**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 ...

An Essence Best Book of the Year: "[An] excellent political memoir . . . A thoughtful and inspiring exhortation to do better." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)NAACP Image Awards Winner for Outstanding Literary WorkIncludes a foreword by Speaker Nancy PelosiKnown for his poise, intellect, and influence, Elijah Cummings was one of the most respected figures in Congress—a politician who held fast to his beliefs but was not afraid to reach across...

"A crash course in the amazing new science of space archaeology that only Sarah Parcak can give. This book will awaken the explorer in all of us." —Chris Anderson, Head of TEDWinner of Archaeological Institute of America's Felicia A. Holton Book Award • Winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Prize for Science • An Amazon Best Science Book of 2019 • A Science Friday Best Science Book of 2019 • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2019 • A Science News Best Book of...

" 1960 aims to take us deeper into the campaign than Theodore White's famous The Making of the President, 1960. And it does."— Chicago Sun-TimesThis is award-winning historian David Pietrusza's hard-edged account of the 1960 presidential campaign, the election that ultimately gave America "Camelot" and its tragic aftermath. It is the story of the bare-knuckle politics of the primaries; the party conventions' backroom dealings; the unpreced...

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 essential history of the extraordinary year in which American democracy and American slavery emerged hand in hand in Virginia“If anyone today knows colonial Virginia, it is James Horn.” —Wall Street JournalAlong the banks of the James River, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a month of one another that would profoundly shape the course of history. At the end of July, the G...

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...

"A detailed and moving picture of how the Habsburgs suffered under the Nazi regime…scrupulously sourced, well-written, and accessible."— Publishers Weekly (starred review)It was during five youthful years in Vienna that Adolf Hitler's obsession with the Habsburg Imperial family became the catalyst for his vendetta against a vanished empire, a dead archduke, and his royal orphans. That hatred drove Hitler's rise to power and led directly to the tragedy of t...

The aftermath of the Civil War comes to dramatic life in this sweeping new collection of firsthand writing from the Reconstruction era—featuring pieces by Frederick Douglass, Frances Harper, and more“Very, very good. . . . Reconstruction conveys the struggle for racial equality better than many other anthologies documenting the era.” —The Wall Street JournalFew periods in American history are more consequential but less un...

How the United States underdeveloped AppalachiaAppalachia—among the most storied and yet least understood regions in America—has long been associated with poverty and backwardness. But how did this image arise and what exactly does it mean? In Ramp Hollow, Steven Stoll launches an original investigation into the history of Appalachia and its place in U.S. history, with a special emphasis on how generations of its inhabitants lived, worked, survived, and dep...

“Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit,” said the world’s greatest and most preeminent English writer of all time, William Shakespeare.Have you ever wanted to quote the most quoted writer in the English language? Deliver the most inventive and debasing Shakespearean insult (“Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!”)? Recite titillating love poetry like a modern-day Romeo to his (or her) Juliet? Or commit a learned wisdom about life’s woes to memory? The Smart Words and Wic...

**“One of the best decision making and game theory books of all time.” —Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn founderGAME THEORY 101: An accessible, light-hearted exploration of game theory—what it is, why it’s important, and how it can help us in our daily lives.**Game theory is the mathematical formalization of interactive decision-making—it assumes that each player’s goal is to maximize his/her benefit, whatever it may be. Players may be friends, foes, political parties, states, or any...