The "riveting" story of Erasmus, Martin Luther, and the rivalry between the reformer and the dissident: "An impressive, powerful intellectual history." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)At a time when Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael were revolutionizing Western art and culture, Erasmus of Rotterdam was helping to transform Europe's intellectual and religious life, developing a new design for living for a continent rebelling against the hierarchical const...

Columbia professor and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics Joseph E. Stiglitz talks to Anya Schiffrin, editor of Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Journalism From Around the World, about a wide range of global issues from economics to journalism to politics.

A New York Times Notable BookA deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history that examines two of the greatest minds of European history—Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther—whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of philosophical and religious thought.“A masterly work. Massing manages to juggle the complicated biographies and life work of both Erasmu...

Can we do better in space than we've done here on Earth?We've pinpointed the destination, refined the technology, designed the habitat. Are we forgetting something? A timely reminder that it's not just rocket science, this book explores the all-too-human issues raised by the prospect of settling in outer space. Accordingly, her work highlights the complex ethical challenges that accompany any other-worldly venture—questions about the environment, labor rig...

From the bestselling author of Flags of our Fathers, Flyboys, and The Imperial Cruise, a spellbinding history of turbulent U.S.-China relations from the 19th century to World War II and Mao's ascent.In each of his books, James Bradley has exposed the hidden truths behind America's engagement in Asia. Now comes his most engrossing work yet. Beginning in the 1850s, Bradley introduces us to the prominent Americans who made their fortunes in ...

Your heart is a miracle in motion, a marvel of construction unsurpassed by any human-made creation. It beats 100,000 times every day—if you were to live to 100, that would be more than 3 billion beats across your lifespan. Despite decadesof effort in labs all over the world, we have not yet been able to replicate the heart’s perfect engineering. But, as Sian Harding shows us in The Exquisite Machine, new scientific developments are opening up the mysteries of the heart.And th...

"The ultimate literary bucket list . . . 948 pages later, you still want more!" —The Washington PostCelebrate the thrill of discovering new titles in an extraordinary book that's as entertaining, surprising, and enlightening as the titles it recommends.Covering fiction, poetry, science and science fiction, memoir, travel writing, biography, children's books, history, and more, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die offers an eclectic c...

The acclaimed author of Byzantium and the Crusades "offers a fresh take on this fabled but hidden civilization" across eleven centuries of history (Colin Wells).For more than a millennium, the Byzantine Empire presided over the juncture between East and West, as well as the transition from the classical to the modern world. Rather than recounting the standard chronology of emperors and battles, leading Byzantium scholar Jonathan Harris focuses on a success...

When Picasso became Picasso: the story of how an obscure young painter from Barcelona came to Paris and made himself into the most influential artist of the twentieth centuryIn 1900, an eighteen-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the international art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Fueled by opium and alcohol...

While European intellectual, cultural, and commercial life stagnated during the early medieval period, Asia flourished as the wellspring of science, philosophy, and religion.Linked together by a web of religious, commercial, and intellectual connections, the different regions of Asia's vast civilization, from Arabia to China, hummed with commerce, international diplomacy, and the brisk exchange of ideas.Stewart Gordon has fashioned a fascinating and unique look at Asia from...

"An urgent and compelling account of great bravery and passion." ―Susan OrleanAward-winning journalist Delphine Minoui recounts the true story of a band of young rebels, a besieged Syrian town, and an underground library built from the rubble of warReading is an act of resistance.Daraya is a town outside Damascus, the very spot where the Syrian Civil War began. Long a site of peaceful resistance to the Assad regimes, Daraya...

A new history of the world's most embattled idea.Today, democracy is the world's only broadly accepted political system, and yet it has become synonymous with disappointment and crisis. How did it come to this? In Can Democracy Work? James Miller, the author of the classic history of 1960s protest Democracy Is in the Streets, offers a lively, surprising, and urgent history of the democratic idea from its first stirrings to the present. As he shows...