History

Over sixty years after Virginia Woolf drowned in the River Ouse, Olivia Laing set out one midsummer morning to walk its banks, from source to sea. Along the way, she explores the roles that rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through...

Arthur Sackler, physician, CEO, quasi-journalist and patriarch of Purdue Pharma, by dint of personality, drive and the desire for “having it all,” spawned a pharmaceutical empire — and global scourge — built on greed, indifference, obfuscation and,...

This is a surprising portrait of the pastel city, a masterly study of Cuban immigration and exile, and a sly account of vile moments in the Cold War. Miami may be the sunniest place in America but this is Didion's darkest book, in which she explores...

(Available after September 30th, 2022)Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time—war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, and race—in a way that stimulates...

The Years of Lyndon Johnson is the political biography of our time. No president—no era of American politics—has been so intensively and sharply examined at a time when so many prime witnesses to hitherto untold or misinterpreted facets of a life, a...

In Means of Ascent, Book Two of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro brings alive Lyndon Johnson in his wilderness years. Here, Johnson’s almost mythic personality—part genius, part behemoth, at once hotly emotional and icily calculating—is seen...

One of USA Today's “100 Books to Read While Stuck at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis” A dazzling gift, the unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-colored volume.“Beautifully written . . . Full...

Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent and ambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteen...

 "An enthralling story . . . A work of history that reads like a novel." — Christian Science Monitor“As Hochschild’s brilliant book demonstrates, the great Congo scandal prefigured our own times . . . This book must be read and reread.” — Los Angeles...

Begin your very own food journey through the centuries and around the world with the first cookbook from the beloved YouTube channel Tasting History with Max MillerWhat began as a passion project when Max Miller was furloughed during Covid-19 has become...

Learn about planets, stars and black holes in The Astronomy Book.Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Astronomy in this overview guide to the subject,...

Eusebius's account is the only surviving historical record of the Church during its crucial first 300 years.Bishop Eusebius, a learned scholar who lived most of his life in Caesarea in Palestine, broke new ground in writing the History and provided a...

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An eye-opening account of life inside North Korea—a closed world of increasing global importance—hailed as a “tour de force of meticulous reporting” (The New York Review of...

The explosion over Hiroshima of the first nuclear bomb reduced, in an instant, an entire city to rubble and killed over 100,000 men, women and children. It also announced a new era in human history: the Atomic Age.Written only a year after the event,...

Mob boss Michael Franzese had it all—money, power, prestige. From the time he took a blood oath that bound him body and soul to New York’s Colombo crime family, Franzese became a force to be reckoned with in organized crime. Named by...

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.Best Books of 2023: New Yorker, The Economist, Smithsonian.Most Anticipated Books of Fall: Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, TODAY, Literary Hub, and Publishers Weekly."A vivid way to re-examine what we know, and...

Xenophon was acknowledged in Antiquity as a philosopher, a historian (third in the triad of great Classical historians, alongside Herodotus and Thucydides), and a literary artist. His narrative was appreciated for its literary qualities including its...

This is a new verse translation of Lucretius's only known work, a didactic poem written in six books of hexameters. Melville's particularly literal translation of the use of metaphor is especially helpful to those looking at the text from a scientific or...

'That was how things stood in the city at the time. With no one in charge, murders were taking place almost every day and the elections could not be held.'Books 36-40 of the Roman History by Cassius Dio (born ca. 163 CE), covers 69-50 BCE, the last...

Erik Larson is a superstar of blending historical narratives with thriller-esque propulsion and here he weaves a narrative around the Civil War, the central role of Fort Sumter and the eerie similarities between the political landscape then and now...