From the authors of Quackery, a visual and narrative history of popular ideas, phenomena, and widely held beliefs disproven by science.From the easily disproved to the wildly speculative, to straight-up hucksterism, Pseudoscience is a romp through much more than bad science—it’s a light-hearted look into why we insist on believing in things such as Big Foot, astrology, and the existence of aliens. Did you know, for example, that you can tell a per...

From the masters of storytelling-meets-science and co-authors of Quackery, Patient Zero tells the long and fascinating history of disease outbreaks—how they start, how they spread, the science that lets us understand them, and how we race to destroy them before they destroy us.Written in the authors’ lively and accessible style, chapters include page-turning medical stories about a particular disease or virus—smallpox, Bubonic plague, polio, HIV—that combine “Pati...

What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth?Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine—yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison—was dosed like Viagra.Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of ...

From the authors of Quackery, a visual and narrative history of popular ideas, phenomena, and widely held beliefs disproven by science.From the easily disproved to the wildly speculative, to straight-up hucksterism, Pseudoscience is a romp through much more than bad science—it’s a light-hearted look into why we insist on believing in things such as Big Foot, astrology, and the existence of aliens. Did you know, for example, that you can tell a per...

What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth?Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine—yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison—was dosed like Viagra.Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history o...

From the masters of storytelling-meets-science and co-authors of Quackery, Patient Zero tells the long and fascinating history of disease outbreaks—how they start, how they spread, the science that lets us understand them, and how we race to destroy them before they destroy us.Written in the authors’ lively and accessible style, chapters include page-turning medical stories about a particular disease or virus—smallpox, Bubonic plague, polio, HIV—that combine “Pati...

**The extraordinary history of the epic rivalry between the ancient world’s two great superpowers.“Magnificent.” —Spectator**The Roman Empire was like no other. Stretching from the north of Britain to the Sahara, and from the Atlantic coast to the Euphrates, it imposed peace and prosperity on an unprecedented scale. Its only true rival lay in the east, where the Parthian and then Persian empires ruled over great cities and the trade routes to mysterious lands beyon...

From the acclaimed author of American Comics and Jewish Comedy comes a highly entertaining book that examines the American obsession with horror—and what it tells us about ourselves.In American Scary, noted cultural historian and Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber takes the reader to the startling origins of the horror genre in the United States, drawing a surprising through-line between the lingering influence of the European Gothic, the e...

"A burst of delight on every page!"Mignon Fogarty, host of the Grammar Girl podcastDid you know that an "astronaut" is literally a "star sailor," that a thesaurus is, in fact, a "treasuretrove" of words, and that someone who is "sinister" is actually just "left-handed"?Have you ever wondered why English isn't considered a Romance language if 60% of ourwords are Latin-derived?Did Shakespeare really...

**From a New York Times bestselling author, a masterful history of the American West—from the California Gold Rush to the settling of Oklahoma and beyond."Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope, this is a bravura performance from one of our master historians." —Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Blood and Thunder**In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from t...

Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species.Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four legs—a locomotion known as bipedalism. We strive to be upstanding citizens, honor those who stand tall and proud, and take a stand against injustices. We follow in each other’s footsteps and celebrate a child’s beginning to walk....

National BestsellerA New Yorker Best Book of 2024A “thought-provoking and timely” (The Times, London) global history of witch trials across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, told through thirteen distinct trials that illuminate a pattern of demonization and conspiratorial thinking that has profoundly shaped human history.This “inventive and compelling” (The Times Literary Supplement, London...