History and Archaeology

A delightful and majestic reckoning with the ascent of American fiction in the twentieth century through the prism of the under-known man who had an astonishing amount to do with it Malcolm Cowley is not a household name today, but the American literary canon would look very different without him. A prototypical “man of letters” of his generation—Harvard University, a volunteer in the Frenc

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION An enthralling and groundbreaking new biography of one of modern America´s most fascinating and consequential political figures, drawing on important new sources, by an award-winning biographer who covered Kennedy closely for many years John A. Farrell´s magnificent biography of Edward M. Kennedy is the first single-volume life of the gr

From America's call for a free press to its embrace of the capitalist system, Democracy in America--first published in 1835--enlightens, entertains, and endures as a brilliant study of our national government and character. Philosopher John Stuart Mill called it "among the most remarkable productions of our time." Woodrow Wilson wrote that de Tocqueville's ability to illuminate the actual workings

Could the 2024 election have been the last free election held in a unified America? "A dire warning of the right´s drift towards authoritarianism.” —Financial Times Published in the run-up to Donald Trump´s victory, Rebellion sounded a chilling and clear-eyed warning about the threats posed to American democracy by the increasingly radicalized Republican Party. With the Trump administratio

From one of our most eminent historians, a penetrating and timely examination of how the meaning of antisemitism has mutated, with unexpected and troubling consequences What are we talking about when we talk about antisemitism? For most of its history it was understood to be a menace from the political Right, the province of ethno-nativists who built on Christendom´s long-standing suspicion of it

A revealing exploration of a quarter century of cultural stagnation, examining the commercial and technological forces that have come to dominate contemporary culture—from music and fashion to art, film, TV, and beyond Over the past twenty-five years, pop culture has suffered from a perplexing lack of reinvention. We´ve entered a cultural “blank space”—an era when reboots, rehashes, a

An acclaimed historian illuminates today's political situation by examining the relationship between governing and storytelling, from the Middle Ages to the “post-truth” present, in these engaging essays. In the wake of Donald Trump´s election, renowned medievalist Patrick Boucheron delivered a powerful, probing series of lectures on “political fictions” in the context of rising authoritarianism

An award-winning French journalist´s far-ranging critique of Europe´s betrayal of universal values and equal rights as war and right-wing populism spread worldwide, with a new introduction for U.S. readers. “Europe is a garden…It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build…Most of the rest of the wo

From the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Lawrence in Arabia, a stunningly revelatory narrative history of one of the most momentous events in modern times, the jaw-dropping stupidity of the American government, and the dawn of the age of religious nationalism. “A must-read that is both urgent and unforgettable.” —Steve Coll, author of The Achilles Trap, Directorate S, w

A power-hungry baroness with two lovers disrupts life on an Eden-like island in the Galápagos, and an isolated community descends into madness and murder—a true story of utopia gone wrong from New York Times bestselling author Abbott Kahler. “Abbott Kahler´s wickedly gothic tale confronts an essential truth about those who ditch civilization: Try as we might, humans cannot elude the

A sweeping chronicle of four tumultuous years in 1980s New York that changed the city forever—and anticipated the forces that would soon divide the nation—from the bestselling author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning “A rip-roaring, sweeping, essential work of history . . . a deeply reported and brilliantly observed account of how the modern city was born and why all of us

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, THE ECONOMIST, NPR, THE NEW YORKER, THE SMITHSONIAN, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS A “thrilling and superbly crafted” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook´s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still de

The instant New York Times bestseller • Named the #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year by TIME, A Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, Kirkus, and Boston Globe “It literally changed my outlook on the world…incredible.” —Shonda Rhimes "The Barn is serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop

Through the life stories and translated writings of eight masters, modern Chinese Buddhism comes to life for English readers for the first time. Amidst the Chinese political revolutions and cultural upheavals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a group of dedicated and determined monks, nuns, and laypeople labored to reinvigorate the core practices and teachings of Buddhist Chin

A radical retelling of human history through collapse - from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twentieth-first century and beyond - based on the latest research and a database of more than 440 societal lifespans over the last 5,000 years.

Why do civilisations collapse?

For the first 200,000 years of human history, hunter-gather

** THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER **

'Extraordinary' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES * 'An epic thriller . . . droll, moving, with a cinematic eye and not a boring line in it' OBSERVER * 'Fascinating . . . gripping' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * 'Excellent . . . a fresh, unexpected take on the liberation of Paris' JULIAN JACKSON, author of

An overview of the lost peoples and cultures who flourished and fought for survival alongside the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Who were the Philistines?
What was a Pyrrhic victory?
Were the Vandals really vandals?
Why should you speak to a Samaritan?

Beyond the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews of the Classical and biblical eras, a rich diversity of peo

A concise, readable and revelatory biography of the most powerful man in the world.