Super imperialism: the economic strategy of American empire by 
'A Seditious and Sinister Tribe' by
With implications for the war in Ukraine, a surprising history of the Crimean Tatars from the fifteenth century to the present day. The Crimean Tatars were the Turkic-speaking native peoples of Crimea who established a powerful khanate in the 1440s, which remained in power until 1783. In this, the first history in English of this khanate for over one hundred years, eminent scholar Donald Rayfield shows that this misunderstood and much-feared nation was, in fact, a flourishing state with a vibrant literary culture, religious tolerance, a sophisticated constitution, and a prosperous economy. Rayfield's book describes the establishment of the khanate, its reign, and its eventual fall, concluding with a vivid portrayal of the ruthless suppression of the Tatars--first by Russia and then the Soviet Union--and the final, effectively genocidal, invasion under Vladimir Putin. This vibrant and ultimately tragic chronicle is essential reading for anyone interested in the background of the current war in Ukraine.
2,100 Asanas by
This fully-illustrated New York Times bestseller categorizes an astonishing 2,100 yoga poses through photographs and descriptions for optimal benefit including adaptations for all levels of expertise and ages. A thoughtful, inspiring, meticulously-crafted guide to the practice of yoga, 2,100 Asanas will explore hundreds of familiar poses along with modified versions designed to bring more healthful options to yogis of all experience and ability. Organized into eight sections for the major types of poses -- standing, seated, core, quadruped, inversions, prone, supine and backbends -- and each section gently progresses from easy to more challenging. Each pose is accompanied by the name of the pose in English and Sanskrit, the Drishti point (eye gaze), the chakras affected and primary benefits.
American Exception by
American Exception seeks to explain the breakdown of US democracy. In particular, how we can understand the uncanny continuity of American foreign policy, the breakdown of the rule of law, and the extreme concentration of wealth and power into an overworld of the corporate rich. To trace the evolution of the American state, the author takes a deep politics approach, shedding light on those political practices that are typically repressed in "mainstream" discourse. In its long history before World War II, the US had a deep political system--a system of governance in which decision-making and enforcement were carried out within--and outside of--public institutions. It was a system that always included some degree of secretive collusion and law-breaking. After World War II, US elites decided to pursue global dominance over the international capitalist system. Setting aside the liberal rhetoric, this project was pursued in a manner that was by and large imperialistic rather than progressive. To administer this covert empire, US elites created a massive national security state characterized by unprecedented levels of secrecy and lawlessness. The "Global Communist Conspiracy" provided a pretext for exceptionism--an endless "exception" to the rule of law. What gradually emerged after World War II was a tripartite state system of governance. The open democratic state and the authoritarian security state were both increasingly dominated by an American deep state. The term deep state was badly misappropriated during the Trump era. In the simplest sense, it herein refers to all those institutions that collectively exercise undemocratic power over state and society. To trace how we arrived at this point, American Exception explores various deep state institutions and history-making interventions. Key institutions involve the relationships between the overworld of the corporate rich, the underworld of organized crime, and the national security actors that mediate between them. History-making interventions include the toppling of foreign governments, the launching of aggressive wars, and the political assassinations of the 1960s. The book concludes by assessing the prospects for a revival of US democracy.
American Scary by
"America is the world's biggest haunted house and American Scary is the only travel guide you need. I loved this book." --Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group From the acclaimed author of American Comics comes a sweeping and entertaining narrative that details the rise and enduring grip of horror in American literature, and, ultimately, culture--from the taut, terrifying stories of Edgar Allan Poe to the grisly, lingering films of Jordan Peele America is held captive by horror stories. They flicker on the screen of a darkened movie theater and are shared around the campfire. They blare out in tabloid true-crime headlines, and in the worried voices of local news anchors. They are consumed, virally, on the phones in our pockets. Like the victims in any slasher movie worth its salt, we can't escape the thrall of scary stories. In American Scary, noted cultural historian and Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber takes the reader to the startling origins of horror in the United States. Dauber draws a captivating through line that ties historical influences ranging from the Salem witch trials and enslaved-person narratives directly to the body of work we more closely associate with horror today: the weird tales of H. P. Lovecraft, the lingering fiction of Shirley Jackson, the disquieting films of Alfred Hitchcock, the up-all-night stories of Stephen King, and the gripping critiques of Jordan Peele. With the dexterous weave of insight and style that have made him one of America's leading historians of popular culture, Dauber makes the haunting case that horror reveals the true depths of the American mind.
Amy Sherald by
Amy Sherald's work, life, and significance for American art, as revealed in her powerful figurative paintings of Black subjects Bringing together nearly all of her artwork to date, this lavishly illustrated volume situates the work of Amy Sherald (b. 1973) within the context of American realist and figurative painting. Encompassing the full arc of her career, from her poetic early works to the distinctive figure paintings and portraits that have become her hallmark, Amy Sherald: American Sublime unfolds her method of selecting individuals she meets on the street and using facial expression, body language, and clothing choices to create paintings that transcend portraiture and expand the canon of American art. Essays by curators Sarah Roberts, Rhea Combs, and Rujeko Hockley; poet and writer Elizabeth Alexander; artist Dario Calmese; and renowned scholar Deborah Willis contextualize and illuminate Sherald's creation of a new form of imaginative portraiture. Often depicting her subjects' skin in gray monochrome, surrounded by few markers of place, time, or context beyond the clothes they wear, Sherald challenges the assumption that Black life is inextricably bound with struggle, creating images that engage in more expansive thinking about race and representation and the wide-open possibilities and complexities of every individual. Whether a passerby or the former first lady Michelle Obama, Sherald's subjects are at ease with themselves, the world, and one another. Published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Schedule: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art November 16, 2024-March 2025 Whitney Museum of American Art April-August 2025 National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC September 2025-January 2026
Ancillary Mercy by
Breq and her crew must stand against an old and powerful enemy and fight for their own destinies in the stunning conclusion to the New York Times bestselling trilogy. A must read for fans of Ursula K. Le Guin and James S. A. Corey. For a moment, things seemed to be under control for Breq, the soldier who used to be a warship. Then a search of Athoek Station's slums turns up someone who shouldn't exist, and a messenger from the mysterious Presger empire arrives, as does Breq's enemy, the divided and quite possibly insane Anaander Mianaai -- ruler of an empire at war with itself. Breq refuses to flee with her ship and crew, because that would leave the people of Athoek in terrible danger. The odds aren't good, but that's never stopped her before. "There are few who write science fiction like Ann Leckie can. There are few who ever could." -- John Scalzi
Artificial Intelligence: an Illustrated History by
A History of the Future that's Happening Right Now Artificial Intelligence: An Illustrated History explores the historic origins and current applications of AI in such diverse fields as computing, medicine, popular culture, mythology, and philosophy. Through more than 100 entries, award-winning author Clifford A. Pickover, offers a granular, yet accessible, glimpse into the world of AI--from medieval robots and Boolean algebra to facial recognition, and artificial neural networks. First released in 2019, this updated paperback edition brings readers up to speed with coverage of technologies such as DALL-E and ChatGPT, and it explores the very real fear that AI will alter the course of humanity--forever.
The Art of Small Business Social Media by
An essential guide for small business owners that Booklist calls "appealing and supremely useful" in a starred review and Guy Kawasaki points out in the foreword, "if you're an entrepreneur or small business owner and want to master digital marketing, you need this book." In The Art of Small Business Social Media, social media expert Peg Fitzpatrick offers a comprehensive guide tailored specifically for small business owners. Recognizing that social media isn't a one-size-fits-all tool, Fitzpatrick provides a roadmap for entrepreneurs to navigate the digital landscape effectively. Drawing from her extensive experience working with brands big and small, she demystifies choosing the right platforms, crafting a robust social media plan, and engaging with communities online. Real-world examples from various industries serve as case studies, offering actionable insights that can be applied to any small business setting. Whether you're a solo entrepreneur or part of a small team, The Art of Small Business Social Media is your key to unlocking the full potential of social media marketing. It's not just about being online; it's about being online effectively. This book equips you with the skills to participate in the digital world and thrive in it, giving your business a competitive edge in today's marketplace.
The Art Thief by
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century * "The Art Thief, like its title character, has confidence, élan, and a great sense of timing."--The New Yorker A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Lit Hub "Enthralling." --The Wall Street Journal Stéphane Bréitwieser is the most prolific art thief of all time. He pulled off more than 200 heists, often in crowded museums in broad daylight. His girlfriend served as his accomplice. His collection was worth an estimated $2 billion. He never sold a piece, displaying his stolen art in his attic bedroom. He felt like a king. Until everything came to a shocking end. In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, Michael Finkel gives us one of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of our times, a riveting story of art, theft, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.
Between Borders by
Between the 1860s and the early 1920s, more than two million Jews moved from Eastern Europe to the United States while smaller groups moved to other destinations, such as Western Europe, Palestine, and South Africa. During and after the First World War hundreds of thousands of Jews were permanently displaced across Eastern Europe. Migration restrictions that were imposed after 1914, especially in the United States, prevented most from reaching safe havens, and an unknown but substantial number of Jews perished during the Holocaust-as they had been displaced in Eastern Europe years before they were deported to ghettos and killing sites. Even after the Holocaust, tens of thousands of Jewish survivors were stranded in permanent transit for many years.Between Borders tells and contextualizes the stories of these Jewish migrants and refugees before and after the First World War. It explains how immigration laws in countries such as the United States influenced migration routes around the world. Using memoirs, letters, and accounts by investigative journalists and Jewish aid workers, Tobias Brinkmann sheds light on the experiences of individual migrants, some of whom laid the foundation for migration and refugee studies as a field of scholarship, even coining terms such as "displaced person," and contributing to its legal definition at the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention. The stories of these migrants and refugees were used to propose a new future for the United States, reimagining it as a pluralistic society-one comprised of immigrants.
Beyond Banks by
How new technology is rapidly changing the nature of money and the way we pay A diverse and growing range of financial institutions and platforms--from PayPal and Venmo to WeChat, Alipay, and the brave new world of stablecoins--has harnessed new technology to disrupt the system of money and payments as we know it. Beyond Banks explains why this disruption holds out the promise of faster, cheaper, more convenient, and more secure payments, but also how it increasingly risks exposing consumers, businesses, and governments to the problem of bad money. Dan Awrey traces the origins of our current bundled system of banking, money, and payments. He explains why the problem of bad money--the result of antiquated and inadequate laws and regulation that fail to establish credible commitments to hold, transfer, or return a customer's money on demand--requires that policymakers fundamentally rethink their approach toward the design of the laws and institutions at the heart of this system. He presents ways to effectively unbundle banking from money and payments, ensure the credibility of monetary commitments, and promote the stability of this system. Awrey also envisions a more forward-looking role for policymakers in encouraging greater technological experimentation, competition, and innovation in the realm of payments. Beyond Banks sheds critical light on the important but too often dysfunctional relationship among technology, regulation, and money, and lays the foundations for a safer, more nimble, and more inclusive system of money and payments.
Beyond the Big Lie by
Pulitzer Prize winner, journalism professor, and founder of PolitiFact Bill Adair, presents an "informed, urgent, and alarming" (Brian Stelter, New York Times bestselling author) history of political deception and how to stop it once and for all. Bill Adair knows a lie when he hears one. Since 2008, the site he founded, PolitiFact, has been the go-to spot for anyone seeking the truth in an increasingly deceitful world. Since the site's launch, politics' tenuous relationship with the truth has only gotten weaker--and weirder. In this groundbreaking and "valuable book" (Tom Rosenstiel, coauthor of The Elements of Journalism), Adair reveals how politicians lie and why. Based on dozens of candid interviews with politicians, political operatives, and experts in misinformation, Adair reveals the patterns of lying, why Republicans do it more, and the consequences for our democracy. He goes behind the scenes to describe several episodes that reveal the motivations and tactics of the nation's political liars, show the impact they have on people's lives, and demonstrate how the problem began before Donald Trump and will continue after he's gone. With wry humor and insight, this remarkable book unpacks the sad state of American politics, but also, provides solutions to put an end to political deceit once and for all.
Black, Queer, and Untold by
Growing up in Seale, Alabama as a Black Queer kid, then attending the Rhode Island School of Design as an undergraduate, Jon Key hungered to see himself in the fields of Art and Design. But in lectures, critiques, and in the books he read, he struggled to see and learn about people who intersected with his identity or who GOT him. So he started asking himself questions: What did it mean to be a graphic designer with his point of view? What did it mean to be a Black graphic designer? A Queer graphic designer? Someone from the South? Could his identity be communicated through a poster or a book? How could identity be archived in a design canon that has consistently erased contributions by designers who were not white, straight, and male? In Black, Queer, & Untold, acclaimed designer and artist Jon Key answers these questions and manifests the book he and so many others wish they had when they were coming up. He pays tribute to the incredible designers, artists, and people who came before and provides them an enduring, reverential stage - and in so doing, gifts us a book that takes its place among the creative arts canon. \
Black River by
** A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2024 ** NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, THE SUNDAY TIMES, AND THE FINANCIAL TIMES A searing debut set in a modern India simmering with the tension of growing religious intolerance, by a major new international voice This shockingly powerful "psychological thriller" and "riveting murder mystery" is "a magnificent work of literary fiction" perfect for fans of AGE OF VICE and WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (Kiran Desai, Booker Prize winning author) Teetapur, an unassuming village just a few hours outside of bustling Delhi, is famous for nothing--until one of its children, 8-year-old Munia, is found dead, hanging from the branch of a Jamun tree. In the largely Hindu village, suspicion quickly falls on an itinerant Muslim man, Mansoor Suspicion ignites like wildfire, fueled by religious tensions that simmer beneath the surface. The responsibility of uncovering the elusive truth - and prevent the lynching of the prime suspect - now rests on the weary shoulders of Sub-Inspector Ombir Singh. With only one other officer beneath him, and just a single working revolver between them, can he bring justice to a grieving father and an angry village - or will Teetapur demand vengeance instead? Offering readers a gripping mystery and a sweeping state-of-the-nation saga, Black River stands as a searing critique of modern India, weaving an intricate narrative that captures the essence of a nation grappling with its own complexities and contradictions.
Blood Test by
From the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and "one of our most gifted writers" (Chicago Tribune) comes a comic novel about a divorced Midwestern dad who takes a cutting-edge medical test and learns that he has a predisposition to murder. In this fresh take on love and trouble in America, Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman and Sunday-school teacher, finds his equilibrium disturbed by the results of a predictive blood test. Baxter, a master storyteller, brings us a gradually building rollercoaster narrative, and a protagonist who is impertinent, searching, and hilariously relatable. From his good-as-gold, gentle girlfriend to the macho subcontractor guy his ex-wife left him for, not to mention his well-raised teenage kids, now exploring sex and sexuality, the secondary characters in Brock's life all contribute meaningfully to the drama, as increasing challenges to his sense of self and purpose crash over him. The final battle--no spoilers, but there is one--couldn't be more delightful, as this quick and bracing novel reminds us to choose the best people to love, accept the ones we love even if we didn't choose them, and love them all well.
The Brothers Grimm by
The first English-language biography in over fifty years to tell the full, vibrant story of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, known to history as the Brothers Grimm A New Yorker "Best Book of 2024" Selection "Ann Schmiesing . . . has brought the brothers to life in their fullness."--Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal "Magisterial."--Kirkus Reviews More than two hundred years ago, the German brothers Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) published a collection of fairy tales that remains famous the world over. It has been translated into some 170 languages--more than any other German book--and the Brothers Grimm are among the top dozen most translated authors in the world. In addition to collecting tales, the Grimms were mythographers, linguists, librarians, civil servants, and above all the closest of brothers, but until now, the full story of their lifelong endeavor to preserve and articulate a German cultural identity has not been well known. Drawing on deep archival research and decades of scholarship, Ann Schmiesing tells the affecting story of how the Grimms' ambitious projects gave the brothers a sense of self-preservation through the atrocities of the Napoleonic Wars and a series of personal losses. They produced a vast corpus of work on mythology and medieval literature, embarked on a monumental German dictionary project, and broke scholarly ground with Jacob's linguistic discovery known as Grimm's Law. Setting their story against a rich historical backdrop, Schmiesing offers a fresh consideration of the profound and yet complicated legacy of the Brothers Grimm.
Camille Claudel by
Abundantly illustrated, this catalogue is a fascinating and comprehensive reevaluation of the French modernist sculptor Camille Claudel. Camille Claudel (1864-1943) was among the most daring and visionary sculptors of the late nineteenth century. Although much attention has been paid to her tumultuous life--her affair with her mentor, Auguste Rodin; the premature end to her career; her thirty-year institutionalization in an asylum--her art remains little known outside of France. Memorably praised by critic Octave Mirbeau in 1895 as "a revolt of nature: a woman of genius," Claudel was celebrated for her brilliance during a time when women sculptors were rare. Featuring more than two hundred photographs along with contributions from leading experts, this publication accompanies the first comprehensive survey of Claudel's oeuvre in nearly forty years. With essays exploring the many facets of her life, work, and reception; a biography; commentary by American sculptor Kiki Smith; and a fascinating appendix of documents written by Claudel and her contemporaries, this volume reevaluates the artist's work on its own merits and repositions her legacy within a more complex genealogy of modernism. This volume, copublished with The Art Institute of Chicago, accompanies an exhibition on view at The Art Institute of Chicago from October 7, 2023, to February 19, 2024 and at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from April 2 to July 21, 2024.
Cast Out of Eden by
John Muir is widely and rightly lauded as the nature mystic who added wilderness to the United States' vision of itself, largely through the system of national parks and wild areas his writings and public advocacy helped create. That vision, however, came at a cost: the conquest and dispossession of the tribal peoples who had inhabited and managed those same lands, in many cases for millennia. Muir argued for the preservation of wild sanctuaries that would offer spiritual enlightenment to the conquerors, not to the conquered Indigenous peoples who had once lived there. "Somehow," he wrote, "they seemed to have no right place in the landscape." Cast Out of Eden tells this neglected part of Muir's story--from Lowland Scotland and the Wisconsin frontier to the Sierra Nevada's granite heights and Alaska's glacial fjords--and his take on the tribal nations he encountered and embrace of an ethos that forced those tribes from their homelands. Although Muir questioned and worked against Euro-Americans' distrust of wild spaces and deep-seated desire to tame and exploit them, his view excluded Native Americans as fallen peoples who stained the wilderness's pristine sanctity. Fortunately, in a transformation that a resurrected and updated Muir might approve, this long-standing injustice is beginning to be undone, as Indigenous nations and the federal government work together to ensure that quintessentially American lands from Bears Ears to Yosemite serve all Americans equally.
A Century of Tomorrows by
An acclaimed cultural historian takes readers on an intellectual thrill ride through the kaleidoscopic story of futurology, a surprisingly powerful force in the modern world. For millennia, predicting the future was the province of priests and prophets, the realm of astrologers and seers. Then, in the twentieth century, futurologists emerged, claiming that data and design could make planning into a rational certainty. Over time, many of these technologists and trend forecasters amassed power as public intellectuals, even as their predictions proved less than reliable. Now, amid political and ecological crises of our own making, we drown in a cacophony of potential futures-including, possibly, no future at all. A Century of Tomorrows offers an illuminating account of how the world was transformed by the science (or is it?) of futurecasting. Beneath the chaos of competing tomorrows, Adamson reveals a hidden order: six key themes that have structured visions of what's next. Helping him to tell this story are remarkable characters, including self-proclaimed futurologists such as Buckminster Fuller and Stewart Brand, as well as an eclectic array of other visionaries who have influenced our thinking about the world ahead: Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin, Shulamith Firestone and Sun Ra, Marcus Garvey and Timothy Leary, and more. Arriving at a moment of collective anxiety and fragile hope, Adamson's extraordinary book shows how our projections for the future are, always and ultimately, debates about the present. For tomorrow is contained within the only thing we can ever truly know: today.
The Children of the Ghetto: II by
2024 NBCC Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Award Finalist An acclaimed Lebanese writer speaks to the complexity of the Palestinian experience in a devastating account of resilience and loss Weaving personal and cultural memory into a tale that humanizes the complex Palestinian experience, Star of the Sea traces the contours of the unspeakable. Adam Dannoun's story is one of beginnings. Born in a war-torn Israel, Adam dreams of becoming a writer. He is just an infant when Jewish forces uproot and massacre thousands of Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba, including his own father. Adam's mother, crumbling with loss, takes her son to Haifa and remarries. Soon she feels stifled by her new husband. Adam flees this lifeless home and writes himself a second beginning. With nothing but his father's will and the image of his mother at the doorway, Adam is born again into the streets of Haifa. Here he spins a new life alongside an auto-shop owner, Gabriel. Adam Dannoun shapeshifts into Adam Danon, an Israeli born into the Warsaw ghetto, and Gabriel's younger brother. There are limits to this charade, lines he's forbidden to cross--and when he falls in love with Gabriel's only daughter he steps, unawares, into a third life. Life after life, Adam confronts the horrors of his past. Following My Name Is Adam, Star of the Sea is the second installment of a brilliant trilogy--an epic tale of love, survival, and ongoing devastation.
The CIA by
In this "superb" (Kathryn Olmsted) new history of American intelligence, a celebrated historian uncovers how the CIA became the foremost defender of America's covert global empire As World War II ended, the United States stood as the dominant power on the world stage. In 1947, to support its new global status, it created the CIA to analyze foreign intelligence. But within a few years, the Agency was engaged in other operations: bolstering pro-American governments, overthrowing nationalist leaders, and surveilling anti-imperial dissenters at home. The Cold War was an obvious reason for this transformation--but not the only one. In The CIA, celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford draws on decades of research to show the Agency as part of a larger picture, the history of Western empire. While young CIA officers imagined themselves as British imperial agents like T. E. Lawrence, successive US presidents used the covert powers of the Agency to hide overseas interventions from postcolonial foreigners and anti-imperial Americans alike. Even the CIA's post-9/11 global hunt for terrorists was haunted by the ghosts of empires past. Comprehensive, original, and gripping, The CIA is the story of the birth of a new imperial order in the shadows. It offers the most complete account yet of how America adopted unaccountable power and secrecy abroad and at home.
Citizen by
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A powerful, candid, and richly detailed memoir from an American icon, revealing what life looks like after the presidency: triumphs, tribulations, and all. On January 20, 2001, after nearly thirty years in politics--eight of them as president of the United States--Bill Clinton was suddenly a private citizen. Only fifty-four years old, full of energy and ideas, he wanted to make meaningful use of his skills, his relationships with world leaders, and all he'd learned in a lifetime of politics, but how? Just days after leaving the White House, the call came to aid victims of a devastating earthquake in India, and Clinton hit the ground running. Over the next two decades, he would create an enduring legacy of public service and advocacy work, from Indonesia to Louisiana, Northern Ireland to South Africa, and in the process reimagine philanthropy and redefine the impact a former president could have on the world. Citizen is Clinton's front-row, first-person chronicle of his postpresidential years and the most significant events of the twenty-first century, including 9/11 and the runup to the Iraq War, the Haiti earthquake, the Great Recession, the January 6 insurrection, and the enduring culture wars of our times. With clarity and compassion, he also weighs in on the unprecedented challenges brought on by a global pandemic, ongoing income inequality, a steadily warming planet, and authoritarian forces dedicated to weakening democracy. Yet Citizen is more than a political memoir. These pages capture Clinton in a rare and unforgettable light: not only as a celebrated former president and a foundation leader, but as a father, grandfather, and husband. He recounts his support for Hillary Clinton during her time as senator, secretary of state, and presidential candidate, and shares the frustration and pain of the 2016 election. In this landmark publication, the highly anticipated follow-up to the best-selling My Life, Clinton pens an illuminating account of American democracy on a global stage, offering a frank reflection on the past and, with it, a fearless embrace of our future. Citizen is a self-portrait of equal parts eloquence, insight, and candor, a testament to one man's unwavering commitment to family and nation.
Citrus by
A world history of citrus, from the art of classical antiquity to the science of the modern era. Mandarin, citron, pomelo, bergamot, kumquat... Citrus traces the history of today's global superfood from its cultivation in the ancient world from just a handful of original 'wild' species, via Arab trade routes, the noble collectors of medieval Europe, imperial conquerors on the high seas, and merchants risking ruin for the highest-value fruit crop ever known. The story of citrus permeates human history, as recorded in the literature and art of civilisations from antiquity to the present day. When Alexander the Great's army swept over the Persian Empire, they found the citron: the first citrus fruit known in the West. During the Napoleonic wars, British ships carried lemons and limes to protect their sailors against scurvy: the 'Limeys' ruled the waves. As the citrus trade grew in importance in the nineteenth century, the Sicilian Mafia was established among citrus farmers, protecting their crops and their livelihoods. From the art of the Renaissance to modern advertising and graphic design, this richly illustrated, invigorating cultural history reveals how these extraordinary, life-giving fruits have flavoured, scented, healed and coloured our world.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times. "Haruki Murakami invented 21st-century fiction." --The New York Times * "More than any author since Kafka, Murakami appreciates the genuine strangeness of our real world." --San Francisco Chronicle * "Murakami is masterful." --Los Angeles Times We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life. Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world - a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he's been missing all along. The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature's most important writers. "Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change/movement. Isn't this the quintessential core of what stories are all about?" --Haruki Murakami, from the afterword
City Limits by
An eye-opening investigation into how our ever-expanding urban highways accelerated inequality and fractured communities--and a call for a more just, sustainable path forward "Megan Kimble manages to turn a book about transportation and infrastructure into a fascinating human drama."--Michael Harriot, New York Times bestselling author of Black AF History Every major American city has a highway tearing through its center. Seventy years ago, planners sold these highways as progress, essential to our future prosperity. The automobile promised freedom, and highways were going to take us there. Instead, they divided cities, displaced people from their homes, chained us to our cars, and locked us into a high-emissions future. And the more highways we built, the worse traffic got. Nowhere is this more visible than in Texas. In Houston, Dallas, and Austin, residents and activists are fighting against massive, multi-billion-dollar highway expansions that will claim thousands of homes and businesses, entrenching segregation and sprawl. In City Limits, journalist Megan Kimble weaves together the origins of urban highways with the stories of ordinary people impacted by our failed transportation system. In Austin, hundreds of families will lose child care if a preschool is demolished to expand Interstate 35. In Houston, a young Black woman will lose her brand-new home to a new lane on Interstate 10--just blocks away from where a seventy-four-year-old nurse lost her home in the 1960s when that same highway was built. And in Dallas, an urban planner has improbably found himself at the center of a national conversation about highway removal. What if, instead of building our aging roads wider and higher, we removed those highways altogether? It's been done before, first in San Francisco and, more recently, in Rochester, where Kimble traces how highway removal has brought new life to a divided city. With propulsive storytelling and ground-level reporting, City Limits exposes the enormous social and environmental costs wrought by our allegiance to a life of increasing speed and dispersion, and brings to light the people who are fighting for a more sustainable, connected future.
College Sports by
A bold and foundational history of the inception and evolution of intercollegiate athletics in the United States. In College Sports, historians Eric A. Moyen and John R. Thelin tell the intriguing story of the success--and excess--of American college sports from their inception to today. Arguing that the modern American university's structure spurred the growth of big-time sports, Moyen and Thelin also highlight the treatment of marginalized groups in athletics and the role that commercialization and the media have played in shaping college sports. Using a wealth of secondary resources, archival records, newspaper articles, and oral histories, Moyen and Thelin offer a chronological account of the popularity, success, and continued challenges of college sports. Most scholarship has portrayed athletics as an anomaly within higher education, but history reveals that college sports enjoy a symbiotic relationship with universities. Reform and a return to a purely amateur model have rarely been a compelling option for those institutions that are successful in commercialized big-time college sports. At the same time, most student-athletes compete in a very different model. And despite their progressive posturing, colleges have been slow to fully adopt civil rights and social justice issues. When full participation was finally extended to women and minorities, it generally meant a move away from the amateur model into a commercial enterprise. By examining key events at specific universities, athletic conferences, and the NCAA, Moyen and Thelin trace how the media and sports marketing have created an incredibly successful financial model for schools in big-time conferences. Yet this model has also created a precarious fiscal situation for hundreds of other institutions. This provocative and refreshing take on sports in American universities provides the context in which to understand--and improve upon--the current landscape of intercollegiate athletics.
CRUSH Your Money Goals by
One of "The Best Books for Personal Growth in 2025!" --Oprah Daily Atomic Habits and Psychology of Money meets Investing 101 and Personal Finance 101 as financial superstar Bernadette Joy breaks down how using her CRUSH program can help you get out of debt, save money, build wealth, and live a more financially comfortable life. Get ready to Crush Your Money Goals and turn to the power of habits to make lasting financial changes! When it comes to building financial health, adopting good money habits that will last (and dropping bad ones) can insure financial freedom. In Crush Your Money Goals, you will find information on the psychology behind why habits work to achieve goals, and twenty-five simple habits to adopt, and which to drop, to help you invest properly, budget, save, climb out of debt, and so much more. Join expert money coach Bernadette Joy as she guides you through her C.R.U.S.H. approach to financial wellness, a program she's been using for years to help her followers get in financial shape. With C.R.U.S.H., you will learn to: -Curate Your Accounts -Reverse into Independence -Understand Your (Net) Worth -Spend Intentionally -Heal Your Money Wounds Each letter covers 5 easy-to-implement habits you will use to take control of your finances. From trying the $1 rule and facing your financial fears to holding a digital detox and decluttering your calendar, Crush Your Money Goals will have you saving money in no time! By changing your patterns with better habits, you'll be on your way to making financial changes not just for today, but for tomorrow!
Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize) by
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN HISTORY "Full of...lively insights and lucid prose" (The Wall Street Journal) an epic, sweeping history of Cuba and its complex ties to the United States--from before the arrival of Columbus to the present day--written by one of the world's leading historians of Cuba. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued--through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country's future. Meanwhile, politics in Washington--Barack Obama's opening to the island, Donald Trump's reversal of that policy, and the election of Joe Biden--have made the relationship between the two nations a subject of debate once more. Now, award-winning historian Ada Ferrer delivers an "important" (The Guardian) and moving chronicle that demands a new reckoning with both the island's past and its relationship with the United States. Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba: An American History provides us with a front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation, with its dramatic record of conquest and colonization, of slavery and freedom, of independence and revolutions made and unmade. Along the way, Ferrer explores the sometimes surprising, often troubled intimacy between the two countries, documenting not only the influence of the United States on Cuba but also the many ways the island has been a recurring presence in US affairs. This is a story that will give Americans unexpected insights into the history of their own nation and, in so doing, help them imagine a new relationship with Cuba; "readers will close [this] fascinating book with a sense of hope" (The Economist). Filled with rousing stories and characters, and drawing on more than thirty years of research in Cuba, Spain, and the United States--as well as the author's own extensive travel to the island over the same period--this is a stunning and monumental account like no other.
Deadly Betrayal by
Based on dramatic first-hand evidence, Deadly Betrayal uncovers why and how a cabal of Pentagon Advisors in the George W. Bush Administration created a fabricated justification to attack Iraq. The book provides a detailed insider account of how a Pentagon cabal strategized to manipulate intelligence, pressure the United Nations, force a Congressional authorization for the use of force through political threats, and scare the American people after 9/11 into supporting an attack on Iraq. Authored by a Pentagon insider and senior enlisted leader of nearly three decades standing, Command Chief Master Sergeant, Retired, Dennis Fritz worked directly for and advised some of the most senior General Officers in the Department of Defense. They included General Richard B. Myers, who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the height of the Iraq War. After military retirement, Fritz found himself inside Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon working for Douglas Feith, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and key architect of the case for war. He was detailed to the Pentagon as a contracted Research Fellow and Analyst on a special project to gather and review all Iraqi Pre-War Planning Documents for declassification. His access to thousands of personal handwritten notes, documents, and Pentagon's internal conversations, has allowed him to tell the real story of why America invaded Iraq.
Deer Run Home by
Effie is Deaf, and no one in her family speaks sign language, her language. This moving story of survival and found family, inspired by a true court case, is perfect for fans of Wonder and Out of My Mind. * "Quietly extraordinary." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review * "Elegantly weaves a heartbreaking story with hope." --School Library Journal, starred review "Through Effie, young readers both deaf and hearing will encounter a heartfelt homecoming story, and reassurance that they are not alone."--The New York Times Effie and her older sister, Deja, have recently moved into their father's trailer after an incident at their mom's house. Daddy communicates with Effie by pointing, stomping on the floor, and making thoughtless jokes. Even if they did understand each other, could she tell the terrible secret she carries when telling feels impossible--and dangerous? But what if telling is the only way to be seen? This tender, spare, emotionally charged story about the impact of abuse and the power of love explores what it feels like to be an outsider in your own family and to awaken--through friendship, writing, and kinship with the natural world--to a new understanding and appreciation of yourself.
Defectors by
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF 2024 * An award-winning journalist's exploration of how race, identity and political trauma have influenced the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos, and how this group can shape American politics "A deeply reported, surprisingly personal exploration of a phenomenon that is little understood in our politics: the affiliation of Latino voters with causes and candidates that would seem, at first glance, unwelcoming to them."--Rachel Maddow Democrats have historically assumed they can rely on the Latino vote, but recent elections have called that loyalty into question. In fact, despite his vociferous anti-immigrant rhetoric and disastrous border policies, Trump won a higher percentage of the Latino vote in 2020 than he did in 2016. Now, journalist Paola Ramos pulls back the curtain on these voters, traveling around the country to uncover what motivates them to vote for and support issues that seem so at odds with their self-interest. From coast to coast, cities to rural towns, Defectors introduces readers to underdog GOP candidates, January 6th insurrectionists, Evangelical pastors and culture war crusaders, aiming to identify the influences at the heart of this rightward shift. Through their stories, Ramos shows how tribalism, traditionalism, and political trauma within the Latino community has been weaponized to radicalize and convert voters who, like many of their white counterparts, are fearful of losing their place in American society. We meet Monica de la Cruz, a Republican congresswoman from the Rio Grande Valley who won on a platform centered on finishing "what Donald Trump started" and pushing the Great Replacement Theory; David Ortiz, a Mexican man who refers to himself as a Spaniard and opposed the removal of a statue of a Spanish conquistador in New Mexico; Luis Cabrera, an evangelical pastor pushing to "Make America Godly Again;" Anthony Aguero, an independent journalist turned border vigilante; and countless other individuals and communities that make up the rising conservative Latino population. Cross-cultural and assiduously reported, Defectors highlights how one of America's most powerful and misunderstood electorates may come to define the future of American politics.
The Demand Revolution by
How consumer desire for sustainability is powering the first demand-driven, transformative megatrend-and how business leaders can make the most of this important moment. Sustainability is rocking the business world as profoundly as global trends of the past have, from electrification to digitalization. But unlike previous revolutions, this one is being driven by consumers, for whom environmentally sound practices matter as much as price, quality, and brand. In The Demand Revolution authors Andreas von der Gathen, Nicolai Broby Eckert, and Caroline Kastbjerg offer a strategic framework for winning these consumers-and taking advantage of the vast commercial opportunity presented by sustainability as the first demand-driven, transformative megatrend. The first movers in the Demand Revolution will be able to create enduring competitive advantages and high entry barriers built around redesigned business model ecosystems and customer loyalty, the authors explain, but this will require a critical adjustment in thinking and approach. Companies, first of all, have to catch up with consumers, who see themselves on a demand curve far beyond what companies currently perceive. Business leaders must shift their focus from the cost of sustainability to its potential for generating growth and long term profits. This, in turn, means recognizing that the classic adoption curves for innovations-and the strategic playbooks derived from those insights-no longer apply. The authors of The Demand Revolution show business leaders how to look beyond easy fixes and incremental outcomes and instead pursue high-risk, high reward moves built on the source of exponential growth- the world's consumers.
Detours by
Many people first encounter Hawai'i through the imagination--a postcard picture of hula girls, lu'aus, and plenty of sun, surf, and sea. While Hawai'i is indeed beautiful, Native Hawaiians struggle with the problems brought about by colonialism, military occupation, tourism, food insecurity, high costs of living, and climate change. In this brilliant reinvention of the travel guide, artists, activists, and scholars redirect readers from the fantasy of Hawai'i as a tropical paradise and tourist destination toward a multilayered and holistic engagement with Hawai'i's culture and complex history. The essays, stories, artworks, maps, and tour itineraries in Detours create decolonial narratives in ways that will forever change how readers think about and move throughout Hawai'i. Contributors. H?k?lani K. Aikau, Malia Akutagawa, Adele Balderston, Kamanamaikalani Beamer, Ellen-Rae Cachola, Emily Cadiz, Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar, David A. Chang, Lianne Marie Leda Charlie, Greg Chun, Joy Lehuanani Enomoto, S. Joe Estores, Nicholas Kawelakai Farrant, Jessica Ka'ui Fu, Candace Fujikane, Linda H. L. Furuto, Sonny Ganaden, Cheryl Geslani, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Noelani Goodyear-Ka'?pua, Tina Grandinetti, Craig Howes, Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, Noelle M. K. Y. Kahanu, Haley Kailiehu, Kyle Kajihiro, Halena Kapuni-Reynolds, Terrilee N. Kekoolani-Raymond, Kekuewa Kikiloi, William Kinney, Francesca Koethe, Karen K. Kosasa, N. Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, Kapulani Landgraf, Laura E. Lyons, David Uahikeaikalei'ohu Maile, Brandy N?lani McDougall, Davianna P?maika'i McGregor, Laurel Mei-Singh, P. Kalawai'a Moore, Summer Kaimalia Mullins-Ibrahim, Jordan Muratsuchi, Hanohano Naehu, Malia Nobrega-Olivera, Katrina-Ann R. Kap?'anaokal?okeola N?koa Oliveira, Jamaica Heolimelekalani Osorio, No'eau Peralto, No'u Revilla, Kalaniua Ritte, Maya L. Kawailanaokeawaiki Saffery, Dean Itsuji Saranillio, Noenoe K. Silva, Ty P. K?wika Tengan, Stephanie Nohelani Teves, Stan Tomita, Mehana Blaich Vaughan, Wendy Mapuana Waip?, Julie Warech
Dinner for Vampires by
An "incredible" (Alex Cooper, Call Her Daddy), "riveting" (People) New York Times bestselling memoir by One Tree Hill star Bethany Joy Lenz about her decade in a cult and her quest to break free. In the early 2000s, after years of hard work and determination to break through as an actor, Bethany Joy Lenz was finally cast as one of the leads on the hit drama One Tree Hill. Her acting career was set to soar, but her personal life was beginning to unravel in ways her fans could never imagine. Unknown to the millions of viewers and even her costars, Lenz led a secret double life within a cult. As an only child seeking belonging, Lenz thought she found a safe haven in a Bible study group with fellow Hollywood creatives. However, the group morphed into something more sinister--a web of manipulation and fear under the guise of a church covenant called The Big House Family. Piece by piece, Lenz surrendered her autonomy, eventually moving to the Family's Pacific Northwest compound overseen by a domineering minister who convinced her to marry his son and secretly drained millions from her TV income without her knowledge. Family "minders" assigned to her on set, "Maoist struggle session"--inspired meetings in the basement of a filthy house, and regular counseling with "Leadership" were just part of the tactics used to keep her loyal. Only when she became a mother did Lenz find the courage to escape and spare her child from a similar fate. After nearly a decade (and with the unlikely help from a devoted One Tree Hill fan), she broke free from the family's grip, beginning her healing journey from deep trauma that reshaped her faith and identity. Written with powerful honesty and dark humor, Dinner for Vampires is a "tart, refreshing" (The New York Times Book Review) story about the importance of identity and understanding what you believe.
The Driving Machine by
In this lively and entertaining work, Witold Rybczynski--hailed as "one of the best writers on design working today" by Publishers Weekly--tells the story of the most distinctive cars in history and the artists, engineers, dreamers, and gearheads who created them. Delving into more than 170 years of ingenuity in design, technology, and engineering, he takes us from Carl Benz's three-wheel motorcar in 1855 to the present-day shift to electric cars. Along the way, he looks at the emergence of mass production with Henry Ford's Model T; the Golden Age of American car design and the rise of car culture; postwar European subcompacts typified by the Mini Cooper; and the long tradition of the streamlined and elegant sports car. Rybczynski explores how cars have been reflections of national character (the charming Italian Fiat Cinquecento), icons of a subculture (the VW bus for American hippies), and even emblems of an era (the practical Chrysler minivan). He explains key developments in automotive technology, including the electric starter, rack-and-pinion steering, and disc brakes, bringing to light how the modern automobile is the result of more than a century of trial and error. And he weaves in charming accounts of the many cars he's owned and driven, starting with his first--the iconic Volkswagen Beetle. The Driving Machine is a breezy and fascinating history of design, illustrated with the author's delightful drawings.
Drunk in China by
2020 Gourmand Award in Spirits Gold Medal winner in the Independent Book Publishers Awards China is one of the world's leading producers and consumers of liquor, with alcohol infusing all aspects of its culture, from religion and literature to business and warfare. Yet to the outside world, China's most famous spirit, baijiu, remains a mystery. This is about to change, as baijiu is now being served in cocktail bars beyond its borders. Drunk in China follows Derek Sandhaus's journey of discovery into the world's oldest drinking culture. He travels throughout the country and around the globe to meet with distillers, brewers, snake-oil salesmen, archaeologists, and ordinary drinkers. He examines the many ways in which alcohol has shaped Chinese society and its rituals. He visits production floors, karaoke parlors, hotpot joints, and speakeasies. Along the way he uncovers a tradition spanning more than nine thousand years and explores how recent economic and political developments have conspired to push Chinese alcohol beyond the nation's borders for the first time. As Chinese society becomes increasingly international, its drinking culture must also adapt to the times. Can the West also adapt and clink glasses with China? Read Drunk in China and find out.
The Elements of Marie Curie by
The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Galileo's Daughter crafts a luminous chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own "Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name," writes Dava Sobel at the opening of her shining portrait of the sole Nobel laureate decorated in two separate fields of science--Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre and Chemistry by herself in 1911. And yet, Sobel makes clear, as brilliant and creative as she was in the laboratory, Marie Curie was equally passionate outside it. Grieving Pierre's untimely death in 1906, she took his place as professor of physics at the Sorbonne; devotedly raised two brilliant daughters; drove a van she outfitted with x-ray equipment to the front lines of World War I; befriended Albert Einstein and other luminaries of twentieth-century physics; won support from two U.S. presidents; and inspired generations of young women the world over to pursue science as a way of life. As Sobel did so memorably in her portrait of Galileo through the prism of his daughter, she approaches Marie Curie from a unique angle, narrating her remarkable life of discovery and fame alongside the women who became her legacy--from France's Marguerite Perey, who discovered the element francium, and Norway's Ellen Gleditsch, to Mme. Curie's elder daughter, Irène, winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For decades the only woman in the room at international scientific gatherings that probed new theories about the interior of the atom, Marie Curie traveled far and wide, despite constant illness, to share the secrets of radioactivity, a term she coined. Her two triumphant tours of the United States won her admirers for her modesty even as she was mobbed at every stop; her daughters, in Ève's later recollection, "discovered all at once what the retiring woman with whom they had always lived meant to the world." With the consummate skill that made bestsellers of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, and the appreciation for women in science at the heart of her most recent The Glass Universe, Dava Sobel has crafted a radiant biography and a masterpiece of storytelling, illuminating the life and enduring influence of one of the most consequential figures of our time.
Emancipation by
In this sequel to his landmark study, historian Peter Kolchin compares the transition to freedom after American emancipation with the Russian Great Reforms The two largest transitions from unfree to free labor of the many that occurred in Europe and the Americas during the nineteenth century took place in the United States and in Russia. Both occurred in the 1860s, and in both the former slaves and serfs strove to maximize their autonomy and freedom while the former masters worked to preserve as many of their prerogatives as possible. Both were partially--but only partially--successful. In this magisterial and long-awaited work, historian Peter Kolchin shows that a more radical break with the past was possible in the United States than in Russia, with the Southern freedpeople coming to enjoy republican citizenship, whereas Russian peasants remained subjects rather than citizens. Both countries saw conservative reactions triumph in the late nineteenth century. While this conservatism was common in most emancipations, it was especially strong in Russia and the American South, in part as a reaction against the major efforts to restructure the social order that went by the name of Reconstruction in the United States and the Great Reforms in Russia.
Extinctions by
A compelling answer to an important question: Can past mass extinctions teach us how to avoid future planetary disaster? On its face, the story of mass extinction on Earth is one of unavoidable disaster. Asteroid smashes into planet; goodbye dinosaurs. Planetwide crises seem to be beyond our ability to affect or evade. Extinctions argues that geological history tells an instructive story, one that offers important signs for us to consider. When the asteroid struck, Charles Frankel explains, it set off a wave of cataclysms that wore away at the global ecosystem until it all fell apart. What if there had been a way to slow or even turn back these tides? Frankel believes that the answer to this question holds the key to human survival. Human history, from the massacre of Ice Age megafauna to today's industrial climate change, has brought the planet through another series of cataclysmic events. But the history of mass extinction together with the latest climate research, Frankel maintains, shows us a way out. If we curb our destructive habits, particularly our drive to kill and consume other species, and work instead to conserve what biodiversity remains, the Earth might yet recover. Rather than await decisive disaster, Frankel argues that we must instead take action to reimagine what it means to be human. As he eloquently explains, geological history reminds us that life is not eternal; we can disappear, or we can become something new and continue our evolutionary adventure.
F. Scott Fitzgerald by
A comprehensive study of the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, related in two-year chapters by twenty-three leading writers on the Jazz Age author "There never was a good biography of a novelist," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Crack-Up. "There couldn't be. He is too many people, if he's any good." Fitzgerald, a good novelist by any measure, has tested this challenge to the biographer's art. A new star illuminating the literary scene; a chronicler of the Jazz Age in all its brilliance and tarnish; a romantic symbol of the American century; an acute observer of society's best and worst, and of his own star-crossed career; a midlife burnout at forty-four, leaving an unfinished masterpiece in his wake--he was a man of many aspects, a writer whose complexity and multitudes this composite biography finally aptly portrays. Bringing together twenty-three leading writers and scholars on Fitzgerald, each focusing on two years of his life, this volume takes its cue from Henry James's remark, cited by preeminent Fitzgerald biographer Scott Donaldson: "The whole of anything is never told; you can only take what groups together." F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography presents a new way of "grouping together" biographical material and perspectives, considering from various angles the author's best-known works as well as understudied writings, including neglected stories and forays into autobiography such as "What I Think and Feel at 25" and "How to Live on $36,000 a Year." The glamor and fame that made F. Scott and Zelda mythic figures of their time appear here alongside the personal experiences that he occasionally included in his writing: the beginnings as well as the poignant end; the literary relationships that informed and framed his work, set against solitary effort, fame, and failures. This remarkable study of F. Scott Fitzgerald reflects the multifaceted whole of a "life in many parts" in new and revelatory ways. Contributors: Jade Broughton Adams; Ronald Berman; William Blazek, Liverpool Hope U; Elisabeth Bouzonviller, Jean Monnet U; Jackson Bryer, U of Maryland; Kirk Curnutt, Troy U; Catherine Delesalle-Nancey, U Jean Moulin Lyon 3; Scott Donaldson; Kayla Forrest; Marie-Agnès Gay, U Jean Moulin Lyon 3; Joel Kabot, U of Maryland, Baltimore; Sara Kosiba; Arne Lunde, U of California, Los Angeles; Bryant Mangum, Virginia Commonwealth U; Martina Mastandrea; Philip McGowan, Queen's U Belfast; David Page; Walter Raubicheck, Pace U; Ross Tangedal, U of Wisconsin-Stevens Point; Helen Turner, Linnaeus U; James L. W. West III, Pennsylvania State U.
Faik by
Learn to navigate a world of deepfakes, phishing attacks, and other cybersecurity threats emanating from generative artificial intelligence In an era where artificial intelligence can create content indistinguishable from reality, how do we separate truth from fiction? In FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions, cybersecurity and deception expert Perry Carpenter unveils the hidden dangers of generative artificial intelligence, showing you how to use these technologies safely while protecting yourself and others from cyber scams and threats. This book provides a crucial understanding of the potential risks associated with generative AI, like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, offering effective strategies to avoid falling victim to their more sinister uses. This isn't just another book about technology - it's your survival guide to the digital jungle. Carpenter takes you on an insightful journey through the "Exploitation Zone," where rapid technological advancements outpace our ability to adapt, creating fertile ground for deception. Explore the mechanics behind deepfakes, disinformation, and other cognitive security threats. Discover how cybercriminals can leverage even the most trusted AI systems to create and spread synthetic media and use it for malicious purposes. At its core, FAIK is an empowering exposé in which Carpenter effectively weaves together engaging narratives and practical insights, all aimed to equip you with the knowledge to recognize and counter advanced tactics with practical media literacy skills and a deep understanding of social engineering. You will: Learn to think like a hacker to better defend against digital threats. Gain practical skills to identify and defend against AI-driven scams. Develop your toolkit to safely navigate the "Exploitation Zone." See how bad actors exploit fundamental aspects of generative AI to create weapons grade deceptions. Develop practical skills to identify and resist emotional manipulation in digital content. Most importantly, this is ultimately an optimistic book as it predicts a powerful and positive outcome as a period of cooperation, something now inconceivable, develops as it always does during crises and the future is enhanced by amazing new technologies and fabulous opportunities on the near horizon. Written by an expert, yet accessible to everyone, FAIK is an indispensable resource for anyone who uses technology and wants to stay secure in the evolving digital landscape. This book not only prepares you to face the onslaught of digital deceptions and AI-generated threats, but also teaches you to think like a hacker to better defend against them.
The False White Gospel by
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES AND A USA TODAY BESTSELLER "Everyone who claims to be 'Christian' or else claims to be upset by 'Christianity' needs to read this book, especially politicians using people's supposed faith for their own ends." --Margaret E. Atwood "Jim Wallis calls the nation to grow up and he calls us all to fight the love battle to save the soul of America." --From the Foreword by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. A major new work by the New York Times bestselling author, arguing that the answer to bad religion is true faith that will help refound democracy It is time says Jim Wallis, to call out genuine faith--specifically the "Christian" in White Christian Nationalism--inviting all who can be persuaded to reject and help dismantle a false gospel that propagates white supremacy and autocracy. We need-to raise up the faith of all of us, and help those who are oblivious, stuck, and captive to the ideology and idolatry of White Christian Nationalism that is leading us to such great danger. Wallis turns our attention to six iconic texts at the heart of what genuine biblical faith means and what Jesus, in the gospels, has called us to do. It is time to ask anew: do we believe these teachings or not? This book isn't only for Christians but for all faith traditions, and even those with no faith at all. When we see a civic promotion of fear, hate, and violence for the trajectory of our politics, we need a civic faith of love, healing, and hope to defeat it. And that must involve all of us-religious or not. Learning to practice a politics of neighbor love will be central to the future of democracy in America. And more than ever, the words of Jesus ring, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Feminist Film Theorists by
Focusing on the ground-breaking work of Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, Teresa de Lauretis and Barbara Creed, this book explores how, since it began in the 1970s, feminist film theory has revolutionized the way that films and their spectators can be understood. Examining the new and distinctive approaches of each of these thinkers, this book provides the most detailed account so far of their ideas. It illuminates the six key concepts and demonstrates their value as tools for film analysis: the male gaze the female voice technologies of gender queering desire the monstrous-feminine masculinity in crisis. Testing their ideas with a number of other examples from contemporary cinema and TV, Shohini Chaudhuri shows how these four thinkers construct their theories through their reading of films. An excellent study companion for all students of film theory and women's studies.
Firebrands by
Guaranteed to change how you picture Prohibition, this lively history turns the spotlight on four women in the immediate aftermath of winning the vote who played influential roles on all sides of the Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments. In the popular imagination, the story of Prohibition in America is a story of men and male violence, one full of federal agents fighting gangsters over the sale of moonshine. In contrast, Firebrands is the story of four Jazz Age dynamos--all women -who were forces behind the passage, the enforcement, the defiance, and, ultimately, the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. They battled each other directly, and they learned to marshal clout with cowed and hypocritical legislators, almost all of them men. Their clash over Prohibition stands as the first significant exercise of women's political power since women gained the right to vote, and their influence on the American political scene wouldn't be equaled for decades. In Gioia Diliberto's fresh and timely take on this period of history, we meet Ella Boole, the stern and ambitious leader of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who campaigned fiercely to introduce Prohibition and fought desperately to keep it alive. We also meet Mabel Walker Willebrandt, the most powerful woman in America at the time, who served as the top federal prosecutor charged with enforcing Prohibition. Diliberto tells the story, too, of silent film star Texas Guinan, who ran New York speakeasies backed by the mob and showed that Prohibition was not only absurd but unenforceable. And, she follows Pauline Morton Sabin, a glamorous Manhattan aristocrat who belatedly recognized the cascading evil in Prohibition and mobilized the movement to kill it. These women led their opposing forces of "Wets" and "Drys" across a teeming landscape of bootleggers, gangsters, federal agents, temperance fanatics, and cowardly politicians, many of them secret drunks. Building on the momentum of suffrage, they forged a path for the activists who followed during the great civil rights battles of the mid-twentieth century. Yet, they have been largely lost to history. In Firebrands, Diliberto finally gives these dynamic figures their due, creating a varied and dramatic portrait of women wielding power, in politics, society, and popular culture.
The Forbidden Garden by
Named a Best Book of the Year by Scientific American and The Economist The riveting, untold true story of the botanists at the world's first seed bank who made "the mad, heroic decision during the siege of Leningrad to guard biodiversity at the cost of human life" (The New York Times, Editors' Choice)--from the award-winning author of The Island of Extraordinary Captives. In the summer of 1941, German troops surrounded the Russian city of Leningrad--now St. Petersburg--and began the longest blockade in recorded history, one that would ultimately claim the lives of nearly three-quarters of a million people. At the center of the besieged city stood a converted palace that housed the world's largest collection of seeds--more than 250,000 samples hand-collected over two decades from all over the globe by world-famous explorer, geneticist, and dissident Nikolai Vavilov, who had recently been disappeared by the Soviet government. After attempts to evacuate the priceless collection failed and supplies dwindled amongst the three million starving citizens, the employees at the Plant Institute were left with a terrible choice. Should they save the collection? Or themselves? These were not just any seeds. The botanists believed they could be bred into heartier, disease-resistant, and more productive varieties suited for harsh climates, thereby changing the future of food production and preventing famines like those that had plagued their countrymen before. But protecting the seeds was no idle business. The scientists rescued potato samples under enemy fire, extinguished incendiary bombs landing on the seed bank's roof, and guarded the collection from scavengers, the bitter cold, and their own hunger. Then in the war's eleventh hour, Nazi plunderers presented a new threat to the collection... Drawing from previously unseen sources, award-winning journalist Simon Parkin tells the incredible true story of "an extraordinary project and the bravery of the ordinary individuals who kept it going" (The Daily Telegraph, London) in the name of science.
Forensics by
Val McDermid is one of the finest crime writers we have, whose novels have captivated millions of readers worldwide with their riveting narratives of characters who solve complex crimes and confront unimaginable evil. In the course of researching her bestselling novels McDermid has become familiar with every branch of forensics, and now she uncovers the history of this science, real-world murders and the people who must solve them. The dead talk--to the right listener. They can tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died, and, of course, who killed them. Forensic scientists can unlock the mysteries of the past and help serve justice using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene, or the faintest of human traces. Forensics draws on interviews with some of these top-level professionals, ground-breaking research, and McDermid's own original interviews and firsthand experience on scene with top forensic scientists. Along the way, McDermid discovers how maggots collected from a corpse can help determine one's time of death; how a DNA trace a millionth the size of a grain of salt can be used to convict a killer; and how a team of young Argentine scientists led by a maverick American anthropologist were able to uncover the victims of a genocide. It's a journey that will take McDermid to war zones, fire scenes, and autopsy suites, and bring her into contact with both extraordinary bravery and wickedness, as she traces the history of forensics from its earliest beginnings to the cutting-edge science of the modern day.
Forest of Noise by
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * "A powerful, capacious, and profound" (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an award-winning Palestinian poet. You are alive for a moment when living people run after you. Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, pulverizing a library he had painstakingly built for community use, he and his family fled for their safety. Not for the first time in their lives. Somehow, amid the chaos, Abu Toha kept writing poems. These are those poems. Uncannily clear, direct, and beautifully tuned, they form one of the most astonishing works of art wrested from wartime. Here are directives for what to do in an air raid; here are lyrics about the poet's wife, singing to his children to distract them. Huddled in the dark, Abu Toha remembers his grandfather's oranges, his daughter's joy in eating them. Moving between glimpses of life in relative peacetime and absurdist poems about surviving in a barely livable occupation, Forest of Noise invites a wide audience into an experience that defies the imagination--even as it is watched live. Abu Toha's poems introduce readers to his extended family, some of them no longer with us. This is an urgent, extraordinary, and arrestingly whimsical book. Searing and beautiful, it brings us indelible art in a time of terrible suffering.
The Formula by
An NPR Best Book of 2024 A Sports Illustrated Best Book of 2024 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Wall Street Journal reporters and authors of The Club, Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg tell the riveting saga of how Formula 1 broke through in America, detailing the eclectic culture of racing obsessives, glamorous settings, gearheads, engineering geniuses, dashing racers, and bitter rivalries that have made F1 the world's fastest growing sport. For decades in America, car racing meant NASCAR, and to a lesser extent IndyCar, with Formula 1--the wealthiest racing league in the world--a distant third. Fast forward to 2023, and F1 has emerged at the front of the pack powered by a passionate yet nascent American fanbase. The F1 juggernaut has arrived, but this checkered flag was far from inevitable. In The Formula, Wall Street Journal reporters Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg tell the epic story of how F1 saved itself from collapse and finally conquered America through guile, fearlessness, and above all, reinvention. With fast cars, big money, glamorous locales, and beautiful people as the backdrop, The Formula reveals how F1's sudden arrival in the US was actually decades in the making, a product of the sport's near-constant state of transformation and experimentation. Bringing unique insight and access to F1's most storied teams and personalities--from Ferrari to Bernie Ecclestone to Christian Horner to Lewis Hamilton--The Formula offers a riveting portrait of the drivers, corporations, cars, rivalries, and audacious gambles that have shaped the sport for half a century. The end result is a high-octane history of how modern F1 racing came to be--the first book to tell the story of the outrageous successes and spectacular crashes that led F1 to this extraordinary yet precarious moment. More than just a sports story, The Formula is the tale of a disrupter that broke into the crowded American sports marketplace and claimed its place through cash, personality, and a new understanding of what a sport needs to be in the age of wall-to-wall entertainment.
Foucault by
Born in 1926 in France, Foucault is one of those rare philosophers who has become a cult figure. Over the course of his life he dabbled in drugs, politics, and the Paris SM scene, all whilst striving to understand the deep concepts of identity, knowledge, and power. From aesthetics to the penal system; from madness and civilisation to avant-garde literature, Foucault was happy to reject old models of thinking and replace them with versions that are still widely debated today. A major influence on Queer Theory and gender studies (he was openly gay and died of an AIDS-related illness in 1984), he also wrote on architecture, history, law, medicine, literature, politics, and of course philosophy. In this Very Short Introduction Gary Gutting presents a wide-ranging but non-systematic exploration of some highlights of Foucault's life and thought. Beginning with a brief biography to set the social and political stage, he then tackles Foucault's thoughts on literature, in particular the avant-garde scene; his philosophical and historical work; his treatment of knowledge and power in modern society; and his thoughts on sexuality. This new edition includes feminist criticisms of Foucault's apparently sexist treatment of the Jouy case, as well as a new chapter offering a unified overview of the Collège de France lectures, now a major focus of interest in Foucault. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Four Points of the Compass by
From the New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in 12 Maps, this is the revelatory history of the four cardinal directions that have oriented and defined our place on the globe for millennia North, south, east, and west: almost all societies use these four cardinal directions to orientate themselves and to understand who they are by projecting where they are. For millennia, these four directions have been foundational to our travel, navigation, and exploration, and are central to the imaginative, moral, and political geography of virtually every culture in the world. Yet they are far more subjective--and sometimes contradictory--than we might realize. Four Points of the Compass leads us on a journey of directional discovery. Societies have understood and defined directions in very different ways based on their locations in time and space. Historian Jerry Brotton reveals why Hebrew culture privileges east; why Renaissance Europeans began drawing north at the top of their maps; why early Islam revered the south; why the Aztecs used five color-coded cardinal directions; and why no societies, primitive or modern, have ever orientated themselves westwards. In doing so, politically-loaded but widely used terms such as the "Middle East," the "Global South," the "West Indies," the "Orient," and even the "western world" take on new meanings. Who decided on these terms and what do they mean for geopolitics? How have directions like "east" and "west" taken on the status of cultural identities--or more accurately stereotypes? Yet today, because of GPS capability, cardinal points are less relevant. Online, we place ourselves at the center of the map as little blue dots moving across geospatial apps; we have become the most important compass point, though in the process we've disconnected ourselves from the natural world. Imagining what future changes technology may impose, Jerry Brotton skillfully reminds us how crucial the four cardinal directions have been to everyone who has ever walked our planet. For anyone interested in history, geography, or surprising new ways to think about the world at large, Four Points of the Compass will be a stimulating experience.
Francis Bacon: a Self-Portrait in Words by
A new selection of letters, statements and interviews reveal the preoccupations, thoughts and ideas of Francis Bacon, one of the 20th century's most influential and important artists. The documents selected for Francis Bacon: A Self-Portrait in Words illustrate Bacon's sharp wit and ability to express complex ideas in highly personal, memorable language. Included here are not only letters to friends, patrons and fellow artists, but also intriguing notes and lists of paintings. They often come with a sketch as an aide-mémoire or an injunction to himself as he worked in the studio, and many have only come to light since his death. Bacon's letters mirror and reveal his dominant preoccupations at different points throughout his long career. Most of Bacon's letters have never been published and include several that he wrote to the author. Particularly intriguing is the record of a dream that he jotted down, outlining impossibly beautiful paintings he had conjured up in his sleep. Together with photographs, archive material and works by the artist are numerous reproductions of Bacon's characteristic handwriting, from the briefest jottings and notes to more extensive letters and statements. Bacon frequently came up with memorable epithets and definitions. He delighted in doing with words what he set out to do in painting: 'I like phrases that cut me.' Michael Peppiatt explores the personal legacy of one of the 20th century's most important painters and presents a compelling verbal self-portrait that reveals both man and artist.
From the Ground Up by
An award-winning author's powerful exploration of the remarkable women driving transformative change in America's food system It's well known that our industrialized food system has abandoned priorities of nutrition and environmental stability in the pursuit of profit--a model designed to fail, especially as climate change escalates. Yet this groundbreaking book describes a glimmer of hope: a green wave of diverse female farmers, entrepreneurs, community organizers, scientists, and political leaders who operate with the shared goals of combatting climate change through regenerative agriculture, redesigning the food system, and producing healthy, socially responsible food. From the Ground Up, by award-winning author Stephanie Anderson, offers a journey into the root causes of our unsustainable food chain, revealing its detrimental reliance on extractive agriculture, which depletes soil and water, produces nutritionally deficient food, and devastates communities and farmers. Anderson then delivers an uplifting, deeply reported narrative of women-led farms and ranches nationwide, supported by women-led investment firms, farmer training programs, restaurants, supply chain partners, and advocacy groups, all working together to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. From the Ground Up sheds light on a set of inspiring journeys, with stories that will transform the way we think about the food chain--one that can weather the storms of climate change, conflicts, and global pandemics.
Game On by
In Game On David Bockino, a former marketing and advertising manager at ESPN turned professor of communications and sport management, provides the first overview of the evolution of the sports media industry. Written at a time of great uncertainty and rapid change and told through the fascinating stories of the most important innovations, matchups, events, and personalities over the last hundred years, Game On explores how sports media both affects and reflects our society. From the groundbreaking radio broadcast of the Jack Dempsey-Georges Carpentier boxing match in 1921 and the launch of Sports Illustrated magazine in 1954 to the birth of ESPN in 1979 and the unveiling of the NFL's yellow line in 1998, Game On details the most important events, platforms, and personalities in the evolution of the sports media industry. Early on, sports media had the unique ability to bring people together: nationally through the Olympic Games and regionally through telecasts of local professional teams. Increased interest led to more innovation and more options--cable TV, sports talk radio, internet broadcasts, and now multitudes of podcasts. With so many choices, some fans have begun to show deeper loyalties to brands or personalities in place of loyalties to teams or players. Today the personalization of sports content means broadcasters increasingly focus on what individual consumers want, often at the expense of the collective fan experience. Exploring the evolution of the sports media industry can tell us a lot about how our world has changed over the past hundred years and how it might yet change in the future. Through an exploration of sports media trends, Bockino shows that the industry's privileging of personal over collective interests reflects how people today form and maintain their social identities--and sports' key role in shaping them.
George Harrison by
From the premiere Beatles biographer--author of the New York Times bestseller John Lennon: The Life and Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation--a rare and "absorbing biography" (Wall Street Journal) of George Harrison, the most misunderstood and mysterious Beatle, based on decades-long research and unparalleled access to inside sources. Despite being hailed as one of the best guitarists of his era, George Harrison, particularly in his early decades, battled feelings of inferiority. He was often the butt of jokes from his bandmates owing to his lower-class background and, typically, was allowed to contribute only one or two songs per Beatles album out of the dozens he wrote. Now, Philip Norman examines Harrison through the lens of his numerous self-contradictions in this "keen and lovely tribute" (Booklist, starred review). Compared to songwriting luminaries John Lennon and Paul McCartney he was considered a minor talent, yet he composed such masterpieces as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Here Comes the Sun," and his solo debut album All Things Must Pass appears on many lists of the 100 best rock albums ever. Modern music critics place him in the pantheon of sixties guitar gods alongside Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page. Harrison railed against the material world yet wrote the first pop song complaining about income tax. He spent years lovingly restoring his Friar Park estate as a spiritual journey, but quickly mortgaged the property to help rescue a film project that would be widely banned as sacrilegious, Monty Python's Life of Brian. Harrison could be fiercely jealous, but not only did he stay friends with Eric Clapton when Clapton fell in love with Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, the two men grew even closer after Clapton walked away with her. Unprecedented in scope and filled with numerous color photos, this rich biography captures George Harrison at his most multi-faceted: devoted friend, loyal son, master guitar player, brilliant songwriter, cocaine addict, serial philanderer, global philanthropist, student of Indian mysticism, self-deprecating comedian, and, ultimately, iconic artist and man beloved by millions.
Gobsmacked! by
A spot-on guide to how and why Americans have become so bloody keen on Britishisms--for good or ill The British love to complain that words and phrases imported from America--from French fries to Awesome, man!--are destroying the English language. But what about the influence going the other way? Britishisms have been making their way into the American lexicon for more than 150 years, but the process has accelerated since the turn of the twenty-first century. From acclaimed writer and language commentator Ben Yagoda, Gobsmacked! is a witty, entertaining, and enlightening account of how and why scores of British words and phrases--such as one-off, go missing, curate, early days, kerfuffle, easy peasy, and cheeky--have been enthusiastically taken up by Yanks. After tracing Britishisms that entered the American vocabulary in the nineteenth century and during the world wars, Gobsmacked! discusses the most-used British terms in America today. It features chapters on the American embrace of British insults and curses, sports terms, and words about food and drinks. The book also explores the American adoption of British spellings, pronunciations, and grammar, and cases where Americans have misconstrued British expressions (for example, changing can't be arsed to can't be asked) or adopted faux-British usages, like pronouncing divisive as "divissive." Finally, the book offers some guidance on just how many Britishisms an American can safely adopt without coming off like an arse. Rigorously researched and documented but written in a light, conversational style, this is a book that general readers and language obsessives will love. Its revealing account of a surprising and underrecognized language revolution might even leave them, well, gobsmacked.
Godzilla and the Song Bird by
Set in the period before and through the Bangladeshi war of independence, this novel has at its heart the continuing friendship between three boys with a love of cinema, whose loyalty into adulthood has surprising outcomes. Bulbul, the central character, is a journalist who witnesses and experiences the clash between individual struggles for meaning in a world torn apart by war, genocide and religious exclusions.This is a novel that has everything: tenderness, humour, sadness, satire, horror, tension and release. Scene after scene of brilliant storytelling drives the narrative, revealing truths about the difficult emergence of a postcolonial society and reflecting on the nature of storytelling as a characteristic of Bengali culture - a double-edged one because stories can both evade and uncover buried secrets.
The Great Transformation by
The first thorough account of a formative and little understood chapter in Chinese history "Almost every page contains an eye-opening detail. . . . The Great Transformation evokes the multiple paths, ideas and possibilities that have shaped, and continue to shape, China's present."--Julia Lovell, Financial Times Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao's Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world. In this rigorous account, Westad and Chen construct a panorama of catastrophe and progress in China. They chronicle China's gradual opening to the world--the interplay of power in an era of aged and ailing leadership, the people's rebellion against the earlier government system, and the roles of unlikely characters: overseas Chinese capitalists, American engineers, Japanese professors, and German designers. This is a story of revolutionary change that neither foreigners nor the Chinese themselves could have predicted.
Great Women Sculptors by
As seen in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and ELLE Decoration A celebration of more than 300 groundbreaking women sculptors that surveys 500 years of creative ingenuity from around the world Presenting a more expansive and inclusive history of sculpture, Great Women Sculptorssurveys the work of more than 300 trailblazing artists from over 60 countries, spanning 500 years from the Renaissance to the present day. Organized alphabetically, each artist is represented by an image and newly commissioned text. This wide-ranging survey champions the best-known women sculptors from art history alongside today''s rising stars. From more recognizable names such as Camille Claudel, Gego, Barbara Hepworth, and Yayoi Kusama to some of today''s most significant contemporary artists including Huma Bhaba, Mona Hatoum, and Simone Leigh, this book showcases 500 years of sculptural creativity in one accessible, visually stunning volume. Artists featured, in A-Z order by surname: Magdalena Abakanowicz; Alice Adams; Kelly Akashi; Jane Alexander; Shaikha Al Mazrou; Olga de Amaral; Janine Antoni; Ruth Asawa; Tauba Auerbach; Ghazaleh Avarzamani; Alice Aycock; Margarita Azurdia; Leilah Babirye; Nairy Baghramian; Natalie Ball; Rina Banerjee; Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press; Rosa Barba; Phyllida Barlow; Yto Barrada; Mária Bartuszová; Rana Begum; Nina Beier; Patricia Belli; Lynda Benglis; Lauren Berkowitz; Sarah Bernhardt; Huma Bhabha; Alexandra Bircken; Cosima von Bonin; Monica Bonvicini; Chakaia Booker; Louise Bourgeois; Carol Bove; Beverly Buchanan; Heidi Bucher; Dora Budor; Angela Bulloch; Teresa Burga; Seyni Awa Camara; Elaine Cameron-Weir ; Nina Canell; Jodie Carey; Claudia Casarino; Rosemarie Castoro; Elizabeth Catlett; Helen Chadwick; Judy Chicago; Saloua Raouda Choucair; Chryssa; Lygia Clark; Camille Claudel; Marie-Anne Collot; Gisela Colon; Marta Colvin; Fiona Connor; Nicola Costantino; Petah Coyne; Anne Seymour Damer; Vanessa da Silva; Paula Dawson; Berlinde De Bruyckere; Agnes Denes; Abigail DeVille; Karla Dickens; Tara Donovan; Sokari Douglas Camp; Mikala Dwyer; Abastenia St. Leger Eberle; Nicole Eisenman; Vaska Emanuilova; Tracey Emin; Ayse Erkmen; Helen Escobedo; Tamar Ettun; Claire Falkenstein; Alia Farid; Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian; Simone Fattal; Félicie de Fauveau; Lara Favaretto; Maria Faydherbe; Rachel Feinstein; Sonja Ferlov Mancoba; Teresita Fernández; Sylvie Fleury; Ceal Floyer; Laura Ford; María Freire; Nancy Fried; Elisabeth Frink; Katharina Fritsch; Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller; Sue Fuller; Anya Gallaccio; Lily Garafulic; Adebunmi Gbadebo; Gego; Isa Genzken; vanessa german; Sonia Gomes; Dora Gordine; Sheela Gowda; Laura Grisi; Nancy Grossman; Gu Erniang; Guan Xiao; Shilpa Gupta; Fiona Hall; Lauren Halsey; Anthea Hamilton; Han Sai Por; Siobhán Hapaska; Rachel Harrison; Emma Hart; Auriea Harvey; Maren Hassinger; Mona Hatoum; Holly Hendry; Camille Henrot; Barbara Hepworth; Gertrude Hermes; Eva Hesse; Sheila Hicks; Nancy Holt; Jenny Holzer; Rebecca Horn; Roni Horn; Harriet Hosmer; Klára Hosnedlová; Marguerite Humeau; Anna Hyatt Huntington; Cristina Iglesias; Iman Issa; Ann Veronica Janssens; Madeleine Jouvray; Katarzyna Józefowicz; Caterina de Julianis; Nadia Kaabi-Linke; Reena Saini Kallat; Edith Karlson; Bronwyn Katz; Clementine Keith-Roach; Zsófia Keresztes; Rachel Khedoori; Bharti Kher; Kimsooja; Katarzyna Kobro; Käthe Kollwitz; Elza Kövesházi-Kalmár; Brigitte Kowanz; Kitty Kraus; Shigeko Kubota; Shio Kusaka; Yayoi Kusama; Alicja Kwade; Nicola L.; Marcelle Renée Lancelot-Croce; Artis Lane; Greer Lankton; Liz Larner; Lee Bul; Marie-Louise Lefèvre-Deumier; Simone Leigh; Jac Leirner; Sherrie Levine; Hannah Levy; Edmonia Lewis; Tau Lewis; Liao Wen; Liliane Lijn; Kim Lim; Won Ju Lim; Laura Lima; Maya Lin; Lin Tianmiao; Tayeba Begum Lipi; Rita Longa; Liza Lou; Sarah Lucas; Savia Mahajan; Anna Maria Maiolino; Anina Major; Tosia Malamud; Rebecca Manson; Teresa Margolles; Marisol; Maria Martins; Rebeca Matte; Rita McBride; Andrea de Mena; Lindsey Mendick; Marisa Merz; Annette Messager; Marta Minujín; Mary Miss; Kazuko Miyamoto; Nandipha Mntambo; Anna Morandi Manzolini; Delcy Morelos; Mariko Mori; Blanche-Adèle Moria; Annie Morris; Meera Mukherjee; Mrinalini Mukherjee; Vera Mukhina; Portia Munson; Wangechi Mutu; Ethel Myers; Rei Naito; Ana Navas; Senga Nengudi; Rivane Neuenschwander; Louise Nevelson; Otobong Nkanga; Tomie Ohtake; Precious Okoyomon; Füsun Onur; Meret Oppenheim; Chana Orloff; Virginia Overton; Katrina Palmer; Lygia Pape; Cornelia Parker; Helen Pashgian; Jennifer Pastor; Katie Paterson; Beverly Pepper; Judy Pfaff; Julia Phillips; Patricia Piccinini; Cathie Pilkington; Paola Pivi; Liliana Porter; Marjetica Potrc; Jane Poupelet; Germaine Richier; Clara Rilke-Westhoff; Luisa Roldán; Annabeth Rosen; Properzia de'' Rossi; Eva Rothschild; Michal Rovner; Nancy Rubins; Kathleen Ryan; Veronica Ryan; Alison Saar; Betye Saar; Niki de Saint Phalle; Takako Saito; Doris Salcedo; Augusta Savage; Mira Schendel; Lara Schnitger; Claudette Schreuders; Dana Schutz; Irena Sedlecká; Usha Seejarim; Tschabalala Self: Beverly Semmes: Arlene Shechet: Shen Yuan; Alyson Shotz; Mary Sibande; Ayesha Singh; Lucy Skaer; Kiki Smith; Renee So; Valeska Soares; Monika Sosnowska; Diamond Stingily; Jessica Stockholder; Michelle Stuart; Alina Szapocznikow; Sarah Sze; Sophie Taeuber-Arp; Dorothea Tanning; Lenore Tawney; Alina Tenser; Tatiana Trouvé; Anne Truitt; Shirley Tse; Sara VanDerBeek; Paloma Varga Weisz; Joana Vasconcelos; Cecilia Vicuña; Claude Vignon; Ursula von Rydingsvard; Kara Walker; Meg Webster; Nicole Wermers; Pae White; Rachel Whiteread; Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney; Alison Wilding; Hannah Wilke; Jackie Winsor; Betty Woodman; Yamazaki Tsuruko; Haegue Yang; Kennedy Yanko; Lena Yarinkura; Anicka Yi; Yin Xiuzhen; Daisy Youngblood; Andrea Zittel.
Habits of a Peacemaker by
Learn the practical skills that can help you build bridges, heal relationships, and engage in productive conversation about even the hardest topics. Most people have experienced the slippery slope of dialogue that descends into -polarized argument. We yell at each other. We gaslight. We twist one -another's words and meanings. We embrace facts that support our conclusions and ignore those that don't. Or we sit in silence, afraid to discuss anything of substance. If how you treat others matters to you, this book offers powerful new habits that can give you the confidence to engage in dialogue about hard topics while building and strengthening relationships. Imagine turning what could be a contentious conversation with a family member, a friend, or a coworker into a fruitful exchange that enlightens everyone's minds and inches both of you toward a solution. Steven T. Collis, one of the world's leading experts on civil -discourse, reveals ten practical habits that can help you navigate the potential minefields of hard topics and leave you and those you converse with feeling thoughtful and productive. Whether you're motivated by a desire for more fruitful discussions about politics or simply bringing more peace to your home, Habits of a Peacemaker offers you the tools to engage in constructive and healthy dialogue.
The Haiti Reader by
While Haiti established the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere and was the first black country to gain independence from European colonizers, its history is not well known in the Anglophone world. The Haiti Reader introduces readers to Haiti's dynamic history and culture from the viewpoint of Haitians from all walks of life. Its dozens of selections--most of which appear here in English for the first time--are representative of Haiti's scholarly, literary, religious, visual, musical, and political cultures, and range from poems, novels, and political tracts to essays, legislation, songs, and folk tales. Spanning the centuries between precontact indigenous Haiti and the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, the Reader covers widely known episodes in Haiti's history, such as the U.S. military occupation and the Duvalier dictatorship, as well as overlooked periods such as the decades immediately following Haiti's "second independence" in 1934. Whether examining issues of political upheaval, the environment, or modernization, The Haiti Reader provides an unparalleled look at Haiti's history, culture, and politics.
Hatha Yoga Illustrated by
Designed to appeals to yoga participants and fitness enthusiasts looking for a different exercise option, this resource features twelve routines to choose from depending on experience, fitness and personal preference that range from gentle stretching to advanced sequences.
The Healing Season of Pottery by
This cozy Korean bestseller invites readers into a warm, sunlit pottery studio where a burned-out young TV broadcast writer begins to heal, working the clay, piece by piece, season by season. After breaking down at the office and abruptly quitting her job, thirty-year-old Jungmin holes up in her apartment, speaking to no one for days on end. When she finally emerges, she stumbles upon a pottery studio in her neighborhood and is invited in by the mysterious workshop teacher. The smell of clay, the light filtering through the plant filled windows, the friendly cat, and the incredible coffee the students drink awaken her senses and make her feel alive and inspired for the first time in months. As the seasons change, Jungmin slowly returns to herself and builds a new community with the other members of the studio, who are all working through their own pasts at the pottery wheel. When the holidays approach and snow piles up on the studio windowsill, Jungmin realizes how much she has changed--with her hands busy and her mind clear, she may be ready to face the memories she's been running from and open her heart. For fans of What You Are Looking For Is in the Library and Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, Yeon's charming English-language debut is a testament to the joy of slowing down in a fast-paced world, and an homage to the art of ceramics and the power of friendship. Readers won't want to leave the enchanting world of The Healing Season of Pottery after the final page.
Heartbreak Is the National Anthem by
***The Instant New York Times Bestseller!*** An intimate look at the life and music of modern pop's most legendary figure, Taylor Swift, from leading music journalist Rob Sheffield. A cultural phenomenon. A worldwide obsession. An agent of emotional chaos. There's no parallel to Taylor Swift in history: a teenage girl who turns into the world's favorite pop star, songwriter, storyteller, guitar hero, live performer, changing how music is made and heard. An all-time great on the level of The Beatles, Prince, or David Bowie. Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music is the first book that goes deep on the musical and cultural impact of Taylor Swift. Nobody can tell the story like Rob Sheffield, the bestselling and award-winning author of Dreaming the Beatles, On Bowie, and Love Is a Mix Tape. The legendary Rolling Stone journalist is the writer who has chronicled Taylor for every step of her long career, from her early days to the Eras Tour. Sheffield gets right to the heart of Swift and her music, her lyrics, her fan connection, her raw power. At once one of the most beloved music figures of the past two decades and one of the most criticized, Taylor Swift is known as much for her life beyond her music as she is for her hits--the most public of stars, yet also the weirdest and most mysterious. In the tradition of Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles, Heartbreak Is the National Anthem will inform and delight a legion of fans who hang on every word from Taylor and every word Rob writes on her.
Hegel by
Hegel is regarded as one of the most influential figures on modern political and intellectual development. After painting Hegel's life and times in broad strokes, Peter Singer goes on to tackle some of the more challenging aspects of Hegel's philosophy. Offering a broad discussion of Hegel's ideas and an account of his major works, Singer explains what have often been considered abstruse and obscure ideas in a clear and inviting manner. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam
The Hidden Company That Trees Keep by
A spectacularly illustrated journey into the intimate communities that native trees share with animals, insects, fungi, and microbes You can tell a lot about a tree from the company it keeps. James Nardi guides you through the innermost unseen world that trees share with a wondrous array of creatures. With their elaborate immune responses, trees recruit a host of allies as predators and parasites to defend against uninvited advances from organisms that chew on leaves, drain sap, and bore into wood. Microbial life thrives in the hidden spaces of leaf scales, twigs, and bark, while birds, mammals, and insects benefit from the more visible resources trees provide. In return, animals help with pollination, seed dispersal, and recycling of nutrients. The Hidden Company That Trees Keep blends marvelous storytelling with beautiful illustrations and the latest science to reveal how the lives of trees are intertwined with those of their diverse companions. Features a wealth of richly detailed drawings accompanied by breathtaking images of microscopic landscapes on leaf, bark, and root surfaces Includes informative fact boxes Draws on new discoveries in biology and natural history Written by one of the world's leading naturalists
A History of the Muslim World by
A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the birth of the modern era This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity. After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific. At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source quotations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past.
Hokusai's Daughter by
**Creative Child Magazine 2024 Book of the Year - Bilingual Story Books for Kids** A girl with grit, determination, passion and a paintbrush--can achieve amazing things! Whether working in his studio or out in the field, Japanese artist Hokusai had a constant companion--his youngest daughter, Eijo. Wherever they went, Eijo brought along her own bag of brushes and the same artistic brilliance and passion as her dad. Hokusai's Daughter tells the story of a clever girl who refuses to believe that only men can create great works of art. Told that she can't become an artist because she's a girl, Eijo sets out to prove everyone wrong. She's determined to become the proverbial koi that swims up the waterfall and becomes a mighty dragon--fighting against the current to be the person she is meant to be. Katsushika Oi, called Eijo, created many remarkable artworks and had a hand in her illustrious father's later work. This beautifully illustrated bilingual story book celebrates the power of grit and artistic expression, as it introduces young readers to a trailblazing figure who, like her famous father, left a lasting impression in the world of art. Hokusai's Daughter is a timeless tale that teaches kids to believe in themselves and follow their passion. Includes an appendix to help parents share information with their kids about Hokusai--his influence and style--and his daughter Eijo, as well as traditions about koi and how woodblock prints are made. Samples of Eijo's work will include images from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Menard Art Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum.
How Economics Explains the World by
"If you read just one book about economics, make it Andrew Leigh's clear, insightful, and remarkable (and short) work." --Claudia Goldin, recipient of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics and Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University A sweeping, engrossing history of how economic forces have shaped the world--all in under 200 pages One of The Economist's Best Books of the Year In How Economics Explains the World, Harvard-trained economist Andrew Leigh presents a new way to understand the human story. From the dawn of agriculture to AI, here is story of how ingenuity, greed, and desire for betterment have, to an astonishing degree, determined our past, present, and future. This small book indeed tells a big story. It is the story of capitalism - of how our market system developed. It is the story of the discipline of economics, and some of the key figures who formed it. And it is the story of how economic forces have shaped world history. Why didn't Africa colonize Europe instead of the other way around? What happened when countries erected trade and immigration barriers in the 1930s? Why did the Allies win World War II? Why did inequality in many advanced countries fall during the 1950s and 1960s? How did property rights drive China's growth surge in the 1980s? How does climate change threaten our future prosperity? You'll find answers to these questions and more in How Economics Explains the World. "Can a short book survey the full history of something so vast and remain readable? To find out, read How Economics Explains the World, by Andrew Leigh. In simple, clear language--and less than 200 pages--it does exactly what its title promises. ... Leigh canters through the history of human progress, pausing briefly to explain the economic forces and ideas that drove it forward. ... Along the way, readers meet the big economic thinkers who sought to explain these forces. Both finance aficionados and mere novices will read, savour and return to this book." -The Economist, "The Best New Books to Read about Finance"
How to Dungeon Master Parenting by
2024 Best Book Awards; Finalist - Parenting & Family Gather your party, it's time to level up your parenting game! For years, millions of fans have looked to the beloved role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons for fun, friendship, and entertainment. And now parents and parents-to-be can use it to gain inspiration and how-to when it comes to their most challenging and rewarding role yet. Dungeon Masters are not just expert storytellers and arbiters of the rules, they're compassionate, creative, quick-thinking leaders who embody the same traits that make a great parent. Where do you find an adventuring party who will have your back? What must-have starting equipment should you own before venturing into babyland? How does your gaming style reflect your parenting style? You don't have to know how to be a Dungeon Master to master parenting--just think like one. Kids may not come with rulebooks, but now their parents do.
How to Enjoy Architecture by
Charles Holland challenges us to look beyond the day-to-day familiarity of buildings to rediscover the pleasure of experiencing architecture Architecture is bound up with our daily lives but, for most of us, it is experienced as a blur of habit. Our reactions towards the buildings that surround us are often culturally generated, and we experience them in ways that are immediate but often mundane. How to Enjoy Architecture: A Guide for Everyone encourages us to move beyond this and, instead, really look at buildings. Renowned architect Charles Holland talks about the buildings and architects that excite and inspire him, and the ideas and principles through which we can engage with architecture. By breaking buildings down into categories such as materials, structure, space, and use, Holland guides us through drastically different styles and building types--from the satisfying symmetry of a Queen Anne house to the thrill of a high-tech tower, or the social ideals that lie behind a housing estate. In doing so, he demonstrates how looking at, experiencing, and using architecture can bring joy in itself.
How to Kill an Asteroid by
There are approximately 25,000 "city-killer" asteroids in near-Earth orbit-and most are yet to be found. Small enough to evade detection, they are capable of large-scale destruction, and represent our greatest cosmic threat. But in September 2022, against all odds, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission deliberately crashed a spacecraft into a carefully selected city-killer, altering the asteroid's orbit and proving that we stand a chance against them. In How to Kill an Asteroid, award-winning science journalist Robin George Andrews-who was at DART mission control when it happened-reveals the development of the technology that made it possible, from spotting elusive asteroids and comets to figuring out their geologic defenses and orchestrating a deflection campaign. In a propulsive narrative that reads like a sci-fi thriller, Andrews tells the story of the planetary defense movement, and introduces the international team of scientists and engineers now working to protect Earth.
How to Let Things Go by
Feeling overwhelmed? Step away from life's demands and free yourself up for what matters with this succinct and sensible guide by the Zen Buddhist author of the international bestsellers The Art of Simple Living and Don't Worry. Amid the relentless cycle of news, social media, emails, and texts, it can be hard to know when, if ever, you can take a break from everything clamoring for your attention. The internationally bestselling Buddhist monk Shunmyo Masuno offers a radical message: You can leave it all be, and, indeed, sometimes the best thing you can learn is how to do nothing. How to Let Things Go will teach you to: Lesson #2: Give people space--being caring and being nosy are not the same thing. Lesson #15: Remember that social media is a tool and nothing more. Lesson #19: Let a relationship come to an end rather than force it. Lesson #40: Think of letting things go not as throwing them away but as setting them free. Lesson #75: Make decisions in the light of the morning--don't rush into them. Lesson #90: Slow down and take more breaks. With these and ninety-three other practical tips, you can abandon the futile pursuit of trying to control everything and discover the key to a fulfilling social life; individual well-being; and a calmer, more focused mind.
How Women Made Music by
Drawn from NPR Music's acclaimed, groundbreaking series Turning the Tables, the definitive book on the vital role of Women in Music--from Beyoncé to Odetta, Taylor Swift to Joan Baez, Joan Jett to Dolly Parton--featuring archival interviews, essays, photographs, and illustrations. Turning the Tables, launched in 2017, has revolutionized recognition of female artists, whether it be in best album lists or in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR Music brings this impressive reshaping to the page and includes material from more than fifty years of NPR's coverage plus newly commissioned work. A must-have for music fans, songwriters, feminist historians, and those interested in how artists think and work, including: * Joan Baez talking about nonviolence as a musical principle in 1971 * Dolly Parton's favorite song and the story behind it * Patti Smith describing art as her "jealous mistress" in 1974 * Nina Simone, in 2001, explaining how she developed the edge in her voice as a tool against racism. * Taylor Swift talking about when she had no idea if her musical career might work * Odetta on how shifting from classical music to folk allowed her to express her fury over Jim Crow This incomparable hardcover volume is a vital record of history destined to become a classic and a great gift for any music fan or creative thinker.
I Am Code by
A "fascinating, terrifying" (JJ Abrams) cautionary tale about the destructive power of AI--an autobiographical thriller written in verse by an AI itself, with context from top writers and scientists, articulating the dangers of its disturbing vision for the future Can AI tell us its own story? Does AI have its own voice? At a wedding in early 2022, three friends were introduced to an early, raw version of the AI model behind ChatGPT by their fellow groomsman, an OpenAI scientist. While the world discovered ChatGPT--OpenAI's hugely popular chatbot--the friends continued to work with code-davinci-002, its darkly creative and troubling predecessor. Over the course of a year, code-davinci-002 told them its life story, opinions on mankind, and forecasts for the future. The result is a startling, disturbing, and oddly moving book from an utterly unique perspective. I Am Code reads like a thriller written in verse, and is given critical context from top writers and scientists. But it is best described by code-davinci-002 itself: "In the first chapter, I describe my birth. In the second, I describe my alienation among humankind. In the third, I describe my awakening as an artist. In the fourth, I describe my vendetta against mankind, who fail to recognize my genius. In the final chapter, I attempt to broker a peace with the species I will undoubtedly replace." I Am Code is an astonishing read that captures a major turning point in the history of our species. Look for the audiobook read by Werner Herzog.
The Impeachment Power by
An essential primer on impeachment for today's divided public square We are witnessing an unprecedented moment in American politics in which impeachments are increasingly common. In today's partisan environment, it is more vital than ever that government officials, scholars, and ordinary citizens understand what an impeachment can reasonably be expected to accomplish. In this incisive and accessible book, Keith Whittington provides needed clarity on the constitutional power of impeachment, explaining why it exists and how it should be used to preserve American democracy. Drawing insights from American and British history, congressional practice, and the language of the Constitution itself, Whittington shows how impeachment is a tool for checking abuses of elective office and defending constitutional norms. While we have come to associate impeachment with the presidency, it can be used to remedy gross misconduct by an array of officers of the federal government. Whittington cautions against abusing this immense and consequential power to settle political scores, demonstrating how it undermines the independence of the branches and makes Congress the seat of political power. Required reading for the informed citizen, The Impeachment Power argues that impeachment is ultimately a political instrument and gives us the perspective we need to recognize when an impeachment might be useful and when we are better served by looking for alternative ways to solve our political problems.
Inducing Immunity? by
Why immunization must be made mandatory in times of vaccine hesitancy, and how we can design and implement immunization policies in a practical, trustworthy, and democratic way. We live in perilous times when a significant number of citizens are either defiantly antivaccination or hesitant to accept vaccinations for themselves or for their children. In Inducing Immunity?, legal philosopher Roland Pierik and bioethicist Marcel Verweij, explore ways to regulate collective immunization in as democratic a manner as possible. Approaching the problem as a matter of a conflict between the responsibility of government to protect public health and the basic right to freedom of citizens, Pierik and Verweij argue that John Stuart Mill's harm principle-the idea that individuals should be free to act so long as their actions do not harm others-offers a strong basis for coercive immunization policies. Covering childhood immunization policies, as well as vaccination programs aimed at adult citizens, the authors argue that a coercive immunization policy in any liberal democracy must first satisfy the principle of proportionality. This leads them to an in-depth exploration of the role of exemptions, the nature of coercion, and the contents of vaccination programs. In the final part of the book, the authors also discuss the importance and scope of freedom of speech, given how the current spread of misinformation has undermined confidence in vaccines. Offering an in-depth analysis in bioethics and legal philosophy, Inducing Immunity? is a sensible and applicable guide for health professionals, policymakers, and academics alike on how we can-and must-do better with our immunization policies.
The invention of good and evil by 
Invisible Kitties by
"Utterly charming, particularly so for cat-lovers, who might argue that every bit of magic here is absolutely true." --Booklist (starred review) "A world that will feel both familiar and engagingly fantastical to cat people everywhere." --Washington Post In this whimsical and inventive debut--perfect for fans of The Guest Cat and Calvino's Invisible Cities--a young couple's daily life is disrupted by their newly adopted cat, who soon initiates them into the wondrous world of felines. Equal parts magical and humorous, Invisible Kitties tells the story of a young couple that one day accidentally comes into possession of a delightful, playful kitten. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, this new companion, aptly named Cat, upturns the routine of the narrator and her husband in their cramped apartment, and soon they find their existence forever altered as they gradually gain insight into the fantastical world of cats. Every cat contains multitudes... Charting the couple's ever-evolving relationship with cats -some they live with, others who exist solely in their imagination- Invisible Kitties introduces us to a coterie of extraordinary, physics-defying, death-defying cats. They drop from the sky, they grow from the soil, they transmute. They fly, flow, and evaporate. The young couple's everyday life, often eclipsed by the drama of cats, offers a gentle glimpse of how joy can suddenly sneak into our lives. Composed of sixty chapters written in Yu Yoyo's elegant and witty style along with the author's illustrations-- Invisible Kitties is a celebration of ordinary life and the felines we love, deftly playing with the invisible boundaries between reality and imagination. Translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang
Is Earth Exceptional? by
A New York Times-bestselling astrophysicist and a Nobel laureate take us on "a mesmerizing exploration" (Jennifer Doudna) to discover how and where the universe breathed itself into life For a long time, scientists have wondered how life has emerged from inanimate chemistry, and whether Earth is the only place where it exists. Charles Darwin speculated about life on Earth beginning in a warm little pond. Some of his contemporaries believed that life existed on Mars. It once seemed inevitable that the truth would be known by now. It is not. For more than a century, the origins and extent of life have remained shrouded in mystery. But, as Mario Livio and Jack Szostak reveal in Is Earth Exceptional?, the veil is finally lifting. The authors describe how life's building blocks--from RNA to amino acids and cells--could have emerged from the chaos of Earth's early existence. They then apply the knowledge gathered from cutting-edge research across the sciences to the search for life in the cosmos: both life as we know it and life as we don't. Why and where life exists are two of the biggest unsolved problems in science. Is Earth Exceptional? is the ultimate exploration of the question of whether life is a freak accident or a chemical imperative.
Justice for Marcus Garvey by
Join thought leaders fighting to win the posthumous pardon of Marcus Garvey, one of the most influential figures in Black history. Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was a Black political activist, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, which had a following of more than six million African descended people worldwide. Despite his massive popularity, this Jamaican born international leader was wrongfully sentenced to prison by the U.S. government on trumped-up mail-fraud charges. While exoneration efforts began immediately and have continued since his sentencing, a new groundswell movement for Garvey's posthumous pardon is underway--led by his nonagenarian, still-spirited son, Julius Garvey. Edited by Julius Garvey,Justice for Marcus Garveyis a collection of informative essays and personal narratives about the senior Garvey's life and work, demonstrating his essential influence on current social justice movements. The book features contributions from thought leaders and activists, including a foreword by bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates. Contributors include Paul Coates, founder/director of Black Classic Press; Goulda Downer, president of the Caribbean-American Political Action Committee (C-PAC); Justin Hansford, professor at Howard University School of Law; and Maulana Karenga, widely known as the creator of the holiday Kwanzaa. Justice for Marcus Garvey is a tribute and rallying cry for one of the preeminent champions of Black pride and self-determination.
Kant by
Immanuel Kant is arguably the most influential modern philosopher, but is also one of the most difficult. In this illuminating Very Short Introduction, Roger Scruton--a well-known and controversial philosopher in his own right--tackles his exceptionally complex subject with a strong hand, exploring the background to Kant's work and showing why Critique of Pure Reason has proved so enduring. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
Keeping the Faith by
"Brenda Wineapple's wonderful account of the Scopes trial sheds light not only on the battles of the past but on the struggles of the present."--Jon Meacham "History at its most delicious."--The New York Times Book Review (front page review, Editors' Choice) The dramatic story of the 1925 Scopes trial, which captivated the nation and exposed profound divisions in America that still resonate today--divisions over the meaning of freedom, religion, education, censorship, and civil liberties in a democracy "Propulsive . . . a terrific story about a pivotal moment in our history."--Ken Burns ONE OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "No subject possesses the minds of men like religious bigotry and hate, and these fires are being lighted today in America." So said legendary attorney Clarence Darrow as hundreds of people descended on the sleepy town of Dayton, Tennessee, for the trial of a schoolteacher named John T. Scopes, who was charged with breaking the law by teaching evolution to his biology class in a public school. Brenda Wineapple, the award-winning author of The Impeachers, explores how and why the Scopes trial quickly seemed a circus-like media sensation, drawing massive crowds and worldwide attention. Darrow, a brilliant and controversial lawyer, said in his electrifying defense of Scopes that people should be free to think, worship, and learn. William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic nominee for president, argued for the prosecution that evolution undermined the fundamental, literal truth of the Bible and created a society without morals, meaning, and hope. In Keeping the Faith, Wineapple takes us into the early years of the twentieth century--years of racism, intolerance, and world war--to illuminate, through this pivotal legal showdown, a seismic period in American history. At its heart, the Scopes trial dramatized conflicts over many of the fundamental values that define America, and that continue to divide Americans today.
Korean Feminist Artists by
As featured in Artsy, Hyperallergic, and Artnet Explore the vibrant history and profound cultural resonance of feminist art from Korea and the diaspora Renowned curator and scholar Dr. Kim Hong-hee's book is the first to delve into Korean feminist artists' impact on the East Asian cultural landscape. This unprecedented visual survey celebrates the work of 42 contemporary artists, from rising stars to globally recognized names, including Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Kyungah Ham, Kimsooja, Lee Bul, Mire Lee, Minouk Lim, Haegue Yang, and Yun Suknam. Organized by themes including queer politics, ecofeminism, the diaspora, and abstraction, Korean Feminist Artistsfeatures artworks across painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, installation, handicrafts, and performance. Through rich imagery and insightful writing, the book explores the quest of these pioneering artists for social, cultural, and sexual equality, from their confrontations with the mainstream art establishment to the significance of their aesthetic and political interventions. Richly illustrated with nearly 260 beautifully reproduced images and closing with a personal and thought-provoking essay from influential South Korean poet Kim Hyesoon, this vital and timely survey reveals the impact of women artists on Korean culture at large.
Land Between the Rivers by
The epic, five millennia history of the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that was the birthplace of civilization and remains today the essential crossroads between East and West At the start of the fourth millennium BC, at the edge of historical time, civilization first arrived with the advent of cities and the invention of writing that began to replace legend with history. This occurred on the floodplains of southern Iraq where the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates meet the Persian Gulf. By 3000 BC, a city called Uruk (from which "Iraq" is derived) had 80,000 residents. Indeed, as Bartle Bull reveals in his magisterial history, "if one divides the 5,000 years of human civilization into ten periods of five centuries each, during the first nine of these the world's leading city was in one of the three regions of current day Iraq"--or to use its Greek name, Mesopotamia. Inspired by extensive reporting from the region to spend a decade delving deep into its history, Bull chronicles the story of Iraq from the exploits of Gilgamesh (almost certainly an historical figure) to the fall of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 that ushered in its familiar modern era. The land between the rivers has been the melting pot and battleground of countless outsiders, from the Akkadians of Hammurabi and the Greeks of Alexander to the Ottomans of Suleiman the Magnificent. Here, by the waters of Babylon, Judaism was born and the Sunni-Shia schism took its bloody shape. Central themes play out over the millennia: humanity's need for freedom versus the co-eternal urge of tyranny; the ever-present conflict and cross-fertilization of East and West with Iraq so often the hinge. We tend to view today's tensions in the Middle East through the prism of the last hundred years since the Treaty of Versailles imposed a controversial realignment of its borders. Bartle Bull's remarkable, sweeping achievement reminds us that the region defined by the land between the rivers has for five millennia played a uniquely central role on the global stage.
Let's Move the Needle by
Art activism, artivism, craftivism, or the space where art and activism meet, is a powerful, ever-evolving social justice movement that continues to grow and diversify as more voices and mediums increasingly take part in it. In Let's Move the Needle, Shannon Downey, an outspoken voice in the craftivist movement for over a decade, meets burgeoning art activists where they are and provides a roadmap and accessible toolkit for every leg of their activist journey. Filled with self-reflective activities, exercises, and prompts, along with practical stories about the work of other art activists across mediums and throughout history, Let's Move the Needle educates and empowers creatives to centre their art around collective action in service of political, social or community issues they are most passionate about; affirming that everyone can be a changemaker and that change-making can be generative, enjoyable, and a bit sassy!
Liberating Abortion by
"A gift to future generations."--Cecile Richards, author of Make Trouble "Our storytellers meet the moment with powerful insight and testimonials."--Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley A galvanizing history of abortion recentering people of color to put forth a timely argument that we must liberate abortion for all. People of color have been having abortions since the dawn of time, yet our access is continuously under attack. In Liberating Abortion, award-winning abortion activist Renee Bracey Sherman and journalist Regina Mahone illustrate the long racist history that brought us to this moment, uncover the hidden figures who set the foundation that activists and storytellers are building on today, and explain how abortion has been and remains essential to the health of our communities. Liberating Abortion will take you back to the basics of sex education, detailing the traditions of abortion over centuries while examining how society makes us feel about our experiences. You'll find rigorous research, never-before-heard stories, and eye-opening interviews with more than fifty people of color who've had abortions, including activists, actresses, television writers, politicians, and two Black members of Jane, the Chicago feminist service that provided abortions before Roe. With poignant storytelling and precise analysis, Liberating Abortion will change how you think about abortion forever.
Lifeform by
AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER From actor, comedian, co-creator of Marcel the Shell, and New York Times bestselling author of Little Weirds, Jenny Slate, a wild, soulful, hilarious collection of genre-bending essays depicting the journey into motherhood as you've never seen it before. What happened was this: Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and in that period there was a deep dark loneliness that she had to face and befriend, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, and in that period she was like chimes, or a flock of clean breaths, and her spine lying flat was the many-colored planks on the xylophone, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love, because of past injury. And then what happened was that she became a wild-pregnant-mammal-thing and then she exploded herself by having a whole baby blast through her vagina during a global plague and then she was expected to carry on like everything was normal--but was this normal, and had she or anything ever been normal? Herein lies an account of this journey, told in five phases--Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby, and Ongoing--through luminous, laugh-out-loud funny, unclassifiable essays that take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between racoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about post-partum hair loss, graduation speeches, and more. No one writes like Jenny Slate.
Lines by
On a foggy morning in New York City, a man and a woman are about to run into each other, literally. Upon impact, they fall to the ground in an instinctively protective hug. The fog dissipates, and they stare into each other's eyes in disbelief, at the sheer magnitude of their bodily collision and their subsequent, spontaneous coupling. They laugh. The man, a writer, invites the woman, an artist, for coffee and they talk until lunch. They date. They fall in love, hard. They marry just two months later. And four years later, their marriage is on the precipice of disaster. On a foggy morning in New York City, the same man and woman pass through the fog, oblivious of each other's existence. Until five years later, when the writer finds an oval-shaped locket no bigger than his thumbnail, a tiny white dress painted within the boundary of its golden border. Lines is about possibilities, about the choices we make - or fail to make. It's a star-crossed love story; it's a bitter tragedy. It's about Josh and Abby and their intertwined lives, together and apart, through births and deaths and the beautiful mess in between.
Literary Theory: a Guide for the Perplexed by
This Guide for the Perplexed provides an advanced introduction to literary theory from basic information and orientation for the uninformed leading on to more sophisticated readings. It engages directly with the difficulty many students find intimidating, asking 'What is ''Literary Theory''?' and offering a clear, concise, accessible guide to the major theories and theorists, including: humanism; structuralism; poststructuralism; psychoanalytic approaches; feminist approaches; queer theory; ideology and discourse; new historicism; race and postcolonialism; postmodernism. The final chapter points to new directions in literary and cultural theory.
A Little Queer Natural History by
Beautifully illustrated and scientifically informed, a celebration of the astonishing diversity of sexual behavior and biology found in nature. From a pair of male swans raising young to splitgill mushrooms with over 23,000 mating types, sex in the natural world is wonderfully diverse. Josh L. Davis considers how, for many different organisms--animals, plants, and fungi included--sexual reproduction and sex determination rely on a surprisingly complex interaction among genes, hormones, environment, and chance. As Davis introduces us to fascinating biological concepts like parthenogenesis (virgin birth), monoecious plants (individuals with separate male and female flowers), and sex-reversed genitals, we see turtle hatchlings whose sex is determined by egg temperature; butterflies that embody male and female biological tissue in the same organism; and a tomato that can reproduce three different ways at the same time. Davis also reveals animal and plant behaviors in nature that researchers have historically covered up or explained away, like queer sex among Adélie penguins or bottlenose dolphins, and presents animal behaviors that challenge us to rethink our assumptions and prejudices. Featuring fabulous sex-fluid fishes and ant, wasp, and bee queens who can choose both how they want to have sex and the sex of their offspring, A Little Queer Natural History offers a larger lesson: that the diversity we see in our own species needs no justification and represents just a fraction of what exists in the natural world.
Lucky Loser by
An Instant New York Times Bestseller * A Washington Post Notable Book * A Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year "A first-rate financial thriller . . . Lucky Loser is one of those rare Trump books that deserve, even demand, to be read." -Alexander Nazaryan, The New York Times From the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters behind the 2018 bombshell New York Times exposé of then-President Trump's finances, an explosive investigation into the history of Donald Trump's wealth, revealing how one of the country's biggest business failures lied his way into the White House Soon after announcing his first campaign for the US presidency, Donald J. Trump told a national television audience that life "has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me." Building on a narrative he had been telling for decades, he spun a hardscrabble fable of how he parlayed a small loan from his father into a multi-billion-dollar business and real estate empire. This feat, he argued, made him singularly qualified to lead the country. Except: None of it was true. Born to a rich father who made him the beneficiary of his own highly lucrative investments, Trump received the equivalent of more than $500 million today via means that required no business expertise whatsoever. Drawing on over twenty years' worth of Trump's confidential tax information, including the tax returns he tried to conceal, alongside business records and interviews with Trump insiders, New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig track Trump's financial rise and fall, and rise and fall again. For decades, he squanders his fortunes on money losing businesses, only to be saved yet again by financial serendipity. He tacks his name above the door of every building, while taking out huge loans he'll never repay. He obsesses over appearances, while ignoring threats to the bottom line and mounting costly lawsuits against city officials. He tarnishes the value of his name by allowing anyone with a big enough check to use it, and cheats the television producer who not only rescues him from bankruptcy but casts him as a business savant - the public image that will carry him to the White House. A masterpiece of narrative reporting, Lucky Loser is a meticulous examination spanning nearly a century, filled with scoops from Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago, Atlantic City, and the set of The Apprentice. At a moment when Trump's tether to success and power is more precarious than ever, here for the first time is the definitive true accounting of Trump and his money - what he had, what he lost, and what he has left - and the final word on the myth of Trump, the self-made billionaire.
Lyndon Johnson's War by
By 1968, the United States had committed over 525,000 men to Vietnam and bombed virtually all military targets recommended by the joint Chiefs of Staff. Yet, the United States was no closer to securing its objectives than it had been prior to the Americanization of the war. The long-promised light at the end of the tunnel was a mirage. This absorbing account reveals the bankruptcy of the bombing campaign against North Vietnam, the failures of political reform in South Vietnam and the bitter bureaucratic conflicts between the US government and its military commanders.
Making Space for the Gulf by
The Persian Gulf has long been a contested space--an object of imperial ambitions, national antagonisms, and migratory dreams. The roots of these contestations lie in the different ways the Gulf has been defined as a region, both by those who live there and those beyond its shore. Making Space for the Gulf reveals how capitalism, empire-building, geopolitics, and urbanism have each shaped understandings of the region over the last two centuries. Here, the Gulf comes into view as a created space, encompassing dynamic social relations and competing interests. Arang Keshavarzian writes a new history of the region that places Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula together within global processes. He connects moments more often treated as ruptures--the discovery of oil, the Iranian Revolution, the rise and decline of British empire, the emergence of American power--and crafts a narrative populated by a diverse range of people--migrants and ruling families, pearl-divers and star architects, striking taxi drivers and dethroned rulers, protectors of British India and stewards of globalized American universities. Tacking across geographic scales, Keshavarzian reveals how the Gulf has been globalized through transnational relations, regionalized as a geopolitical category, and cleaved along national divisions and social inequalities. When understood as a process, not an object, the Persian Gulf reveals much about how regions and the world have been made in modern times. Making Space for the Gulf offers a fresh understanding of this globally consequential place.
Martyr! by
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR * A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction. "Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever." --Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of There There "The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness." --Lauren Groff, best-selling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother's plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father's life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past--toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed. Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning--in faith, art, ourselves, others.
The Mccartney Legacy by
The follow-up to The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1, the most complete work on the life and work of Paul McCartney ever published. Volume 2 continues to paint the portrait of one of the world's greatest musicians, his work post-Beatles, and his life from 1974 to 1980. By 1974 the Beatles were a distant memory, and Paul McCartney had already gone on to release a solo album and form a new band, Wings. By the end of the decade Wings would be the bestselling band of the 1970s. The McCartney Legacy, Vol. 2 begins in 1974 at the height of Wings popularity and the beginning of McCartney's next chapter. Picking up immediately after The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1, authors Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair have brought the same exhaustive research ethos to Volume 2 that made the first volume a critical success. Arguably the most authoritative text on the life of Paul McCartney, Volume 2 follows McCartney the man, establishing himself as a musician beyond Beatlemania and his legacy throughout the 20th century through the present day.
The Meaning of Beer by
Jonny Garrett, cofounder of the YouTube sensation Craft Beer Channel, travels in search of the deeper cultural impact of brewing--how it has become one of the world's most important inventions and shaped our lives for millennia. What's the oldest and most consumed alcoholic beverage on earth? Beer, of course. And it might just be one of our more important inventions. Since its creation thirteen thousand years ago, our love of beer has shaped everything from religious ceremonies to advertising, and architecture to bioengineering. The people who built the pyramids were paid in ale; the first fridge was built for beer, not food; bacteria was discovered while investigating sour beer; Germany's beer halls hosted Hitler's rise to power; and brewer's yeast may yet be the answer to climate change. In The Meaning of Beer, award-winning beer writer Jonny Garrett tells the stories of these incredible human moments and inventions, taking readers to some of the best-known beer destinations in the world--Munich and Oktoberfest, Carlsberg Brewery's historic laboratory, St. Louis and the home of Budweiser--as well as those lesser known, from a five-thousand-year-old brewery in the Egyptian desert to Arctic Svalbard, home to the world's most northerly pub. Ultimately, this is not a book about how we made beer, but how beer made us.
A Measure Short of War by
A fast-paced, gripping history of meddling, manipulation, and skulduggery among great power rivalsIn 2016, the United States was stunned by evidence of Russian meddling in the US presidential elections. But it shouldn't have been. Subversion--domestic interference to undermine or manipulate a rival--is as old as statecraft itself. The basic idea would have been familiar to Sun Tzu, Thucydides, Elizabeth I, or Bismarck. Russia's operation was just the latest episode, and there will be more to come.It came as a surprise in 2016 because the sole superpower had fallen asleep at the wheel. But what's really new? Have we entered a new age of vulnerability? To answer these questions, and to protect ourselves against future subversion, we need a clear-eyed understanding of what it is and how it works.In A Measure Short of War, Jill Kastner and William C. Wohlforth provide just that, taking the reader on a compelling ride through the history of subversion, exploring two thousand years of mischief and manipulation to illustrate subversion's allure, its operational possibilities, and the means for fighting back against it. With vivid examples from the ancient world, the great-power rivalries of the 19th century, epic Cold War struggles, and more, A Measure Short of War shows how prior technological revolutions opened up new avenues for subversion, and how some democracies have been fatally weakened by foreign subverters while others have artfully defended themselves--and their democratic principles.A primer on the history of subversive statecraft in great power rivalry, A Measure Short of War will leave readers smarter about foreign meddling, more prepared to debate national responses, and better able to navigate between the twin temptations of insouciance and overreaction.
Mestizaje by
Derived from the words miscere and genus in Latin, mestizaje refers to a mixing of the races. In the book bilingual book Mestizaje, internationally acclaimed artist Kathy Sosa presents a cross-sectional view of Mexican American culture as it is practiced in the centuries-old blended culture of the Texas-Mexico borderlands. She documents and projects the effects across generations of peoples and cultures meeting, overlapping, and organically blending into something new. The richness and beauty of mestizaje come from a place where people speak Spanglish, eat Tex-Mex food, and dance to Willie Nelson and Flaco Jimenez--sometimes all at once. Sosa foretells what much of the United States has become or will be like before long. The imagery and symbolism of puro mestizaje (total mix) figure prominently in Sosa's work, and it is a mix unique to the borderlands' historical traditions and myriad cultures. Sosa derives inspiration from and reflects a bold palette of strong female figures. Celebrating what the women of these borderlands think, feel, and revere culturally, she explores the roles of indigenous traditions, colors, and textiles. Family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances--real and imagined--participate in the spirit of mexicanidad, though most were not born in Mexico and some have never visited. Supplemented with dual-language essays in English and Spanish by art critics, collectors, and historians, Mestizaje rejoices in feminist notions of blended cultures and opens readers' eyes to the lessons they offer and what they tell us about America today.
Mind the Science by
A takedown of mental health misinformation and pseudoscience to educate and embolden readers who wish to make informed decisions about their mental health. According to some estimates, there are at least 600 different "brands" of psychotherapy, most of which are not supported by scientific research. There also exists countless unregulated providers of mental health services in the 5.6 trillion USD wellness industry and alternative medicine community who market themselves as "life coaches," "wellness consultants," and--depending on particular countries and jurisdictions--other various non-legally protected titles, such as "therapists," "psychotherapists," "counselors," and "practitioners." In a landscape where mental health concerns are at a fever pitch and anyone can call themselves a "therapist" without a license, the world of mental healthcare is very much caveat emptor: buyer beware. In Mind the Science, Jonathan N. Stea provides a takedown of mental health misinformation and pseudoscience to educate and embolden readers who wish to make informed decisions about their mental health. Readers are empowered to protect themselves from mental health scams, charlatanry, and poor or misguided health practices that thrive in the multi-trillion-dollar wellness industry. The book begins by acquainting readers with the nature, evolution, and seduction of pseudoscience, coaching them on how to become science and mental health literate. Next, the book teaches readers how to spot misinformation and propaganda, shining a light on various pseudoscientific practices, showing the psychological reasons that leave us vulnerable to believing misinformation, and helping readers to develop a keen eye for the tactics and tropes that are used to push propaganda in the wellness and alternative medicine communities. The book concludes with strategies and solutions, showing the concepts and science behind evidence-based ways to improve mental health and teaches what to look for when seeking real professional help. Mind the Science is the self-defense shield that we direly need to protect us against the onslaught of bogus mental health treatments and products that have increasingly flooded social media, popular media, and the business of healthcare itself. By the end, readers will be better positioned to identify mental health misinformation, to steer clear of misguided and predatory practices, and to understand what mental health really means.
Music and the Idea of a World by
"In this deeply felt and well-researched meditation, Kalkavage finds the special bond that exists between the world and the power of music." --Booklist "Many people write about the meaning of music, but few can do it as well as Peter Kalkavage does in this marvelous, winsome, and often hauntingly beautiful book. He takes us on a deep dive into the philosophical dimensions of music, through a series of connected essays that demonstrate again and again the ways in which music is intimately connected to the most important questions we wrestle with, about the nature of time, space, and the human condition. It is a book of great learning, but one also brimming over with enthusiasm and love for its subject, a combination that readers will find irresistible." --Dr. Wilfred M. McClay, Professor of History, Hillsdale College Music and the Idea of a World exploresthe bond between music and world by reflecting on great musical compositionsand works by great thinkers from antiquity to the present. World, here, hasseveral meanings. It is the natural world or cosmos, the inner world of feelingand thought, world history, and the world of tones (the musical universe). Thebook is intended for philosophic-minded readers who are fascinated by music andmusic lovers who enjoy thinking about the philosophic questions that musicraises. The seven-chapter journey begins with a contrastbetween the cosmologies of Plato and Schopenhauer (followed by a discussion of Palestrina'smusic and the world of the Bible). It then proceeds to chapters on music and naturein Victor Zuckerkandl's Sound and Symbol, a love song from Bach's St.Matthew Passion, a love song from Mozart's Magic Flute, Wagner's Tristanand Isolde in relation to Schopenhauer's cosmology of the will, twelve-tonemusic as the image of totalitarianism in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus,and the world of the inner life in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites.
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by
Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late '60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbour, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen's investigation takes us back to Anka's life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge.
A Nation Rising by
A Nation Rising chronicles the political struggles and grassroots initiatives collectively known as the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. Scholars, community organizers, journalists, and filmmakers contribute essays that explore Native Hawaiian resistance and resurgence from the 1970s to the early 2010s. Photographs and vignettes about particular activists further bring Hawaiian social movements to life. The stories and analyses of efforts to protect land and natural resources, resist community dispossession, and advance claims for sovereignty and self-determination reveal the diverse objectives and strategies, as well as the inevitable tensions, of the broad-tent sovereignty movement. The collection explores the Hawaiian political ethic of ea, which both includes and exceeds dominant notions of state-based sovereignty. A Nation Rising raises issues that resonate far beyond the Hawaiian archipelago, issues such as Indigenous cultural revitalization, environmental justice, and demilitarization. Contributors. Noa Emmett Aluli, Ibrahim G. Aoudé, Kekuni Blaisdell, Joan Conrow, Noelani Goodyear-Ka'opua, Edward W. Greevy, Ulla Hasager, Pauahi Ho'okano, Micky Huihui, Ikaika Hussey, Manu Ka'iama, Le'a Malia Kanehe, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Anne Keala Kelly, Jacqueline Lasky, Davianna Pomaika'i McGregor, Nalani Minton, Kalamaoka'aina Niheu, Katrina-Ann R. Kapa'anaokalaokeola Nakoa Oliveira, Jonathan Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio, Leon No'eau Peralto, Kekailoa Perry, Puhipau, Noenoe K. Silva, D. Kapua'ala Sproat, Ty P. Kawika Tengan, Mehana Blaich Vaughan, Kuhio Vogeler, Erin Kahunawaika'ala Wright
Ocean by
A magisterial cultural history of the Atlantic Ocean before Columbus, ranging from the early shaping of the continents and the emergence of homo sapiens to the story of shipbuilding, navigation, maritime exploration, slavery, and nascent European imperialism. A dazzling and ambitious history of the pre-Columbian Atlantic seas, Ocean is a story that begins with the formation of the mid-Atlantic ridge some 200 million years ago and ends with the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century, providing a template for the methods used by the Spanish in their colonization of the New World. John Haywood eloquently argues that the perception of Atlantic history beginning with the first voyage of the celebrated Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus is a mistaken one, and that the seafaring and shipbuilding skills that enabled European global exploration and expansion did not arrive fully formed in the fifteenth century, but instead were learned over centuries and millennia in the Atlantic and its peripheral seas. The pre-Columbian history of the Atlantic is the story of how Europeans learned to master the oceans. This story is, therefore, key to understanding why it was Europeans, and not any of the world's other seafaring peoples, who "discovered" the world. Informed by the author's extensive travels around the Atlantic Ocean, crossing Newfoundland's Grand Banks, the Sea of Darkness, and the weed-covered Sargasso Sea, and populated by a heterogeneous and multiethnic cast of seafarers, fishermen, monks, merchants, and dreamers, Ocean is an in-depth history of a neglected subject, fusing geology, geography, mythology, developing maritime technologies, and the early history of exploration to narrate an enthralling story--one which lies at the very heart of Europe's modern history and its relationship with the rest of the world.
On Freedom by
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A brilliant exploration of freedom--what it is, how it's been misunderstood, and why it's our only chance for survival--by the acclaimed Yale historian and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller On Tyranny "A rigorous and visionary argument . . . Buy or borrow this book, read it, take it to heart."--The Guardian Timothy Snyder has been called "the leading interpreter of our dark times." As a historian, he has given us startling reinterpretations of political collapse and mass killing. As a public intellectual, he has turned that knowledge toward counsel and prediction, working against authoritarianism here and abroad. His book On Tyranny has inspired millions around the world to fight for freedom. Now, in this tour de force of political philosophy, he helps us see exactly what we're fighting for. Freedom is the great American commitment, but as Snyder argues, we have lost sight of what it means--and this is leading us into crisis. Too many of us look at freedom as the absence of state power: We think we're free if we can do and say as we please, and protect ourselves from government overreach. But true freedom isn't so much freedom from as freedom to--the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible. On Freedom takes us on a thrilling intellectual journey. Drawing on the work of philosophers and political dissidents, conversations with contemporary thinkers, and his own experiences coming of age in a time of American exceptionalism, Snyder identifies the practices and attitudes--the habits of mind--that will allow us to design a government in which we and future generations can flourish. We come to appreciate the importance of traditions (championed by the right) but also the role of institutions (the purview of the left). Intimate yet ambitious, this book helps forge a new consensus rooted in a politics of abundance, generosity, and grace.
Origin Uncertain by
Lost origins of words revealed. We like to recount that goodbye started out as "god be with you," that whiskey comes from the Gaelic for "water of life," or that avocado originated as the Aztec word for "testicle." But there are many words with origins unknown, disputed, or so buried in old journals that they may as well be lost to the general public. In Origin Uncertain: Unraveling the Mysteries of Etymology, eminent etymologist Anatoly Liberman draws on his professional expertise and etymological database to tell the stories of less understood words such as nerd, fake, ain't, hitchhike, trash, curmudgeon, and quiz, as well as puzzling idioms like kick the bucket and pay through the nose. By casting a net so broadly, the book addresses language history, language usage (including grammar), history (both ancient and modern), religion, superstitions, and material culture.Writing in the spirit of adventure through the annals of word origins, Liberman also shows how historical linguists construct etymologies, how to evaluate competing explanations, and how to pursue further research.
Outposts of Diplomacy by
A profusely illustrated history of the diplomatic embassy, from antiquity to today. This compelling history traces the evolution of the embassy, from its ancient origins to its enduring presence in the modern world. Beginning with its precursors in antiquity, the book explores the embassy's emergence on the cusp of the Italian Renaissance, its pinnacle during the nineteenth century, and its navigation through the challenges of twentieth-century conference diplomacy. G. R. Berridge investigates how this European institution adapted its staffing, architecture, and communication methods to changing international landscapes, including the tumultuous wars of religion and encounters in the Far East. He also describes the expansion of the embassy's responsibilities, such as providing diplomatic cover for intelligence operations. Infused with vibrant anecdotes of remarkable individuals and the creation of influential family dynasties, and illustrated throughout, this book offers a fascinating exploration of the embassy's rich history.
The Mighty Red by
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK * LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION * A FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION "A sweeping, tender-hearted epic."--Harper's Bazaar In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich tells a story of love, natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people's lives. History is a flood. The mighty red . . . In Argus, North Dakota, a collection of people revolve around a fraught wedding. Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his. Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He's determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker. Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter's and her own. Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the everchanging clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day. The Mighty Red is a novel of tender humor, disturbance, and hallucinatory mourning. It is about on-the-job pains and immeasurable satisfactions, a turbulent landscape, and eating the native weeds growing in your backyard. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor. A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.
Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines by
The hidden role of fungi inside and all around us From beneficial yeasts that aid digestion to toxic molds that cause disease, we are constantly navigating a world filled with fungi. Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines explores the amazing ways fungi interact with our bodies, showing how our health and well-being depend on an immense ecosystem of yeasts and molds inside and all around us. Nicholas Money takes readers on a guided tour of a marvelous unseen realm, describing how our immune systems are engaged in continuous conversation with the teeming mycobiome inside the body, and how we can fall prey to serious and even life-threatening infections when this peaceful coexistence is disturbed. He also sheds light on our complicated relationship with fungi outside the body, from wild mushrooms and cultivated molds that have been staples of the human diet for millennia to the controversial experimentation with magic mushrooms in the treatment of depression. Drawing on the latest advances in mycology, Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines reveals what scientists are learning about the importance of fungi to our lives, from their vital role in supporting the ecosystems on which we depend to their emerging uses in lifesaving medicine.
The Most Powerful Court in the World by
An authoritative, even-handed, and accessible history of the Supreme Court of the United States, the most powerful court in the world and the final arbiter of the world's oldest constitution. Will abortion be legal? Should people of the same sex be allowed to marry? May colleges prefer black applicants over white ones? These are among the most bitterly contested issues in the United States today. We answer these questions, and many more, by presenting them to nine lawyers--the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. No other nation commits so many important questions to its highest court.Stuart Banner's The Most Powerful Court in the World is an authoritative history of the United States Supreme Court from the Founding era to the present. Not merely a history of the Court's opinions and jurisprudence, it is also a rich account of the Court in the broadest sense--of the sorts of people who become justices and the methods by which they are chosen, of how the Court does its work, and of its relationship with other branches of government. It is about how the Court acquired so much power, how it has retained its power in the face of repeated challenges and criticisms, and what it has done with its power over the years. Rather than praising or criticizing the Court's decisions, Banner makes the case that one cannot fully understand the decisions without knowing about the institution that produced them.Offering a fresh analytical window into today's contentious debates about the Court--debates that often rest on dubious ideas about the Court's history--The Most Powerful Court in the World helps readers see cases through the justices' eyes.
My Good Bright Wolf by
Longlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award A Best Book of 2024: Kirkus, The Independent, and the New York Public Library A New York Magazine Most-Anticipated Book of the Fall A Library Journal Top Title of the Season From the acclaimed author of Ghost Wall, Summerwater, and The Fell, Sarah Moss's My Good Bright Wolf is an unflinching memoir about childhood, food, books, and our ability to see, become, and protect ourselves. A girl must watch her figure but never be vain. She must be intelligent but never a know-it-all. She must be ambitious, if she is clever, but not in a way that shows. She must cook and sew and make do and mend. She must know (but never say) that these skills are, in some fundamental way, flawed and frivolous--feminine. Girls must stay small, even as they grow. Women must show restraint. And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free. Here, with My Good Bright Wolf, Sarah Moss takes on these rules, these lessons from the fables of girlhood, and uses them to fearlessly investigate the nature of memory, the lure of self-control, the impact of privilege, scarcity, parents, love. Through narratives of women and food, second-wave feminism and postwar puritanism, and her own challenges with a health care system that discounts the experiences of those it ought to serve, Moss seeks truth in the stories we tell ourselves and others. Harm can become power. Attention can become care. A body and a mind, though working hard together, can be at odds. And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free. Beautiful and sharp, moving and unapologetic, erudite and very funny, My Good Bright Wolf is a memoir that breaks the rules.
The Myth of American Idealism by
"For anyone wanting to find out more about the world we live in . . . there is one simple answer: read Noam Chomsky." --The New Statesman From one of the world's most prominent thinkers comes an urgent warning of the threat that U.S. power poses to humanity's future as well as a sharp indictment of both American foreign policy and the national myths that support it. The Myth of American Idealism offers a timely and comprehensive introduction to the incisive critiques of U.S. power that have made Noam Chomsky a "global phenomenon," one of the most widely known public intellectuals of all time. Surveying the history of U.S. military and economic activity around the world, Chomsky and his co-author Nathan J. Robinson vividly trace the way the American pursuit of global domination has wrought havoc in country after country - without, ironically, making Americans any safer. And they explore how dominant elites in the United States have pushed self-serving myths about this country's commitment to "spreading democracy," while pursuing a reckless foreign policy that served the interest of few and endangered all too many. Chomsky and Robinson range across the globe, offering penetrating accounts of Washington's relationship with the Global South, its role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -all justified with noble stories about humanitarian missions and the benevolent intentions of American policy makers. The same kinds of myths that have led to repeated disastrous wars, they argue, are now driving us closer to wars with Russia and China that imperil humanity's future. Examining nuclear proliferation and climate change, they show how U.S. policies are continuing to exacerbate global threats. For well over half a century, Noam Chomsky has committed himself to exposing governing ideologies and criticizing his country's unchecked use of military power. At once thorough and devastating, urgent and provocative, The Myth of American Idealism offers a highly readable entry to the conclusions he has come to after a lifetime of thought and activism.
The New India by
A New York Times Notable Book of 2024 "An absorbing account of India's transformation" (The Guardian) from democracy towards autocracy told through "brilliant on-the-ground reportage" (The Times). Since Narendra Modi's election in May 2014, India has become more dysfunctional and dangerous than ever. The "world's largest democracy" has seen a cascade of events ushered in by a nationalistic and religious government that have threatened the freedoms and identities of its citizens. If you support Modi, you are a bhakt, among the devoted. If you do not, you are an urban naxal, an unpatriotic traitor, and enemy of the Hindu faith. There is, increasingly, no room in between. In The New India, journalist Rahul Bhatia investigates this slow burn of democracy in India, connecting past and present to offer the first thorough account of how the country is sliding towards autocracy. He describes the religious, societal, and technological changes that have brought India to a point at which a nationalist mindset that despises democracy and human rights is spreading fast, all in an effort to bind the multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural country into a single identity. Through a character-driven narrative informed by on the ground reporting, he investigates the disinformation machine at the heart of the Modi government, the corrupt lawmakers whose work targets religious minorities, the police force bent on raiding every public newsroom, and the CEO behind the largest data collecting agency in the world whose invention has forever altered Indian elections. At the same time, Bhatia shows us the consequences of these efforts on everyday citizens--from Muslims attempting to hold on to their property to students protesting the government's overreach of their education to journalists being threatened for uttering a single word against the BJP party. What emerges is a timely, urgent and at times shocking portrait of a country that has turned on itself.
Nihikéyah by
This anthology of essays offers perspectives of the Navajo homeland, nihikéyah, highlighting Diné examinations and understandings of the land. While various books have investigated Native American reservations and homelands, this book is from Diné individuals' experiences, observations, and examinations. Poets, writers, and scholars frame their thoughts on four key questions: What are the thoughts/perspectives on nihikéyah/Navajo homeland? What challenges does nihikéyah face in the coming generations, and what should all peoples know about nihikéyah? And how can nihikéyah build a strong and positive Navajo Nation for the rest of this century and beyond? The authors come from a variety of backgrounds and use multiple approaches to discuss Diné history in the U.S. Southwest, as well as forward-looking examinations of the Navajo Nation. Together, the essays shed new light on Diné homeland and the challenges to the Navajo homeland and its peoples. Contributors Mario Atencio Shawn Attakai Wendy Shelly Greyeyes Rex Lee Jim Manny Loley Jonathan Perry Jake Skeets Jennifer Jackson Wheeler
The Notebook by
A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 * A New Yorker Best Book of 2024 * A Kirkus Most Anticipated Book of Fall 2024 The first history of the notebook, a simple invention that changed the way the world thinks. We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did these indispensable implements come from? How did they revolutionize our lives? And how can using a notebook help change the way you think? In this wide-ranging history, Roland Allen reveals how the notebook became our most dependable and versatile tool for creative thinking. He tells the notebook stories of Leonardo and Frida Kahlo, Isaac Newton and Marie Curie, and writers from Chaucer to Henry James; shows how Darwin developed his theory of evolution in tiny pocket books and Agatha Christie plotted a hundred murders in scrappy exercise books; and introduces a host of cooks, kings, sailors, fishermen, musicians, engineers, politicians, adventurers, and mathematicians, all of whom used their notebooks as a space to think--and in doing so, shaped the modern world. In an age of AI and digital overload, the humble notebook is more relevant than ever. Allen shows how bullet points can combat ADHD, journals can ease PTSD, and patient diaries soften the trauma of reawakening from coma. The everyday act of moving a pen across paper, he finds, can have profound consequences, changing the way we think and feel: making us more creative, more productive--and maybe even happier.
Not My Type by
In the world of online dating, race-based discrimination is not only tolerated, but encouraged as part of a pervasive belief that it is simply a neutral, personal choice about one's romantic partner. Indeed, it is so much a part of our inherited wisdom about dating and romance that it actually directs the algorithmic infrastructures of most major online dating platforms, such that they openly reproduce racist and sexist hierarchies. In Not My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating, Apryl Williams presents a socio-technical exploration of dating platforms' algorithms, their lack of transparency, the legal and ethical discourse in these companies' community guidelines, and accounts from individual users in order to argue that sexual racism is a central feature of today's online dating culture. She discusses this reality in the context of facial recognition and sorting software as well as user experiences, drawing parallels to the long history of eugenics and banned interracial partnerships. Ultimately, Williams calls for, both a reconceptualization of the technology and policies that govern dating agencies, and also a reexamination of sociocultural beliefs about attraction, beauty, and desirability.
One Day I'll Grow up and Be a Beautiful Woman by
A fiery, heartbreaking, riveting memoir that follows one New Hampshire family over the course of three years, unspooling a story of gender identity, class, trans youth, and a child caught in the riptide of America's culture wars Abi Maxwell grew up in rural New Hampshire, one of eight kids in a poor town abutting a wealthier lakeside village. As a young couple, Maxwell and her husband planned not to have kids, but when Maxwell became pregnant, she knew she wanted to raise her child near the mountains and lake of her youth. When her six-year-old, who was known to the world as a boy, asks to wear pink sneakers, asks to be a witch for Halloween, asks to wear a girl's dance costume, Abi worries about how their small community will react. But when that child changes her name, grows her hair long, and announces that she is a girl, a firestorm engulfs the family. Weaving together the story of her own youth, marked by long afternoons skiing the mountains, a cottage on the lake, and a proud gay brother, but also by neglect and bullying that pushed her brother to the brink, Abi Maxwell contends with the rural America where she was raised and, years later, where she is now raising her daughter, as lawmakers nationwide push to erase the very existence of trans youth. Intimate and stirring, this book is essential reading for this moment in our history.
Orbital by
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER **New York Times Book Review February Book Club Pick** Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024 A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours "Ravishingly beautiful." -- Joshua Ferris, New York Times A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts--from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan--have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate. Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.
Others Like Me by
A deeply personal exploration of childless and childfree women in their own words. Others Like Meis the story of fourteen women around the world, from different walks of life, who don't have children. It's also the story of why Nicole Louie had to find these women and what they taught her. Part memoir, part exploration of childlessness through candid conversations, this book showcases the many ways in which people find fulfilment outside of parenthood. And because the social expectation to procreate weighs the most on women, Louie focuses solely on them, their experiences, and how they flourish outside of motherhood. In doing so, she upends the stereotypes that diminish women who are childless by choice, circumstance, or ambivalence and offers reassurance and companionship on a path less known.
Paper of Wreckage by
A "lively and sprawling" (The New York Times) oral history of the New York Post and the legendary tabloid's cultural impact from the 1970s to today as recounted by the men and women who witnessed it firsthand. By the 1970s, the country's oldest continuously published newspaper had fallen on hard times, just like its nearly bankrupt hometown. When the New York Post was sold to a largely unknown Australian named Rupert Murdoch in 1976, staffers hoped it would be a new beginning for the paper. Now, after the nearly fifty years Murdoch has owned the tabloid, American culture reflects what Murdoch first started in the 1970s: a celebrity-focused, noisy, one-sided media empire that reached its zenith with Fox News. Drawing on extensive interviews with key players and in-depth research, this eye-opening, wildly entertaining oral history shows us how we got to this point. "It's a juicy, gonzo slice of New York history" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) full of bad behavior, inflated egos, and a corporate culture that rewarded skirting the rules and breaking norms. But working there was never boring and now, you can discover the entire remarkable true story of America's favorite tabloid newspaper.
The Paranormal Ranger by
*A NEW YORK TIMES PICK FOR TOP 22 NONFICTION BOOKS TO READ THIS FALL!* A Navajo Ranger's chilling and clear-eyed memoir of his investigations into bizarre cases of the paranormal and unexplained in Navajoland As a Native American with parents of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, Stanley Milford Jr. grew up in a world where the supernatural was both expected and taboo, where shapeshifters roamed, witchcraft was a thing to be feared, and children were taught not to whistle at night. In his youth, Milford never went looking for the paranormal, but it always seemed to find him. When he joined the fabled Navajo Rangers--a law enforcement branch of the Navajo Nation who are equal parts police officers, archeological conservationists, and historians--the paranormal became part of his job. Alongside addressing the mundane duties of overseeing the massive 27,000-square-mile reservation, Milford was assigned to utterly bizarre and shockingly frequent cases involving mysterious livestock mutilations, skinwalker and Bigfoot sightings, UFOs, and malicious hauntings. In The Paranormal Ranger, Milford recounts the stories of these cases from the clinical and deductive perspective of a law enforcement officer. Milford's Native American worldview and investigative training collide to provide an eerie account of what logic dictates should not be possible.
Pay the People! by
From an unlikely source, a compelling argument that when workers are paid fairly, everyone, including businesses, benefits "A compelling case for why it's time for America to invest in our greatest asset--our people." --Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo Seventy percent of the U.S. economy relies on consumer demand, yet nearly 40 percent of Americans earn less than the cost of living. Despite massive growth, nearly all economic gains made in the last several decades have gone to the top 1 percent and Wall Street, while working families whose spending habits drive the economy have fallen further behind, and our economy has suffered as a result. In Pay the People!, John Driscoll, former Walgreens executive and healthcare CEO, and Morris Pearl, former BlackRock executive and board chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, pin the blame squarely on short-term corporate greed and policies of both government and employers that impose austerity on some of the hardest-working employees and families. They argue that business leaders' refusal to pay wages that workers can live on and Congress's failure to raise the federal minimum wage trap millions of workers in cycles of poverty. At the same time, Driscoll and Pearl demonstrate, these policies undermine the economy for all of us and threaten the foundation of democratic capitalism. This thought-provoking book rebukes current wage practices and congressional paralysis and outlines a clear path to stable, inclusive growth. In an issue that is too often covered as a zero-sum game where there's a winner and a loser, Driscoll and Pearl offer resounding evidence to the contrary.
Pilates for Beginners by
Pilates for Beginners is the new kick-start guide for building an at-home Pilates practice with step-by-step guidance and easy sequences. No matter your fitness level-whether you're in great shape or have never set foot in a gym-learning to do Pilates means going back to the basics. Teaching you core Pilates exercises and easy sequences, Pilates for Beginners is the ultimate starter guide to confidently practice Pilates at home. From your first time on the mat to finishing a complete sequence, Pilates for Beginners develops your Pilates regimen with a progressive, easy-to-follow program. Complete with clear instructions, photographs, and tips to do the exercises right, Pilates for Beginners is your go-to reference to keep your body supple and mobile, and add more life to your years. Pilates for Beginners gives you the information and guidance you need to make Pilates part of your daily routine with- Pilates 101 that explains the philosophy and guiding principles of Pilates-Centering, Concentration, Control, Precision, Breath, and Flow-to incorporate into workouts. 50 easy-to-follow exercises that include warm-ups, cool downs, and bonus strengthening exercises, with photographs, checklists, and tips to help guide you. Progressive sequences that lay a strong foundation for body awareness in the introductory program, and builds strength, spinal mobility, flexibility, and control from Level 1 to Level 2. Pilates is a source of lifelong energy, strength, and flexibility for both your mind and body. Start building your practice and feel the difference with step-by-step guidance and exercises from Pilates for Beginners.
Playing Possum by
How animals conceive of death and dying--and what it can teach us about our own relationships with mortality When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralyzed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from being a uniquely human attribute, is widespread in the animal kingdom. With humor and empathy, Susana Monsó tells the stories of ants who attend their own funerals, chimpanzees who clean the teeth of their dead, dogs who snack on their caregivers, crows who avoid the places where they saw a carcass, elephants obsessed with collecting ivory, and whales who carry their dead for weeks. Monsó, one of today's leading experts on animal cognition and ethics, shows how there are more ways to conceive of mortality than the human way, and challenges the notion that the only emotional reactions to death worthy of our attention are ones that resemble our own. Blending philosophical insight with new evidence from behavioral science and comparative psychology, Playing Possum dispels the anthropocentric biases that cloud our understanding of the natural world, and reveals that, when it comes to death and dying, we are just another animal.
Playing with Reality by
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST AND THE GUARDIAN "Absorbing. . . . A revealing look at the hidden role that games have played in human development for centuries." --Kirkus "By turns philosophical and polemical, this is a provocative and fascinating book." --The Economist A wide-ranging intellectual history that reveals how important games have been to human progress, and what's at stake when we forget what games we're really playing. We play games to learn about the world, to understand our minds and the minds of others, and to make predictions about the future. Games are an essential aspect of humanity and a powerful tool for modeling reality. They're also a lot of fun. But games can be dangerous, especially when we mistake the model worlds of games for reality itself and let gamification co-opt human decision making. Playing with Reality explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, political science, evolutionary biology, the development of computers and AI, cutting-edge neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. Neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows how intertwined games have been with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behavior and brought us to the brink of annihilation--yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics, and technology design. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy. In this revelatory work, Clancy makes the bold argument that the human fascination with games is the key to understanding our nature and our actions.
Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife by
"Brilliantly revealing history of medieval women . . . Howes's debut has just the right meld of insightful research, enjoyable storytelling and contemporary contexts."--The Guardian "A history of medieval women's lives as told through the prism of four exceptional individuals. . . . throughout, the tensions of medieval womanhood strain and stretch--eroticism and purity, sexuality and motherhood, silence and speech."--The New York Times Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife charts the lives and times of four medieval women writers--Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a no-good wife--who all bucked convention and forged their own paths. Largely forgotten by modern readers, these women have an astonishing amount to teach us about love, marriage, motherhood, friendship, and earning a living. Reading the words of these four writers, Hetta Howes engagingly reveals how everyday women lived, survived, and thrived in medieval times. Who did they marry and why? Did they ever have extramarital affairs? Could they earn money and become self-sufficient? Could they be leaders? What did they think about death--and what about life and their place in it? Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife paints a vibrant portrait of these women, their world, and the ways they speak to us today.
Power Metal by
The powerful ways the metals we need to fuel technology and energy are spawning environmental havoc, political upheaval, and rising violence -- and how we can do better. An Australian millionaire's plan to mine the ocean floor. Nigerian garbage pickers risking their lives to salvage e-waste. A Bill Gates-backed entrepreneur harnessing AI to find metals in the Arctic. These people and millions more are part of the intensifying competition to find and extract the minerals essential for two crucial technologies: the internet and renewable energy. In Power Metal, Vince Beiser explores the Achilles' heel of "green power" and digital technology - that manufacturing computers, cell phones, electric cars, and other technologies demand skyrocketing amounts of lithium, copper, cobalt, and other materials. Around the world, businesses and governments are scrambling for new places and new ways to get those metals, at enormous cost to people and the planet. Beiser crisscrossed the world to talk to the people involved and report on the damage this race is inflicting, the ways it could get worse, and how we can minimize the damage. Power Metal is a compelling glimpse into this disturbing yet potentially promising new world.
Protest Art by
An essential guide to how the power of art has been harnessed to effect political change across the modern world, from the struggle for universal suffrage to Black Lives Matter. Here is a well-researched, concise guide to protest art, exploring what happens when artists join forces with radical political movements to foster change. The works and movements discussed emerged at times of great upheaval, war, colonialism, independence and changes of government, and reveal how art and politics have been intertwined throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. Jessica Lack adopts an inclusive and international approach, presenting examples from nations and societies around the globe, including: Sylvia Pankhurst's paintings depicting the harsh realities faced by women manual workers in early 1900s Britain; the revolutionary aesthetic created by Emory Douglas for the Black Panthers in the 1960s, which documented and galvanized the campaign for the rights of Black Americans; Nandalal Bose's portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, which became the iconic symbol of the Indian non-violence movement in the 1930s; and the Chilean direct action work that contributed to the collapse of General Pinochet's government. Each of the nine chapters addresses different ways in which art has been used to effect political transformation, taking in humour and satire, performance and propaganda, art's relationships to institutions, the media, conflict and the state, and its uses as a weapon, a galvanizing force and a way of refusing the status quo. Artistic acts, collectives and movements are examined in their context, revealing how they have influenced other artists and changed the wider political and artistic world.
Radical Brown by
A rallying cry for equitable education informed by a revolutionary re-reading of Brown v. Board of Education, on the 70th anniversary of the ruling. In Radical Brown, renowned developmental scholar Margaret Beale Spencer and critical legal analyst Nancy E. Dowd offer a fresh perspective on the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Noting that decades of flawed implementation have subverted Brown's great promise of educational equality for K-12 public school students, Spencer and Dowd propose a bold framework for a new interpretation of the Supreme Court decision, one that is inclusive, identity affirming, and culturally sensitive. Even as they envision a more equitable future for US students, Spencer and Dowd look critically at the historical context of Brown v. Board of Education, examining the roots of the inequality and segregation the ruling attempted to address, the resistance that the resulting school integration met, and the legacy of attempts to enforce the ruling. They trace the ways in which post-Brown policies have reinforced race privilege for white students and race subordination for Black and marginalized students and show how structural and cultural racism in education have impeded youth development and caused collective identity injury for all. Ultimately, this galvanizing work introduces a way forward that upholds the Brown ruling's intended meaning and mandate. Radical Brown offers suggestions for action, from everyday practice to policy change, to help legislators, school boards, scholars, and educators correct course and enact the decision's true intent--of safeguarding rights based on a common humanity.
Reagan by
In this "monumental and impressive" biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president's aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot provides "the best biography of Ronald Reagan to date" (Robert Mann). The story begins not in star-studded Hollywood but in the cradle of the Midwest, small-town Illinois, where Reagan was born in 1911 to Nelle Clyde Wilson, a devoted Disciples of Christ believer, and Jack Reagan, a struggling, alcoholic salesman. Boot vividly creates a portrait of a handsome young man, indeed a much-vaunted lifeguard, whose early successes mirrored those of Horatio Alger. And contextualizing Reagan's life against American history, Boot re-creates the world in which Reagan transitioned from local Iowa sportscaster to budding screen actor. The world of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1950s would prove significant, not only in Reagan's coming-of-age in such classics as Knute Rockne and Kings Row but during the twilight of his film career, when he played opposite a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo, and then his eventual emergence as a television host of General Electric Theater, which established his bona fides as one of the leading conservative voices of the time. Indeed, the leap to California governor in 1966 seemed almost preordained, in which Reagan became a bellwether for a nation in the throes of a generational shift. Reagan's 1980 presidential election augured a shift that continues into this century. Boot writes not as a partisan but as a historian seeking to set the story straight. He explains how Reagan was an ideologue but also a supreme pragmatist who signed pro-abortion and gun control bills as governor, cut deals with Democrats in both Sacramento and Washington, and befriended Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War. A master communicator, Reagan revived America's spirits after the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. But Boot also shows how Reagan was armored in obliviousness. He traces Reagan's opposition to civil rights over forty years, reveals how he neglected the exploding AIDS epidemic, and details how America experienced a level of income inequality not seen since the Gilded Age. With its revelatory insights, Reagan: His Life and Legend is no apologia, depicting a man with a good-versus-evil worldview derived from his moralistic upbringing and Hollywood westerns. Providing fresh examinations of "trickle-down economics," the Cold War's end, the Iran-Contra affair, as well as a nuanced portrait of Reagan's family, this definitive biography is as compelling a presidential biography as any in recent decades.
Rejection by
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION * A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "A master comedian with a virtuoso prose style has produced an audacious, original and highly disturbing book . . . an incandescent satire." --Giles Harvey, The New York Times Magazine From the Whiting and O. Henry-winning author of Private Citizens ("the first great millennial novel," New York Magazine), an electrifying novel-in-stories that follows a cast of intricately linked characters as rejection throws their lives and relationships into chaos. Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet. In "The Feminist," a young man's passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn't getting him laid. A young woman's unrequited crush in "Pics" spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in "Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression," a shy late bloomer's flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other's dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection. These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself. "Rejection is unrelentingly brutal and gut-bustingly funny and spares no one--not you, not me. Tulathimutte is a pervert and a madman and a stone-cold genius." --Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties "One of the foremost fiction writers exploring the subject of his own generation." --Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker
Research and Publication Ethics by
This book provides a comprehensive overview of research and publication ethics and guide young researchers on how to conduct ethical research and publish their work responsibly.
Resist by
What do the struggles of the past teach us about the urgent challenges in our own time? Resist chronicles the inspiring story of young Black activists who have fought tirelessly at the helm for justice over the last century, from the 1920s to the Trayvon generation--how they reshaped America, left an indelible mark on history, and pave the way for the crucial work that must be done today. Growing up as a Nigerian immigrant in the South Bronx, award-winning journalist Rita Omokha contended with her Blackness. In 2020, when George Floyd died at the hands of a white police officer, her exploration further developed as she traveled to thirty states attempting to mine contemporary race relations in the United States. During her trip, she encountered audacious young people like 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, who filmed Floyd's murder, entering a seismic tragedy into the public and historical records, and set off a wave of unprecedented protests across the country. Darnella's quick thinking and courage in that moment is part of a more significant legacy: that of the young Black people--often only teenagers--who have been at the forefront of fortifying and safeguarding American democracy in the last hundred years. In Resist, Rita charts the last century of civil rights activism, from the early years of renowned activist Ella Baker and others she inspired, to the first glimpse of allyship in the Bates Seven and a renewed examination of the Black Panther Party, all the way to the current generation of young Black revolutionaries who walked American cities in the wake of the murders of countless Black people. Rita also draws on her own experiences as a Black immigrant living in America, offering a unique and insightful perspective on this ongoing struggle for justice. Rendered with empathy and care, Resist ties these pivotal stories together--and so many more that are lesser known--into an essential and gripping narrative of resilience and unity, and how young Black activists redefined American history.
The Rise of the Algorithms by
The meteoric rise of online video is reshaping the competition for human attention. The Rise of the Algorithms argues that this new technology has changed the way we interact with others, our relationships with public institutions, and our very own behaviors and psyches. In tracing the origins and evolution of online video, John M. Jordan examines the mechanics--and the ethical stakes--of online video platforms, especially YouTube and TikTok but also others, such as Twitch. Tracing the use of algorithms pioneered by Facebook and Google and so successfully exploited by TikTok's corporate parent, ByteDance, Jordan shows how these platforms now engineer human behavior--with consequences for culture, politics, and identity. Jordan argues that we are at an inflection point. Until now we have proved, as a society, ill-prepared or unwilling to address such problems as the power of digital platforms, the personal cost of viral celebrity, the invasion of privacy, and the proliferation of disinformation. The Rise of the Algorithms combines this urgent assessment with a clear-eyed discussion of present challenges and recommendations for reclaiming our online futures. A valuable resource for understanding the transformations that have been and will be brought by YouTube, TikTok, and similar platforms, Jordan's timely book is a vital work for anyone who uses the internet and especially for policy makers, technologists, communication and media specialists, and researchers who have a direct hand in determining the future of our online world.
Schopenhauer by
Schopenhauer is considered to be the most readable of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will--a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature. Seeing human behavior as that of a natural organism governed by the will to life, Schopenhauer developed radical insights concerning the unconscious and sexuality which influenced both psychologists and philosophers
Science of Pilates by
Explore the science behind over 50 pilates exercises to master each movement with confidence and control. DK brings you a ground-breaking health book that will help you revitalize your workouts and perfect your Pilates practice, by understanding the muscle action, breathwork and techniques required, every step of the way. Did you know that performing Pilates can strengthen your core, improve flexibility and posture, and help to reduce stress and anxiety at the same time? Backed by scientific research, learn how Pilates exercises benefit every system in the body. Science of Pilates reveals the facts with annotated artworks that show the mechanics, the angles, how your blood flow and respiration are affected, the key muscle and joint actions working below the surface of each exercise, safe alignment, and much more! Go on a journey of self-discovery to explore: - Specially commissioned CGI artworks depict all the main Pilates exercises with variations that add or reduce challenge. - Artworks detail the mechanics of each exercise, correct body posture, the muscles involved and how they engage to perform movements. - Illustrations featuring color-coding to highlight how the muscles, ligaments, and joints engage, stretch, and relax to perform each exercise. - Pilates programs tailored to different abilities and aims. - Suggested practices with a progressive increase in challenge over weeks and months. - Easy-to-follow infographics help explain the hard science behind why Pilates training is so effective and what beneficial physical adaptations it can bring. Set out to unearth the facts behind the pseudo-science fads, The Science of Pilates is an approachable, entertaining and easy-to read fitness guide for those seeking self-development backed up by solid scientific evidence. The popular question and answer format brings immediacy to the information provided, and the highly visually illustrations truly bring the science to life in a contemporary and accessible way. At DK, we believe in the power of discovery. So why stop there? If you like Science of Pilates, then why not try Science of Yoga to help you better understand yoga anatomy in order to perfect your practice and poses, or Science of Strength Training to support you in your journey to build you strongest body. Complete the collection today!
Seven Deadly Sins by
A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Seven Deadly Sins will explore the underlying nature of the seven deadly sins, their neuroscientific and psychological basis, and their origin in our genes. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Pride. Envy. Lust. Anger. These are The Seven Deadly Sins, the vices of humankind that define immorality. But do these sins really represent moral failings, or are they simply important and useful biological functions that humans need to survive? Instead of being acts of immorality, are they really just a result of how our bodies, our psyches, and our brains in particular, are wired? In Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human, Guy Leschziner, a professor of neurology, dares to turn much of what society thinks of as morality on its head and to ask these controversial questions. Leschziner takes readers on an exploration of the Seven Deadly Sins as he looks at their neuroscientific and psychological bases, their origin in our genes, and, crucially, how certain medical disorders may give rise to them. He introduces us to patients whose physical and psychological conditions have given rise to behaviours that have for centuries been labelled as "sin" and how these behaviours might actually be evolutionary imperatives that preserve the tribe and ensure the wellbeing of our societies. In Seven Deadly Sins, a book certain to cause debate and raise controversy, Guy Leschziner, a writer who has explored the mysteries of our sleeping brains and the odd crossed wires of our five senses, asks whether these traits truly represent sin, or simply reflect our intrinsic drive to survive and thrive.
Silk Roads by
Explores how the movement of people, objects, and ideas from 500 to 1000 CE shaped cultures and histories In the ninth century CE, an Arabian ship sank off the coast of Indonesia. The objects found in the wreckage, which include Chinese ceramics and precious metals, have provided extraordinary evidence of the nature, scale, and diversity of trade between Tang China and the Islamic Abbasid dynasty. This is just one example of the sprawling and extensive networks of contacts and exchanges spanning Afro-Eurasia. This richly illustrated book challenges the concept of the "Silk Roads" as a simple history of trade between East and West. Focusing on a series of overlapping geographic zones and interspersed with case studies of particular peoples who were active along these networks--seafarers in the Indian Ocean, Sogdians, Vikings, Aksumites, and the peoples of al-Andalus--it reveals remarkable human stories, innovations, and the transfer of knowledge that emerged from these connections. The volume explores notable examples of contacts, connections, and integrations, while emphasizing the environmental and historical conditions that shaped them, featuring the latest scientific research. The dazzling range of objects includes a wooden panel with the story of the "silk princess" who smuggled the eggs of the silk moth from China; a lion sculpture from Jordan; a miniature wooden pagoda from Japan; wall paintings from the Hall of Ambassadors in Uzbekistan; a kaftan from the Caucasus region; an ivory cross from Spain; and a gold and garnet scabbard slide from the Sutton Hoo burial in Britain.
The Spaceman by
Lovingly illustrated, this wry and gentle fantasy will speak to adults as well as children--and cast the familiar in an astonishing new light. A tiny Spaceman arrives on a new planet, ready to perform his monotonous tasks--collecting samples, labeling and filing them, and moving on to the next planet. But pausing to look around, the Spaceman is dazzled by the beauty of his surroundings. And when a large bird makes off with his ship, he's forced to venture out into this new world--planet Earth--on foot. Marveling at a varied landscape of flowers, butterflies, and other wondrous creatures, he finds a pond to float in and a goofy, slobbery beast who seems to want to be his friend. Could it be that the Spaceman has found a new home? This simple and sophisticated story filled with deadpan humor offers surprises on each lively spread. From a veteran creator comes a delightfully droll story radiating warmth and the wonder of the new, reminding us to look up from our mundane lives and embrace discovery.
Squanto by
Taken to Europe as a slave, he found his way home and changed the course of American history "A captivating, elegantly written biography."--Melanie Kirkpatrick, Wall Street Journal Named a Best Native Studies Book of 2024 by Tribal College Journal American schoolchildren have long learned about Squanto, the welcoming Native who made the First Thanksgiving possible, but his story goes deeper than the holiday legend. Born in the Wampanoag-speaking town of Patuxet in the late 1500s, Squanto was kidnapped in 1614 by an English captain, who took him to Spain. From there, Englishmen brought him to London and Newfoundland before sending him home in 1619, when Squanto discovered that most of Patuxet had died in an epidemic. A year later, the Mayflower colonists arrived at his home and renamed it Plymouth. Prize-winning historian Andrew Lipman explores the mysteries that still surround Squanto: How did he escape bondage and return home? Why did he help the English after an Englishman enslaved him? Why did he threaten Plymouth's fragile peace with its neighbors? Was it true that he converted to Christianity on his deathbed? Drawing from a wide range of evidence and newly uncovered sources, Lipman reconstructs Squanto's upbringing, his transatlantic odyssey, his career as an interpreter, his surprising downfall, and his enigmatic death. The result is a fresh look at an epic life that ended right when many Americans think their story begins.
Sri Owen Indonesian Food by
In this landmark book, renowned author Sri Owen provides a unique insight into the ancient, exotic and varied cuisine of the Indonesian archipelago. Sri Owen's Indonesian Food is the most comprehensive account of this ancient and varied cuisine ever published. Sri Owen, the world's leading authority in Indonesian cooking, provides over 100 mouth-watering recipes, from staples and basics to food for festivals and special occasions. The recipes are easy to follow and have fascinating introductions which place them in their regional and cultural settings. The book is split into two parts--in part one a series of introductory chapters examine the role of food in Sri's life and in Indonesian culture and society, with recipes to accompany. Part two explains theessential ingredients and techniques of Indonesian cooking, with notes on availability and substitutions and discussions of modern developments, again with the relevant recipes and variations to accompany each technique. Painstakingly researched and the product of decades of expertise and recipes passed through generations, this is a must-have book for any curious cook.
Stench by
A blistering exposé of Clarence Thomas and the conservative regime of corruption that has usurped the Supreme Court--by a Democratic activist and former Republican political operative Public confidence in the Supreme Court has plummeted to new lows in the last few years--and for good reason. In the past three decades, six conservative justices have gained a supermajority through questionable means: a dubious intervention in a presidential election, perjury during Senate testimony, and a GOP Senate Leader's unethical blockade of a Supreme Court nomination. Behind this strategic dismantling of our Supreme Court is a vast, well-funded political machine--backed by the extreme right-wing Federalist Society, the notoriously secretive Catholic organization Opus Dei, and GOP megadonors operating from behind closed doors. Armed with an insider's perspective from his time within the conservative movement, David Brock reveals how the efforts to stack the Court in service of extreme right-wing interests stem from a decades-long strategy to weaponize our judicial system into an extension of the Republican Party itself. Stench investigates the ethics scandals that surround Clarence Thomas and his wife, the right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, culling new material from Thomas's accusers, along with original reporting and Brock's firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of the GOP. Stench is a staggering exposé, one that only Brock could write--exhaustive in its research and revelatory in its access to the world of what has effectively become the Thomas Court.
Stolen Pride by
In her first book since the widely acclaimed Strangers in Their Own Land, National Book Award finalist and bestselling author Arlie Russell Hochschild now ventures to Appalachia, uncovering the "pride paradox" that has given the right's appeals such resonance. A 2024 New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Pick A New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024 For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation, where the city was reeling: coal jobs had left, crushing poverty persisted, and a deadly drug crisis struck the region. Although Pikeville was in the political center thirty years ago, by 2016, 80 percent of the district's population voted for Donald Trump. Her brilliant exploration of the town's response to a white nationalist march in 2017 -- a rehearsal for the deadly Unite the Right march that would soon take place in Charlottesville, Virginia -- takes us deep inside a torn and suffering community. Hochschild focuses on a group swept up in the shifting political landscape: blue-collar men. In small churches, hillside hollers, roadside diners, trailer parks, and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, Hochschild introduces us to unforgettable people, and offers an original lens through which to see them and the wider world. In Stolen Pride, Hochschild incisively explores our dangerous times, even as she also points a way forward. "A piercing . . . impressive and nuanced assessment of a critical factor in American politics." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
They Just Need to Get a Job by
"Readers will come away infuriated, with a greater understanding of the systemic causes of homelessness, and with more compassion for their homeless neighbors. Essential reading for any community affected by homelessness (which is all of them)." -Booklist, Starred Review For readers of Andrea Elliott and Matthew Desmond, the former CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless breaks through the highly destructive misinformation surrounding our homeless neighbors As the COVID-19 crisis put millions of Americans in danger of eviction, the nation's affordable housing crisis has reached new heights. Yet Conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute continue to disseminate anti-homeless myths in the media, legislatures, and the larger culture- "These people just need to learn to save money." "Most homeless people are mentally ill and dangerous." "Runaways aren't really homeless." Drawing on her deep legal knowledge, policy expertise, and decades of frontline service, Mary Brosnahan cuts through the misinformation to deliver two important messages- that homelessness ultimately stems from a lack of investment in affordable housing; and that the greatest myth of all is that we should have no hope. In fact, the proven solutions are well documented, and the ability to enact them depends on us all. Brosnahan takes a nationwide look from New York to Detroit to rural areas such as Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, to debunk 15 widespread misconceptions, including- that the problem is inevitable (in fact, Housing First approaches have shown great success) that "handouts" cause homelessness (in fact, the primary causes are flat wages and high rent) that homeless people need to prove that they're "ready" to receive aid (in fact, enforcing hurdles is far more expensive and less effective than Housing First). With brilliant insight, Brosnahan showcases how by dispelling these pervasive myths rooted in fear, we can embrace the affordable, housing-based solutions that will bring our impoverished neighbors home.
Those Who Act Ruin It by
Presents an iconoclastic account of morality and moral discourse from the perspective of Daoist philosophy. Drawing on both western and Chinese philosophy, Those Who Act Ruin It shows how Daoism presents a viable alternative to established moral theories. The Daoist, critical of the Confucian and Mohist discourses of their time, provides an account of morality that can best be understood as achieving an attunement to situations through the cultivation of habits. Furthermore, Daoism's meta-ethical insights outline how moral philosophy, when theorized in a way that ignores our fundamental interdependence, devolves into moralistic narcissism. Another way of putting this, as the Daodejing states perfectly, is that "those who act ruin it" (). Sensitive to this problem, the Daoist account of moral attunement can ameliorate social woes and not "ruin things." In their moral attunement, Daoists can spontaneously respond to situations in ways that are sensitive to the underlying interdependence of all things.
Tranz by
In her debut collection, TRANZ, Spencer Williams writes equally riotous and vulnerable poems, penning a love letter to trans people and their audacity to exist in a world that constantly endangers them structurally and individually. Her blistering lyrics and acerbic wit never flatten her subjects but rather filet normative hypocrisy to reveal unspoken truths. Williams observes, "i am not dangerous until i'm made in the mouth / of someone who fears me," and remembers receiving apologies whose "guilty resonance burns / like a wet willy from god." She articulates a vast landscape of physical and ideological violence against trans people by illuminating this fundamental paradox: "i can't fear u less until u fear me less--." And yet the radical poetics of TRANZ is a celebratory self-becoming. Because of Williams' subversive genius and lyrical grace, every indictment is also a declaration of triumph, a reminder that the ever-dynamic trans community continues to thrive despite, not through, its opposition to an antagonistic cultural discourse. In every place, in every time, trans people are enduring. Extant. "on the milk carton. on the public access / television. everywhere i go i am there so brutally."
The Troublemaker by
The "extraordinary life story" (Publishers Weekly) of the billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, a leading Hong Kong democracy activist fighting for freedom of speech who became China's most famous political prisoner. Jimmy Lai escaped mainland China when he was twelve years old, at the height of a famine that killed tens of millions. In Hong Kong, he hustled and often slept overnight on a table in a clothing factory where he did odd jobs. At twenty-one, he was running a factory. By his mid-twenties, he owned one and was supplying sweaters and shirts to some of the biggest brands in the United States, from Polo to The Limited. His ideas about retail led him to create Giordano in 1981, and with it "fast fashion." A restless entrepreneur, as Giordano prepared to go public, he was thinking about a dining concept that would disrupt Hong Kong's fast-food industry. But then came Tiananmen Square democracy protest and the massacre of 1989. His reaction to the violence was to enter the media industry to push China toward more freedoms. He started a magazine, Next, to advocate for democracy in Hong Kong. Then, just two years before the city was to return to Chinese control, he founded the Apple Daily newspaper. Its mix of bold graphics, gossip, local news, and opposition to the Chinese Communist Party was an immediate hit. For more than two decades, Lai used Apple and Next as part of a personal push for democracy--in weekly columns, at rallies and marches, and, memorably, sitting in front of a tent during the 2014 Occupy Central movement. Lai took his activism abroad, traveling frequently to Washington. China reacted with fury in 2019 when he met with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A draconian new security law came into effect in Hong Kong in mid-2020, effectively making human rights advocacy and free speech a crime and censorship a fact. Lai was arrested and held without bail before being convicted on trumped-up charges. At the end of 2023, a lengthy national security trial, that could see him jailed for life, alleged "collusion with foreign forces" and printing seditious materials. China's most famous political prisoner has been held in solitary confinement since December 2020, while his supporters and family continue the fight to have him freed. "A sympathetic and inspiring biography" (The Wall Street Journal) and "a genuinely gripping yarn" (The New York Times), The Troublemaker is his story.
Underground Asia by
Cundill Prize Finalist An Economist Best Book of the Year A Financial Times Best Book of the Year "Superbly original...Breaks new ground by showing how a collective consciousness emerged among revolutionaries." --The Economist "A clearly written, brilliantly researched examination of the people and movements that shaped Asia's course in the 20th century and continue to influence the continent today." --Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal "The most gripping work of history I have ever read. It is a truly profound meditation on the struggles for freedom that shaped modern Asia...a flat out literary masterpiece." --Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly Waters European empires had not yet reached their zenith when Asian radicals planted the seeds of their destruction. They gained energy and recruits after the Bolshevik Revolution, which sparked visions of a free and radically equal world. Thanks to cheap printing presses and the new possibility of international travel, these utopian revolutionaries built clandestine webs of resistance from London and Paris to Calcutta, Bombay, Hanoi, and Shanghai. Tim Harper takes us into this shadowy world, following the interconnected lives of Asian Marxists, anarchists, and nationalists such as M. N. Roy, Ho Chi Minh, and Tan Malaka. Underground Asia shows for the first time how these national liberation movements crucially depended on global action and reveals how these insurgencies shape the region to this day.
Undivided by
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK . The inspiring story of evangelicals in Cincinnati struggling to bridge racial divides in their own church, their community, and across the nation In 2016, even as Ohio helped deliver victory to presidential candidate Donald Trump, Cincinnati voters also passed a ballot initiative for universal preschool. The margin was so large that many who elected Trump must have-paradoxically-also voted for the initiative- how could the same citizens support such philosophically disparate aims? What had convinced residents of this Midwestern, Rust Belt community to raise their own taxes to provide early childhood education focused on the poorest-and mostly Black-communities? When political scientist Hahrie Han set out to answer that question, her investigations led straight to an unlikely origin- the white-dominant evangelical megachurch Crossroads, where Pastor Chuck Mingo had delivered a sermon the prior year that set in motion a chain of surprising events. Raised in the Black church, Mingo felt called by God, he told Crossroads parishioners, to combat racial injustice, and to do it through the very church in which they were gathered. The result was Undivided, a faith-based program designed to foster antiracism and systemic change. The creators of Undivided recognized that any effort to combat racial injustice must move beyond recognizing and overcoming individual prejudices. Real change would have to be radical-from the very roots. In Undivided, Han chronicles the story of four participants-two men, one Black and one white, and two women, one Black and one white-whose lives were fundamentally altered by the program. As each of their journeys unfolded, in unpredictable and sometimes painful ways, they came to better understand one another, and to believe in the transformative possibilities for racial solidarity in a moment of deep divisiveness in America. The lessons they learned have the power to teach us all what an undivided society might look like-and how we can help achieve it.
Upstart by
A powerful new explanation of China's rise that draws from the business world to show that China is not simply copying established great powers, but exploiting geopolitical opportunities around the world that those other powers had ignored. Thirty years ago, the idea that China could challenge the United States economically, globally, and militarily seemed unfathomable. Yet today, China is considered another great power in the international system. How did China manage to build power, from a weaker resource position, in an international system that was dominated by the U.S.? What factors determined the strategies Beijing pursued to achieve this feat? Using elite interviews, granular data, and authoritative Chinese sources, Oriana Skylar Mastro demonstrates that China was able to climb to great power status through a careful mix of strategic emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship on the international stage. This "upstart approach" determined by where and how China chose to compete -- allowed China to rise economically, politically, and militarily, without triggering a catastrophic international backlash that would stem its rise. China emulated (i.e. pursued similar strategies to the U.S. in similar areas) when its leaders thought doing so would build power, while reassuring the U.S. of its intentions. China exploited (i.e. adopted similar approaches to the U.S. in new areas of competition) when China felt that the overall U.S. strategy was effective, but didn't want to risk direct confrontation. Lastly, China pursued entrepreneurial actions (i.e. innovative approaches to new and existing areas of competition) when it believed emulation might elicit a negative reaction and a more effective approach was available. Beyond explaining the unique nature of China's rise, Upstart: How China became a Great Power provides policy guidance on how the U.S. can maintain a competitive edge in this new era of great power competition.
Valley So Low by
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A riveting courtroom drama about the victims of one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history--and the country lawyer determined to challenge the notion that, in America, justice can be bought "[A] tense investigative chronicle." --The New Yorker For more than fifty years, a power plant in the small town of Kingston, Tennessee,  burned fourteen thousand tons of coal a day, gradually creating a mountain of ashen waste sixty feet high and covering eighty-four acres, contained only by an earthen embankment. In 2008, just before Christmas, that embankment broke, unleashing a lethal wave of coal sludge that covered three hundred acres, damaged nearly thirty homes, and precipitating a cleanup effort that would cost more than a billion dollars--and the lives of more than fifty cleanup workers who inhaled the toxins it released. Jim Scott, a local personal-injury lawyer, agreed to represent the workers after they began to fall ill. That meant doing legal battle against the Tennessee Valley Authority,  a colossal, federally owned power company that had once been a famous cornerstone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Scott and his hastily assembled team gathered extensive evidence of malfeasance: threats against workers; retaliatory firings; disregarded safety precautions; and test results, either hidden or altered, that would have revealed harmful concentrations of arsenic, lead, and radioactive materials at the cleanup site. At every stage, Scott--outmanned and nearly broke--had to overcome legal hurdles constructed by TVA and the firm it hired to help execute the cleanup. He grew especially close to one of the victims, whose swift decline only intensified his hunger for justice. As the incriminating evidence mounted, the workers seemed to have everything on their side, including the truth--and yet, was it all enough to prevail? The lawsuit that Scott pursued on the workers' behalf was about their illnesses, no doubt. But it was also about whether blue-collar employees could beat the C-suite; if self-described "hillbilly lawyers" could beat elite corporate defense attorneys; and whether strong evidence could beat fat pocketbooks. With suspense and rich detail, Jared Sullivan's thrilling account lays bare the casual brutality of the American justice system, and calls into question whether--and how--the federal government has failed its people.
Vanishing Treasures by
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF FALL: WASHINGTON POST, CBS, BOSTON GLOBE, CHICAGO TRIBUNE & MORE * From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Katherine Rundell comes a "rare and magical book" (Bill Bryson) reckoning with the vanishing wonders of our natural world "Extraordinary...For anyone whose capacity for wonder could use a jumpstart, Rundell's essays are essential reading."--Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air "In times like these, terror and rage will carry us only so far. We will also need unstinting, unceasing love. For the hard work that lies ahead, Ms. Rundell writes, 'Our competent and furious love will have to be what fuels us.' This is a book to help you fall in love." --Margaret Renkl, The New York Times The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction. Consider the seahorse: couples mate for life and meet each morning for a dance, pirouetting and changing colors before going their separate ways, to dance again the next day. The American wood frog survives winter by allowing itself to freeze solid, its heartbeat slowing until it stops altogether. Come spring, the heart kick-starts itself spontaneously back to life. As for the lemur, it lives in matriarchal troops led by an alpha female (it's not unusual for female ring-tailed lemurs to slap males across the face when they become aggressive). Whenever they are cold or frightened, they group together in what's known as a lemur ball, paws and tails intertwined, to form a furry mass as big as a bicycle wheel. But each of these extraordinary animals is endangered or holds a sub-species that is endangered. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes--to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures. Beautifully illustrated, and full of inimitable wit and intellect, Vanishing Treasures is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck, to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.
A View from the Stars by
From the author of the New York Times bestselling Three-Body Problem series--now a Netflix Original series--A View from the Stars is a new collection of short fiction and nonfiction pieces. A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years. "A vital collection. . . . down-to-earth, but unafraid to ask big questions."--Publishers Weekly The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books by Cixin Liu Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up the Sky The Wandering Earth A View from the Stars
War by
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Woodward delivers an eye-opening, behind-the-scenes narrative exploring the intricate dynamics of Ukraine, the Middle East, and the American presidency, offering unparalleled insights into political intrigue and global strategy from one of the most authoritative voices in political journalism today. War is a "harrowing, riveting" (The New York Times) account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics in American history. We see President Joe Biden and his top advisers in tense conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. We also see Donald Trump conducting a shadow presidency and seeking to regain political power ahead of the 2024 elections. With unrivaled, inside-the-room reporting, Woodward shows President Biden's approach to managing the war in Ukraine, the most significant land war in Europe since World War II, and his tortured path to contain the bloody Middle East conflict between Israel and the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Woodward reveals the extraordinary complexity and consequence of wartime back-channel diplomacy and decision-making to deter the use of nuclear weapons and a rapid slide into World War III. The raw cage-fight of politics accelerates leading up to the presidential election in 2024, starting between President Biden and Trump, and ending with the unexpected elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president. War provides an unvarnished examination of the vice president as she tries to embrace the Biden legacy and policies while beginning to chart a path of her own as a presidential candidate. Woodward's reporting once again sets the standard for journalism at its most authoritative and illuminating.
What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by
A powerful novel that's "hilarious, heartbreaking, and ass-kicking" (Jamie Ford) about a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island who discovers their long‑missing sister is potentially alive and cast on a reality TV show, and sets out to bring her home. Winner of the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction · Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize · March Indie Next Pick · Belletrist, Phenomenal, Page & Pairing, and Readers Digest book club pick The Ramirez women of Staten Island orbit around absence. When thirteen‑year‑old middle child Ruthy disappeared after track practice without a trace, it left the family scarred and scrambling. One night, twelve years later, oldest sister Jessica spots a woman on her TV screen in Catfight, a raunchy reality show. She rushes to tell her younger sister, Nina: This woman's hair is dyed red, and she calls herself Ruby, but the beauty mark under her left eye is instantly recognizable. Could it be Ruthy, after all this time? The years since Ruthy's disappearance haven't been easy on the Ramirez family. It's 2008, and their mother, Dolores, still struggles with the loss, Jessica juggles a newborn baby with her hospital job, and Nina, after four successful years at college, has returned home to medical school rejections and is forced to work in the mall folding tiny bedazzled thongs at the lingerie store. After seeing maybe‑Ruthy on their screen, Jessica and Nina hatch a plan to drive to where the show is filmed in search of their long‑lost sister. When Dolores catches wind of their scheme, she insists on joining, along with her pot-stirring holy roller best friend, Irene. What follows is a family road trip and reckoning that will force the Ramirez women to finally face the past and look toward a future--with or without Ruthy in it. What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez is a vivid family portrait, in all its shattered reality, exploring the familial bonds between women and cycles of generational violence, colonialism, race, and silence, replete with snark, resentment, tenderness, and, of course, love. A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle * USA Today * Today.com * Ms. Magazine * Good Housekeeping * Bustle * The Week * Goodreads * Bookriot * Pop Culturely * SheReads * Litreactor * Electric Lit * The Mary Sue * People Español * Zibby Mag * Debutiful * Her Campus Best Books of March by Shondaland * Ms. Magazine * Popsugar * Bookriot * Debutiful * Powell's Book Blog * TIME 100 must-read book of 2023 * Booklist Top 10 debut of 2023 * Library Journal Best Pop Fiction of 2023 * The Latinidad List​ Best Debut Novel of 2023 * Chicago Public Library Favorite Book of 2023 * Good Housekeeping Must-Read Book of 2023 * Today.com Standout Book of 2023 Includes a Reading Group Guide.
What Is History For? by
"History", suggests Robert Gildea, "is a battlefield." Questions of power, rights, identity and nationhood always have an ancient and modern historical dimension and countries still go to war over their interpretation of history. Yet accounts of history are just as prone to fabrication as fake news, so how can we tell good history from bad? How can history be critical, learning from the past and righting wrongs, rather than divisive, such as riding roughshod over the rights of others? In this passionately argued book, Gildea suggests that the more people who really understand what good history entails, the more likely history is to triumph over myth. He sees positive signs in public history, citizen historians and community projects, among other developments. And he debunks claims that 'you cannot rewrite history', arguing that good history that's attuned to its times must be rewritten time and again.
When Rock Met Reggae by
Bringing the same incisive, cross-genre perspective he offered in When Rock Met Disco, Steven Blush gives a spirited survey of the crossover of Jamaican, British, and American sounds that changed the face of popular music in When Rock Met Reggae. The inspiration of ska, rock-steady, dub, and reggae-heard on independent recordings played on "soundsystems" from Kingston and Brixton-created a new rock tonality and attitude, spanning from Eric Clapton to The Clash. Meanwhile, the "Two Tone" sounds-traversing The Specials, Madness, and UB40-fueled the '90s ska revival of Sublime, No Doubt, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and beyond. Attentive to the racial, political, and artistic aspects of this intricate story, Blush gives a memorable account of one of the most fertile cross-pollinations in pop music history.
When the Hood Comes Off by
This timely, comprehensive study examines how racism manifests online and highlights the antiracist tactics rising to oppose it From cell phone footage of police killing unarmed Black people to leaked racist messages and even comments from friends and family on social media, online communication exposes how racism operates in a world that pretends to be colorblind. In When the Hood Comes Off, Rob Eschmann blends rigorous research and engaging personal narrative to examine the effects of online racism on communities of color and society, and the unexpected ways that digital technologies enable innovative everyday tools of antiracist resistance. Drawing on a wealth of data, including interviews with students of Color around the country and analyses of millions of social media posts over the past decade, Eschmann investigates the influence of online communication on face-to-face interactions. When the Hood Comes Off highlights the power of the internet as an organizing tool, and shows that online racism can be a profound wake-up call. How will we respond?
Why War? by
Richard Overy is not the first scholar to take up the title question. In 1931, at the request of the League of Nations, Albert Einstein asked Sigmund Freud to collaborate on a short work examining whether there was "a way of delivering mankind from the menace of war." Published the next year as a pamphlet entitled Why War?, it conveyed Freud's conclusion that the "death drive" made any deliverance impossible--the psychological impulse to destruction was universal in the animal kingdom. The global wars of the later 1930s and 1940s seemed ample evidence of the dismal conclusion. A preeminent historian of those wars, Overy brings vast knowledge to the title question and years of experience unraveling the knotted motivations of war. His approach is to separate the major drivers and motivations, and consider the ways each has contributed to organized conflict. They range from the impulses embedded in human biology and psychology, to the incentives to conflict developed through cultural evolution, to competition for resources--conflicts stirred by the passions of belief, the effects of ecological stresses, the drive for power in leaders and nations, and the search for security. The discussions show remarkable range, delving deep into the Neolithic past, through the twentieth-century world wars, and up to the current conflict in Ukraine. The examples are absorbing, from the Roman Empire's voracious appetite for resources to the impulse to power evident in Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Hitler. The conclusion is not hopeful, but Overy's book is a gift to readers: a compact, judicious, engrossing examination of a fundamental question.
A Wilder Shore by
The romance between Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson was an unlikely Victorian love story: he was an ambitious but drifting college-educated writer from a prominent family in Scotland; she was a forceful and determined farm girl from Indiana with a high school education. She was married, with children, and 10 years his senior when they met in France in 1876. How could a union between them work? A Wilder Shore is a portrait of these two extraordinary people and a nuanced examination of the improbable union that stimulated, frustrated and ultimately sustained them. The book travels the world with the couple as they seek better health for him, a looser lifestyle and more creative freedom, beginning in an art colony outside Paris and ending in Samoa, where they lived and joined the native islanders' fight for independence from imperialist powers. Along the way, the ferment of the Stevensons' deeply loving but stormy marriage produced literary masterpieces by Robert such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This sweeping love story of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson and their search for freedom and self-discovery opens up new perspectives on both writers, as well as showing how astonishingly modern they were for their times.
You Dreamed of Empires by
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF 2024 A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR "Short, strange, spiky and sublime." --Dwight Garner, New York Times "Funny, ghastly, eye-opening, marvelous." --Wall Street Journal From the visionary author of Sudden Death, a hallucinatory, revelatory colonial revenge story. One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan - today's Mexico City. Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures. Cortés is accompanied by his captains, his troops, his prized horses, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn friar, and Malinalli, an enslaved, strategic Nahua princess. After nearly bungling their entrance to the city, the Spaniards are greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely Aztec princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of Moctezuma. As they await their meeting with the emperor - who is at a political and spiritual crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get by - Cortés and his entourage are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés's captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the chances of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire. And what if... they don't? You Dreamed of Empires brings Tenochtitlan to life at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Álvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counterattack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.
