"A disarming, intelligent, and timely book" that re-examines religious history and scripture with a focus on the feminine experience ( The New York Times).In the world that created the Bible, there were no female scholars and theologians, yet in recent decades, owing to such stunning discoveries as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi texts, as well as advances in historical understanding and the rise of feminism, a generation of scholars has found new ...

"From Torquemada to Guantánamo and beyond, Cullen Murphy finds the 'inquisitorial impulse' alive, and only too well, in our world" (Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money).Established by the Catholic Church in 1231, the Inquisition continued in one form or another for almost seven hundred years. Though associated with the persecution of heretics and Jews—and with burning at the stake—its targets were more numerous, its techniques were more ambitious, and its eff...

It is from the discards of former civilizations that archaeologists have reconstructed most of what we know about the past, and it is through their examination of today’s garbage that William Rathje and Cullen Murphy inform us of our present. Rubbish! is their witty and erudite investigation into all aspects of the phenomenon of garbage. Rathje and Murphy show what the study of garbage tells us about a population’s demographics and buying habits. Along the way, they dispel the com...

Some of America’s best reporters and thinkers offer an urgent look at a country in chaos in this collection of timely, often prophetic articles from The Atlantic.The past four years in the United States have been among the most turbulent in our history—and would have been so even without a global pandemic and waves of protest nationwide against police violence. Drawn from the recent work of The Atlantic staff writers and contributors, The Amer...

What went wrong in imperial Rome, and how we can avoid it: “If you want to understand where America stands in the world today, read this."—Thomas E. RicksThe rise and fall of ancient Rome has been on American minds since the beginning of our republic. Depending on who’s doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action—or a dire warning of imminent collapse.In this “provocative and lively” book, Cullen Murphy points out that...

**One of Vanity Fair’s Best Books of 2022“Milton Gendel had the good fortune to live a wildly entertaining life in Rome—a charmed, romantic period he captured in diaries and photos. Milton had the further good fortune to have Cullen Murphy bring this vanished dolce vita to life.” —Graydon Carter, coeditor of Air MailA never-before-seen treasure trove of photos and diary entries from the celebrated photographer Milton Gende...

A poignant history of the cartoonists and illustrators from the Connecticut SchoolFor a period of about fifty years, right in the middle of the American Century, many of the the nation's top comic-strip cartoonists, gag cartoonists, and magazine illustrators lived within a stone's throw of one another in the southwestern corner of Connecticut—a bit of bohemia in the middle of those men in their gray flannel suits.Cullen Murphy's father, John Cullen Murphy, dr...

The Inquisition conducted its last execution in 1826—the victim was a Spanish schoolmaster convicted of heresy. But as Cullen Murphy shows in this provocative new work, not only did its offices survive into the twentieth century, in the modern world its spirit is more influential than ever.God's Jury encompasses the diverse stories of the Knights Templar, Torquemada, Galileo, and Graham Greene. Established by the Catholic Church in 1231, the Inquisition continued in one fo...

In this age of nearly unprecedented partisan rancor, you’d be forgiven for thinking we could all do with a smaller daily dose of politics. In his provocative and sharp book, however, Ned O’Gorman argues just the opposite: Politics for Everybody contends that what we really need to do is engage more deeply with politics, rather than chuck the whole thing out the window. In calling for a purer, more humanistic relationship with politics—one that does justice to the virtues of open, ...

A journalist with deep knowledge of the region provides "an enthralling and largely firsthand account of the war in Afghanistan" (Financial Times).Few reporters know as much about Afghanistan as Carlotta Gall. She was there in the 1990s after the Russians were driven out. She witnessed the early flourishing of radical Islam, imported from abroad, which caused so much local suffering. She was there right after 9/11, when US special forces helped the Norther...

Ten Days that Shook the World is John Reed’s phenomenal first-hand account of the October Revolution, leading up to the storming of the Winter Palace and the assumption of power by the Bolsheviks in 1917. A socialist journalist from the United States, John Reed was open about his Bolshevik sympathies and used his support to gain access to officials, witness speeches by the likes of Lenin and Trotsky, and observe the tumultuous overthrow of Kerensky’s provisional government by the allied fa...

In this abridgement of River-Horse, the pre-eminent chronicler of American back roads -- who has given us the classics Blue Highways and Prairyerth -- recounts his singular voyage through American waters from sea to sea. Along the route, he offers a lyrical and ceaselessly fascinating shipboard perspective on the country and its rivers, lakes, canals, and landscapes. Brimming with history, drama, and wisdom, River-Horse belongs in the pantheon of America...