Eating the flesh of an Egyptian mummy prevents the plague. Distilled poppies reduce melancholy. A Turkish drink called coffee increases alertness. Tobacco cures cancer. Such beliefs circulated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an era when the term "drug" encompassed everything from herbs and spices—like nutmeg, cinnamon, and chamomile—to such deadly poisons as lead, mercury, and arsenic. In The Age of Intoxication, Benjamin Breen offers a window into a time when drugs w...

'It was not the Baby Boomers who ushered in the first era of widespread drug experimentation. It was their parents.'The generation that survived the second World War emerged with a profoundly ambitious sense of social experimentation. In the '40s and '50s, transformative drugs rapidly entered mainstream culture, where they were not only legal, but openly celebrated. American physician John C. Lilly infamously dosed dolphins (and himself) with LSD in a NASA-funded effort to teach do...

Eating the flesh of an Egyptian mummy prevents the plague. Distilled poppies reduce melancholy. A Turkish drink called coffee increases alertness. Tobacco cures cancer. Such beliefs circulated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an era when the term "drug" encompassed everything from herbs and spices—like nutmeg, cinnamon, and chamomile—to such deadly poisons as lead, mercury, and arsenic. In The Age of Intoxication, Benjamin Breen offers a window into a time when drugs w...

**A Los Angeles Times BestsellerOne of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2024A bold and brilliant revisionist take on the history of psychedelics in the twentieth century, illuminating how a culture of experimental drugs shaped the Cold War and the birth of Silicon Valley."Brilliant and original."―Charles King, author of Gods of the Upper Air and Midnight at the Pera Palace**"It was not the Baby Boomers who ushered in the...

Eating the flesh of an Egyptian mummy prevents the plague. Distilled poppies reduce melancholy. A Turkish drink called coffee increases alertness. Tobacco cures cancer. Such beliefs circulated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an era when the term "drug" encompassed everything from herbs and spices—like nutmeg, cinnamon, and chamomile—to such deadly poisons as lead, mercury, and arsenic. In The Age of Intoxication, Benjamin Breen offers a window into a time when drugs w...

**A Los Angeles Times BestsellerOne of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2024A bold and brilliant revisionist take on the history of psychedelics in the twentieth century, illuminating how a culture of experimental drugs shaped the Cold War and the birth of Silicon Valley."Brilliant and original."―Charles King, author of Gods of the Upper Air and Midnight at the Pera Palace**"It was not the Baby Boomers who ushered in the...

You’ve heard of IQ and EQ. But in today's world, they’re no longer enough. We need the Agility Quotient (AQ).“Holistic, practical, and easy to digest (without feeling corporate). If you’re looking for a quick, yet addictive read about how to manage uncertainty, this is one of those books that will make you feel a little more steady.”—theSkimmIn a time defined by nonstop disruptions, when jobs vanish overnight, industries evolve in ...

**A former public defender takes us behind the closed doors of America's criminal courts, revealing how the institutions that claim to protect us are doing the exact opposite—and offering a blueprint for finally fixing it.“A searing, compassionate, and utterly necessary book that pulls back the curtain with the clarity of a lawyer and the heart of someone who’s seen the criminal legal system’s devastating consequences up close.”—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD"One of those books that changes the way you see the world. Gripping, urgent, important."ED CONWAY"This wonderful book is as welcome as it is overdue ... shines a much-needed light on this essential topic."RORY SUTHERLAND"A deftly written tale."LEWIS BASTON

How the world’s oldest asset secretly shapes our modern economyIn The Land Trap, Mike Bird—Wall Street editor at The Economist—reveals how this ancient asset still exerts outsize influence over the modern world. From the speculative land grabs of colonial America to China's real estate crisis today, Bird shows how fortunes are built—and destroyed—on the bedrock of land.Tracing three centuries of history, Bird explores how land quietly beca...

“The damndest mixing of true crime, memoir, and maybe (?) ghost story I’ve ever read. The original Harper’s article gave me the shivers, and this deeper dive is going to have me looking over my shoulder on every hike. Unputdownable." — Patton OswaltWith the immediacy and extraordinary feeling for people and place of Under the Banner of Heaven and Say Nothing, a compelling true crime story about two young girls who went missing in ...

SILVER WINNER OF THE 2026 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDSRecommended Read from Yale Climate Connections“[Frostlines weaves] together natural history, indigenous perspective, and environmental transformation in the Arctic. The book helps bring a human story to the science of climate change.”—ParadeA sweeping exploration of the Arctic—and how it’s being transformed by climate change—from National Ge...