**A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. The Sunday Times (UK) Classical Music Book of 2018 and one of The Economist’s Best Books of 2018.**“A magisterial portrait.” —**Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times Book ReviewA landmark biography of the Polish composer by a leading authority on Chopin and his timeBased on ten years of research and a vast cache of primary sources ...

A 1949 series of articles on life in post-World War II Germany, written by an undercover German reporter for an American paper—and the story behind them.Wolfe Frank was chief interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials where he was dubbed "The Voice of Doom." A playboy turned resistance worker branded an "enemy of the state—to be shot on sight," he had fled Germany for England in 1937. Initially interned as an "enemy alien," he was later allowed to join the British Army wh...

The acclaimed narrative history of the American home front during WWII, from the attack on Pearl Harbor through 1942.For Americans on the home front, the twelve months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor comprised the darkest year of World War Two. Despite government attempts to disguise the magnitude of American losses, it was clear that the nation had suffered a nearly unbroken string of military setbacks in the Pacific; by the autumn of 1942, government...

**The classic, myth-shattering history of the American family.“The Way We Never Were effectively demolishes the normal, traditional nuclear family as neither normal nor traditional, and not even nuclear.” ―Nation**Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man’s home has never been his castle, the “male breadwinner marriage” is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. I...

Includes more than 25 illustrationsWALTER LORD NEVER STARTS FROM SCRATCH. For months before a word of this book was written, he could be found roaming the country, ferreting out the fascinating people who helped shape these years. One week it might be Elijah Baum, who piloted Wilbur Wright to his first lodgings at Kitty Hawk…the next, and old fireman who fought the flames at San Francisco…the next, some militant suffragette.Even in his raids on old diaries, letters, memoirs a...

With outrageous anecdotes about everyone from Leonardo Da Vinci to Caravaggio to Edward Hopper, Secret Lives of Great Artists recounts the seamy, steamy and gritty history behind the great masters of international art.Here, you’ll learn that Michelangelo’s body odor was so bad, his assistants couldn’t stand working for him; that Vincent van Gogh sometimes ate paint directly from the tube; and Georgia O’Keeffe loved to paint in the nude. This is one art history lesson you’l...

A study of aggression from the renowned social psychologist and New York Times –bestselling author of The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom ."Rich and provocative . . . a major book from the pen of a major writer." — The Washington Post Book WorldThroughout history, humans have sh...

The legendary economist explains how a nation can remain both compassionate and fiscally sound, with "common sense raised to the level of genius" ( The New Yorker).This compact, eloquent book offers a blueprint for a workable national agenda that allows for human weakness without compromising a humane culture. Arguing that it is in the best interest of the United States to avoid excessive wealth and income inequality, and to safeguard the well-being of its...

"Taking kitchen science to a whole new (molecular) level, Hervé This is changing the way France---and the world—cooks."— GourmetBringing the instruments and experimental techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, Hervé This—international celebrity and founder of molecular gastronomy—uses recent research in the chemistry, physics, and biology of food to challenge traditional ideas about cooking and eating. What he discovers will entertain, instruct, and...

“Beautifully researched and masterfully told” (Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of Escape from the Deep), this is the riveting story of the heroic and tragic US submarine force that helped win World War II in the Pacific.Focusing on the unique stories of three of the war’s top submarines—Silversides, Drum, and Tang—The War Below vividly re-creates the camaraderie, exhilaration, and fear of the bra...

An epic, revelatory account of the Battle of Gettysburg, where George Meade, Lincoln's unexpected choice to lead the Union army, defeated Robert E. Lee and changed the course of the Civil War, from the award-winning author of James Monroe: A LifeBy mid-1863, the Civil War, with Northern victories in the West and Southern triumphs in the East, seemed unwinnable for Abraham Lincoln. Robert E. Lee’s bold thrust into Pennsylvania, if successful, could mean Sou...

On August 6, 1945, 22-year-old Kaleria Pachikoff was doing pre-breakfast chores when a blinding flash lit the sky over Hiroshima, Japan. A moment later, everything went black as the house collapsed on her and her family. Their world, and everyone else's, changed as the first atomic bomb was detonated over a city.From Russian nobility, the Palchikoff's barely escaped death at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries until her father, a White Russian officer, hijacked ...