History

Xenophon's History recounts nearly fifty turbulent years of warfare in Greece between 411 and 362 BC. Continuing the story of the Peloponnesian War at the point where Thucydides finished his magisterial history, this is a fascinating chronicle of the...

Ibn Battutah—ethnographer, bigrapher, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist—was just 21 when he set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on a pilgramage to Mecca. He did not return to Morocco for another 29 years, traveling instead through more than...

Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama   “Dazzling and ruthless…One of the most exquisitely and systematically arranged ambushes of an unsuspecting audience in years…A glorious, scary reminder of the unmatched power of live theater to rattle, roil...

(Available after 3-20 days) WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEA new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall.Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding...

From award-winning author and ornithologist Tim Birkhead, a sweeping history of the long and close relationship between birds and humansSince the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about...

A “playful, enlightening,” and “effervescent exposé” (Scientific American) on the queens of the animal kingdom  Studying zoology made Lucy Cooke feel like a sad freak. Not because she loved spiders or would root around in animal feces: all her friends...

A Washington Post Notable Work of NonfictionA sweeping history of American psychiatry—from the mental hospital to the brain lab—that reveals the devastating treatments doctors have inflicted on their patients (especially women) in the name of science and...

'I envy no body but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do.'A unique celebration of the English countryside and the most famous book on angling ever published, Walton's Compleat Angler first appeared in 1653. In 1676, at Walton's invitation,...

An authoritative new history of the Roman conquest of BritainWhy did Julius Caesar come to Britain? His own account suggests that he invaded to quell a resistance of Gallic sympathizers in the region of modern-day Kent — but there must have been personal...

Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and...

Written in the thirteenth century, Njal's Saga is a story that explores perennial human problems-from failed marriages to divided loyalties, from the law's inability to curb human passions to the terrible consequences when decent men and women are swept...

On Saturday 9th September, 1922, the victorious Turkish cavalry rode into Smyrna, the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. What happened over the next two weeks must rank as one of the most compelling human dramas of the twentieth...

'A canticle to God, and full of psychological insights that might have been written yesterday, the Confessions are the story of a soul, and also the story of God, and how he is constantly at work seeking us.' Confessions is perhaps the most important...

A passionate witness to the colossal upheaval that has transformed her native South Africa, Gillian Slovo has written a memoir that is far more than a story of her own life. For she is the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, South Africa's pioneering...

The Angel Makers is a true-crime story like no other—a 1920s midwife who may have been the century’s most prolific killer leading a murder ring of women responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men.The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in...

An entrancing tale of piracy colored with gold, treachery and double-dealing (Portland Press Herald), Pulitzer Prize-finalist Colin Woodward's The Republic of Pirates is the historical biography of the exploits of infamous Caribbean buccaneers.In the...

(Available after 3-20 days)In the first authoritative biography of Alexander the Great written for a general audience in a generation, classicist and historian Philip Freeman tells the remarkable life of the great conqueror.The celebrated Macedonian king...

The Oregon Trail is the gripping account of Francis Parkman's journey west across North America in 1846. After crossing the Allegheny Mountains by coach and continuing by boat and wagon to Westport, Missouri, he set out with three companions on a...

Rejoicing in the myriad of wonders that underpin our everyday lives, May's radiant call to embrace the magnetism of the natural world is a beautiful and life-affirming path to mental wellness and calm. #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER“I love Katherine May’s new...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “beautiful and eye-opening” (Jacqueline Woodson), “hilarious and heart-rending” (Celeste Ng) graphic memoir about American identity, interracial families,  and the realities that divide us, from the acclaimed author of The...