The Middle East in the 21st century has witnessed a game-changing rollercoaster ride that has transformed relationships across the boards. Turkey underwent the most dramatic changes of its democratic history, propelling it into the role of major regional actor. The "Arab Spring" cast the region into political and social turmoil. US-led wars devastated the lands and peoples of several countries with widespread, rippling repercussions. And the balance of global power shifted dramatically, br...

"[A] must-read by one of the most thought-provoking writers on Islam and the Middle East." —#1 New York Times –Bestselling Author Reza AslanWhat if Islam never existed? To some, it's a comforting thought: no clash of civilizations, no holy wars, no terrorists. But what if that weren't the case at all?In A World Without Islam, Graham E. Fuller, a former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at...

The Kurds, one of the oldest ethnic groups in the Middle East, are reasserting their identity-politically and through violence. Divided mainly among Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the Kurds have posed increasingly sharp challenges to all of these states in their quest for greater autonomy if not outright independence. Turkey's essentially democratic structure and civil society_ideal tools for coping with and incorporating minority challenge_have so far been suspended on this issue, which t...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAAH STONE BOOK AWARDA new history of US education through the nineteenth century that rigorously accounts for Black, Native, and white experiences; a story that exposes the idea of American education as “the great equalizer” to not only be a lie, but also a myth that reproduces past harms.Education is the epicenter of every community in the United States. Indeed, few institutions are as pivotal in shaping our lives and ...

Books are our first and most lasting form of information technology. Books preserve ideas, yes, but they also provoke new ones— they are true tools for thinking. In The Idea Machine, Joel J. Miller shows that books are one of the most important but overlooked factors in the making of our contemporary world. And they still have lessons to teach us.Polls indicate reading is on the decline, but as we deal with concerns about artificial intelligence and social and political di...

For the 75th anniversary, a new edition of The Human Use of Human Beings—the landmark book that delves into the relationship between humans and computers, and presciently anticipates many contemporary dilemmas surrounding AI technology. With a new introduction by Brian Christian, author of the bestselling Algorithms to Live By and The Alignment Problem.In 1950, mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener ended this classic book on the place of machines in society with a warning: “We s...

**Shortlisted for the Banff Centre Mountain Book AwardsNamed a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Economist, and Science News • A Scientific American Staff Favorite"Vivid and engrossing.…[A] celebration of beardom." —Richard Adams Carey, Wall Street JournalA global exploration of the eight remaining species of bears—and the dangers they face.**Bears have always held a central place in our collective memory, ...

The second volume in a prize-worthy two-book series based on years of irreplicable personal interviews with survivors about each of the atomic bomb drops, first in Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, that hastened the end of the Pacific War.On August 6, 1945, the United States unleashed a weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen. Then, just three days later, when Japan showed no sign of surrender, the United States took aim at Nagasaki.Rendered in harrowing ...

**"A world-class intellectual. . . . [Colin Woodard’s] research can help Americans rediscover their common identity in spite of all the attempts to divide them." —Garry Kasparov"A powerful paradigm for understanding the defining hot button issues of contemporary America and the action we can take to bridge our cultural divisions and save the republic." —The Next Big Idea Club“A lucid exercise in political geography with tremendous—and disturbing—explanatory power.” —Kir...

**Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker“A book that is as deeply humane and profoundly rendered as any I’ve read about Afghanistan, or any other war.” —Elliot Ackerman, New York Times Book ReviewFrom one of the great foreign correspondents of our time, author of some of the most essential reporting from Afghanistan from before 9/11 to the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, the first full accounting of that entire era, combining previously pu...

**Shortlisted for the 2023 Royal Society Science Book Prize"A riveting love letter to the small, wonderful, and mundane things that make the modern world." —Roman MarsA structural engineer examines the seven most basic building blocks of engineering that have shaped the modern world.**Some of humanity’s mightiest engineering achievements are small in scale—and, without them, the complex machinery on which our modern world runs would not exist. In Nuts and Bolts

**"How unfair for one man to be blessed with such a torrent of stimulating thoughts. Stimulating is an understatement." —Richard DawkinsA memoir by one of the greatest minds of our age, preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel C. Dennett.**Daniel C. Dennett, preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist, has spent his career considering the thorniest, most fundamental mysteries of the mind. Do we have free will? What is consciousness and how did it come about?...