Hailed by critics and embraced by readers, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” is one of the richest accounts of our third president. Following the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Hemingses of Monticello, Ann
With majestic prose, Christopher de Bellaigue presents an absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Stru
In his most urgent book to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and world-renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson states that in order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we mus
Renowned constitutional scholar Geoffrey R. Stonetraces the evolution of legal and moral codes that haveattempted to legislate sexual behavior from the ancientworld to America’s earliest days to today
Maya Taylor, an intense, gifted English professor, has a tendency to retreat when she is needed most, escaping on long morning runs or finding comfort in the well-thumbed novels in her library. But wh
Does any family better fit the Anna Karenina principle— that happy families are alike but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way—better than the patriarchs of the Book of Genesis? Is there any
The great grail of psychologists and scientists for nearly a century has been to artificially replicate the thought patterns of the human mind. Challenging the notion that this can ever be achieved th
The only historic figure outside the early Christiantradition to whom the Gospels ascribe a dialoguewith Jesus is the first-century Roman prefect PontiusPilate. Presiding over the trial and execution
On the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further back in English history to the era closest to her heart, the dramatic period from the crowning of Henry VII to t
In the spare wing of a church-run sanitarium, some fervent youths create “the Library,” a space where lonely citizens can read one another’s private diaries and connect with like-minded types. But doe
Intrepid and empathetic, Patrick Kingsley has traveled through seventeen countries to bear witness to the largest forced migration since the end of World War II. Meeting hundreds of refugees and fleei
In the last decade, no industry has been through as much upheaval and turmoil as the music industry. If you’re looking for quick fame and instant success, you’re in the wrong field. It’s now a democra
Elvis Presley remains one of the most influential figures in American popular culture, a man whose fame and talent were matched only by his excesses and tragic end. Venerated in rock-and-roll history,
In 1988, then-struggling writer and movie store manager Davis Miller drove to Muhammad Ali’s mother’s modest Louisville house, knocked on the door, and introduced himself to his childhood idol. Nearly
After he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of twenty-nine, Hank Williams—a frail, flawed man who had become country music’s first real star—instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr.
It was the forerunner of our digital age, improbably a French poem about a shipwreck published in 1897 that, with its mind-bending possibilities of being read up and down, backward and forward, even s
Born at the dawn of the twentieth century, Leni Riefenstahl and Marlene Dietrich both came of age in Weimar Berlin, a time of great political ferment. Glamour and decadence thrived beside abject pover
On January 17, 2013, a hooded assailant hurled acid into the face of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, making international headlines. A lead soloist, enraged by institutional power struggl
After ripping up the linoleum on the kitchen floor of his Manhattan apartment, a young illustrator by the name of Edward Sorel discovered copies of tabloid newspapers from 1936, detailing the lurid Ma
Long fascinated with the Mexican Revolution and the vicious border wars of the early twentieth century, Winston Groom brings to life a much-forgotten period of history in this sprawling saga of herois
Still known to millions only as the author of the “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) remains curiously absent from the American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense, Jackson plumbed t
In the wake of the critical success of The Late Parade (“poetry as lush as any of Keats’s odes,” New York Times Book Review), Adam Fitzgerald’s George Washington follows in the documentary poetic
At the close of the Victorian era, as now, privacy was power. The extraordinarily wealthy 5th Duke of Portland had a mania for it, hiding in his carriage and building tunnels between buildings to avoi
Combining a historian’s rigor with a foodie ’s palate, Ten Restaurants That Changed America reveals how the history of our restaurants reflects nothing less than the history of America itself. Whether
In the half a square mile of decay and demolition that was England’s Saxon capital, eternity is loitering between the firetrap housing projects. Embedded in the grubby amber of the district’s narrativ
In the half a square mile of decay and demolition that was England’s Saxon capital, eternity is loitering between the firetrap housing projects. Embedded in the grubby amber of the district’s narrativ
In SPQR, an instant classic upon its publication, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome “with passion and without jargon” and demonstrates how “a slightly shabby Iron Age village . . . rose to becom
The poetry of Clive James has been delighting readers and winning awards for decades. His recent poems looking back over his extraordinarily rich life have brought him an even wider readership; some,
“Never has the story been told so well,” said the New York Review of Books of Anthony Gottlieb's The Dream of Reason, an “endlessly entertaining and frequently instructive” (Times Literary Supplement)
On July 4, 1861, the schooner S.J. Waring set sail from New York on a routine voyage to South America. Seventeen days later, it limped back into New York’s harbor with the ship’s black cook and stewar
At just forty-seven years old, William Giraldi’s father was killed in a horrific motorcycle crash while racing on a country road. This tragedy, which forever altered the young Giraldi and devastated h
With the New York Times bestseller Kill My Mother, legendary cartoonist Jules Feiffer began an epic saga of American noir fiction. WithCousin Joseph, Feiffer brings us the next hard-boiled chapt
Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis- Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas. At an opulent resor
In the early nineteenth century, the United States turned its idealistic gaze southward, imagining a legacy of revolution and republicanism it hoped would dominate the American hemisphere. From pulsin
Beginning his career on a lark as a freelance contributor to SCRABBLE News, John D. Williams fell down a rabbit hole inhabited by gamers, geeks, and the grammar police. For twenty-five years, as the e
In the tradition of Edmund S. Morgan, whose American Slavery, American Freedom revolutionized colonial history, a new generation of historians is fundamentally rewriting America’s beginnings. Nowhere
With Barack Obama’s historic election in 2008, pundits proclaimed the Republicans as dead as the Whigs of yesteryear. Yet even as Democrats swooned, a small cadre of Republican operatives, including K
A Parisian civil servant turned protégé of Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant is considered not only one of the greatest short story writers in all of French literature but also a pioneer of psychological re
Lulu can't sing. Since the traumatic birth of her daughter, the internationally renowned soprano hasn't dared utter a note. She's afraid that her body is too fragile and that she may have lost her tal
When he died in one of rock's string of tragic plane crashes, Otis Redding was only twenty-six, yet already the avatar of a new kind of soul music. The beating heart of Memphis-based Stax Records, he
