This "extraordinary history" of the influential black newspaper is "deeply researched, elegantly written [and] a towering achievement" (Brent Staples, New York Times Book Review).In 1905, Robert S. Abbott started printing The Chicago Defender, a newspaper dedicated to condemning Jim Crow and encouraging African Americans living in the South to join the Great Migration. Smuggling hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segre...

“Ethan Michaeli has a gimlet eye for the people, texture, and contradictions of modern Israel. I’m in awe of his powers of observation and his ability as a modern-day Tocqueville to take us inside one of the most complex and confounding countries in the world." — Jonathan Alter, bestselling author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a LifeAn "illuminating" and "richly descriptive" (New York Times Book Review) portrait of contemporary Israel, revealing the diversity of this extraordinar...

Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded the Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a “Modern Moses,” becoming one of the first black millionaires in the process. His successor wielded the newspaper’s clout to elect mayors and presidents, inclu...

“Ethan Michaeli has a gimlet eye for the people, texture, and contradictions of modern Israel. I’m in awe of his powers of observation and his ability as a modern-day Tocqueville to take us inside one of the most complex and confounding countries in the world."" — Jonathan Alter, bestselling author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a LifeAn ""illuminating"" and ""richly descriptive"" (New York Times Book Review) portrait of contemporary Isra...

Delve into the fascinating world of dirt in this history of culture, cleanliness, and our evolving perceptions of what is and isn't gross.In this engaging and often humorous study of life's imperfections, public health and hygiene authority Terence McLaughlin dissects our attitudes toward the filth that has accompanied society throughout human history. According to him, "dirt" is a matter of opinion.Cultural attitudes about everything from factory smoke to ...

With a new preface: A "stunning" analysis of the troubled Republican president by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg ( The New York Times Book Review).In this acclaimed biography that earned him a spot on Nixon's infamous "enemies list," Garry Wills takes a thoughtful, in-depth, and often "very amusing" look at the thirty-seventh US president, and draws some surprising conclusions about a man whose name has become synonymous...

"A searing memoir-meets-manifesto . . . [arguing] that society needs to radically reframe the crime of rape and how we think about survival." ―Gabrielle Korn, author of Yours for the TakingLonglisted for the 2020 National Book Award for NonfictionTime 's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020Publishers Weekly , Best Books of 2020

**Longlisted for the Reading the West Book AwardsNAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literary Work - Non-FictionWith journalistic skill, heart, and hope, Requiem for the Massacre reckons with the tension in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one hundred years after the most infamous act of racial violence in American history**More than one hundred years ago, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, perpetrated a massacre against its Black residents. For generations, the true story ...

**Winner of the 2022 New-York Historical Society Book Prize in American HistoryA Washington Post and BookPage Best Nonfiction Book of the YearFrom a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the powerful story of a fragile nation as it expands across a contested continent.**In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning de...

The work of explorers, surveyors and spies in the race to conquer Southern Asia is vividly recounted in this history of British imperial cartography.In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires were engaged in bitter rivalry for the acquisition of Southern Asian. Although India was the ultimate prize, most of the intrigue and action took place along its northern frontier in Afghanistan, Turkestan and Tibet. Mapping the region and gaining knowledge of the ene...

This "excellent" popular science book explores just what we—and the things around us—are made of ( Aftenposten, Norway).Some elements get all the attention: glittering gold, radioactive uranium—materials we call "precious" because they are so rare. But what could be more precious than the building blocks of life—from the oxygen in our air to the carbon in all living things?In The Elements We Live By, physicist and award-winning author Anja R...

Stories and science surrounding the beloved bat, from an ecologist who has dedicated his life to the curious creature.Few people realize how sophisticated and intelligent bats are. Merlin Tuttle knows, and he has stopped at nothing to find and protect them on every continent they inhabit. Sharing highlights from a lifetime of adventure and discovery, Tuttle takes us to the frontiers of bat research to show that frog-eating bats can identify frogs by their calls, th...