, in sh

A law professor and an editor describe why they believe affirmative action actually harms minority students and that the movement started in the late 1960s is only a symbolic change that has become mi

History remembers Arnold Rothstein as the man who fixed the 1919 World Series, an underworld genius. The real-life model for The Great Gatsby's Meyer Wolfsheim and Nathan Detroit from Guys and Dolls,

As the income gap between developed and developing nations grows, so grows the cacophony of voices claiming that the quest to find a simple recipe for economic growth has failed. Getting Better, in s

The nineteenth-century eccentric Ida C. Craddock was by turns a secular, freethinker, a religious visionary, a civil-liberties advocate—and deemed a grave danger to the public morality for her candor

Something scary is happening to boys today. From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. The gender gap in co

Happiness is central to the idea of America; along with life and liberty, the Founding Fathers listed "the pursuit of happiness" as a fundamental right in the Declaration of Independence. Yet little

Nicolas Bourbaki, whose mathematical publications began to appear in the late 1930s and continued to be published through most of the twentieth century, was a direct product as well as a major force

When does physics depart the realm of testable hypothesis and come to resemble theology? Peter Woit argues that string theory isn’t just going in the wrong direction, it’s not even scienc

The road that leads from the Möbius strip — a common-sense-defying continuous loop with only one side and one edge, made famous by the illustrations of M.C. Escher — goes to some of

Using FDR's 1944 State of the Union Address as a starting point, the author delves deeply into the revolutionary mind that penned this remarkable declaration of economic rights and illuminates the dem

The model for The Great Gatsby's Meyer Wolfsheim and Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Arnold Rothstein was much more than a fixer of baseball games. He was everything that made 1920s Manhattan roar.

In The Stakes, Shibley Telhami provides a concise and penetrating analysis that explains Arab and Muslim attitudes toward the United States and shows why there is much reason for concern. Telhami sho

Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see black youth seated together in the cafeteria. Of course, it's not just the black kids sitting together-the white, Latino, Asian Pacific, and,

Do you sometimes wonder why the sky at dusk is filled with color, or how the moon controls the tides? Why do stars twinkle and planets don't? Filled with science and lore, with references to myths, le

Describes how European and American cultures have transformed each other, and explains why Europeans never became truly "Americanized"

In this immensely readable book, noted cosmologist Rocky Kolb reveals the very human struggles of astronomy superstars seeking cosmic truths while lost in the clouds of confusion. Punctuated by the a

Shattering the myth that gay life only existed in the closet before the 1960s, a winner of the 1994 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History focuses on New York City and recreates the places gay men g

From a leading expert on longevity, a guide to how individuals and society can seize the advantages of living longer lives and avoid the pitfalls of an aging society Thanks to increases in life expectancy, we can now expect to live for a long time. Most of us would welcome an extra day in the week, so why do so many of us view the prospect of additional years with fear and skepticism? The reason is simple: society is not currently structured to support long lives. Rather than thinking in terms of the needs of a rising number of older people, we must instead support the young and middle-aged to prepare differently for the longer futures they can expect. The Longevity Imperative outlines the innovations needed to make the most of these longer lives: substantial changes to our health system, economy, and financial sector, as well as in how we manage our careers, health, finances, and relationships. Instead of seeing longevity as a problem, economist Andrew J. Scott challenges us to view i

Mary Roach meets Bill Bryson in this uproarious tour of the basest instincts and biggest mysteries of the animal world Whether we're seeing a viral video of romping baby pandas or a picture of pengui

The surprisingly hopeful story of one woman's search for resiliency in a warming worldSeveral years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a

Mary Roach meets Sam Kean and Bill Bryson in this uproarious tour of the basest instincts and biggest mysteries of the animal worldHumans have gone to the Moon and discovered the Higgs boson, but when

Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert's pursuit of the fundamental rules of mathematics, some of the most brilliant minds of the generation came tog

From the summer of 1870 through the spring of 1871, France suffered a humiliating defeat in its war against Prussia and witnessed bloody class warfare that culminated in the crushing of the Paris Comm

As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama distanced himself from same-sex marriage, saying he believed marriage was “a sacred union” between a man and a woman. In 2012, he did just the opposite, proclaimin

The story of the rise of modern navigation technology, from radio location to GPS?and the consequent decline of privacyWhat does it mean to never get lost? You Are Here examines the rise of our techno

In Powering the Future, Nobel laureate Robert B. Laughlin transports us two centuries into the future, when we’ve ceased to use carbon from the ground—either because humans have banned carbon burning