Colonna is offered a fee he can’t refuse to ghost-write a memoir. His subject, Braggadocio, is convinced that Mussolini’s corpse was a body-double and part of a wider Fascist plot. When a body is found, stabbed to death in a back alley, even Colonna is jolted out of his complacency.Fuelled by conspiracy theories, Mafiosi, love, corruption and murder, Numero Zero reverberates with the clash of forces that have shaped Italy since the Second World War.

The culmination of years of work on Abraham Lincoln's political thought, Michael Zuckert's A Nation So Conceived argues for a coherent center to Lincoln's political ideology. Zuckert provides invaluable guidance to understanding both Lincoln and the politics of the United States between 1845 and Lincoln's death in 1865 by focusing on roughly a dozen speeches that Lincoln made during his career. This listener-friendly chronological organization is motivated by Zuckert's emphasis on...

1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.In the US, the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer l...

Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Matteson illuminates three harrowing months of the Civil War and their enduring legacy for America.December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln's government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to...

“Fascinating…I hope you’ll read it!”—OprahAn instant sensation when first published—A New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller—First Person Plural chronicles Cameron West’s desperate journey to understand his fragmented mind and ultimately achieve the triumph of a regular life. The 25th Anniversary Edition features a powerful new afterword by the author about his journey since that time, illuminating re...

Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil p...

Award-winning historian and bestselling author Paul L. Maier has created a compelling style of documentary fiction. He uses what is historically known of Pilate's life, adds in the known political climate of first-century Judea, and unveils the colorful, untold story that changed history. He provides intriguing answers to questions such as:● What really happened at that most famous of trials?● Were the proceedings against Jesus legal?● Did cowardice or necessity mot...

The final novel of Hermann Hesse, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literatureSet in the twenty-third century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with master...

While gangster films are one of America's most popular genres, gangster movies appear in every film industry across the world. With contributions from an international panel of experts, A Companion to the Gangster Film explores the popularity of gangster films across three major continents: the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The authors acknowledge the gangster genre's popularity and examine the reasons supporting its appeal to twenty-first century audiences across the globe. This im...

From the irrepressible author of Trout Bum and The View from Rat Lake comes an engaging, humorous, often profound examination of life's greatest mysteries: sex, death, and fly-fishing.*John Gierach's quest takes us from his quiet home water (an ordinary, run-of-the-mill trout stream where fly-fishing can be a casual affair) to Utah's famous Green River, and to unknown creeks throughout the Western states and Canada. We're introduced to a lively gr...

The extractive economy is failing. The regenerative economy is being built. This is the definitive field manual for entrepreneurs, investors, and changemakers ready to stop tinkering with a broken system—and start building what replaces it.When Laurie Lane-Zucker coined the term impact entrepreneur in 2011, he named an emerging movement. Fifteen years later, that movement has reached a breakthrough. The Impact Entrepreneur Breakthrough maps how to...

Originally published in 1973, Thomas Szasz's collection of aphorisms, definitions, and maxims strikes at the heart of confusion, mystification, and humbug, in the areas of human relations, language, thought, and psychiatry. The book covers the remarkable range of one of America's most original thinkers and controversial psychiatrists of the twentieth century. It represents an important step in the direction of clear thinking and clear speaking and a stimulating and entertaining insight int...