An acclaimed New York Times Magazine writer brings us into the world of the controversial technology firm Palantir and its very colorful and outspoken CEO, Alex Karp, tracing the ascent of Big Data, the rise of surveillance technology, and the shifting global balance of power in the 21st century.Palantir builds data integration software: its technology ingests vast quantities of information and quickly identifies patterns, trends, and connections that migh...

A rich, lively book about the upheaval in French gastronomy, set against the backdrop of France’s diminished fortunes as a nation.France is in a rut, and so is French cuisine. Twenty-five years ago it was hard to have a bad meal there; today it’s difficult to find a good one. An unmistakable whiff of decline emanates from its kitchens, and many believe that London, Spain, and New York are more exciting places to eat. Parisian bistros and brasseries are disappearing at an alarming r...

France is in a rut, and so is French cuisine. Twenty-five years ago it was hard to have a bad meal in France; now, in some cities and towns, it is a challenge to find a good one. For the first time in the annals of modern cuisine, the most influential chefs and the most talked-about restaurants in the world are not French. Within France, large segments of the wine industry are in crisis, cherished artisanal cheeses are threatened with extinction, and bistros and brasseries are disappearing...

“Entertaining and edifying. . . . [Steinberger] deftly shows how any and all of us can be savvier about wine.”—Bill Ward, Minneapolis Star TribuneToday’s dynamic wine culture calls for a different kind of wine book. The Wine Savant is just that: punchy, polemical, and brimming with insights to educate and entertain beginning wine drinkers and seasoned oenophiles alike.Never has the wine world had so much to offer, and never have smart decisions abo...

An acclaimed New York Times Magazine writer brings us into the world of the controversial technology firm Palantir and its very colorful and outspoken CEO, Alex Karp, tracing the ascent of Big Data, the rise of surveillance technology, and the shifting global balance of power in the 21st century.Palantir builds data integration software: its technology ingests vast quantities of information and quickly identifies patterns, trends, and connections that migh...

**Brought to you by Penguin.Wreckers** sinks the old narratives of imperialism, revealing the violent, chaotic and improvised reality of empire-building from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.While figures such as Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan are celebrated for their maritime achievements – reaching the Americas, India, and circumnavigating the globe – focusing solely on these voyages distorts our perspective on t...

Brought to you by Penguin.Trump’s second term, even more than his first, is often called ‘unprecedented’. But history shows that Trump and his policies are as American as apple pie…Much of what Donald Trump does seems maverick and even mad. His actions and policy pronouncements are a stark rupture from the American style of leadership that we have lived with all our lives. But whether we like them or not, his trade tariffs, his determinatio...

From an acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter comes the first biography of the enigmatic leader of the AI revolution, charting his ascent within the tech world as well as his ambitions for this powerful new technology.On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that captivated the world with its uncanny ability to hold humanlike conversations. Not even a year later, on November 17, 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was summarily fired on a video call by the company...

**A New York Times Notable BookA shocking and assiduously reported biography of venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel, the enigmatic, controversial, and hugely influential power broker whose techno-authoritarian worldview is coming to dominate our collective reality“Max Chafkin’s The Contrarian is much more than a consistently shocking biography of Peter Thiel, the most important investor in tech and a key supporter of the Donald Trump presidency....

Written with a storyteller's flair and packed with astonishing facts, Taste is a sumptuous social history of Britain told through the development of its cooking. It encompasses royal feasts and street food, the skinning of eels and the making of strawberry jelly, mixing tales of culinary stars with those of the invisible hordes cooking in kitchens across the land. Beginning before Roman times, the book journeys through the ingredients, equipment, kitchens, feasts, fads, and famine...

**A provocative exploration of the forces that keep us from getting things done, and how we can restore confidence in government“Dunkelman summarizes the history perfectly.” —David Brooks, The New York TimesNamed a Best Book of the Year by Financial Times • The Economist**America was once a country that did big things. But today, even while facing a host of pressing challenges—a housing shortage, a climate crisis, dilapidated infrastructur...

A Fortune best nonfiction book of 2023In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist extremism, an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers are realizing their ultimate goal: an end to nation-states and the constraints of democracy.Look at a map of the world and you’ll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade, globalization has shattered...