Basic Books: 1466 books
A Kingdom Strange
The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke
Language: English
Release Date: March 30, 2010
The "gripping adventure story" (Christian Science Monitor) of the Lost Colony of Roanoke and the mystery at the center of the American founding
In 1587, John White led 118 English men, women, and children to Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, intending to establish the...
The Diligent
A Voyage Through the Worlds Of The Slave Trade
Language: English
Release Date: August 5, 2008
The Diligent began her journey in Brittany in 1731, and Harms follows her along the African coast where her goods were traded for slaves, to Martinique where her captives were sold to work on sugar plantations. Harms brings to life a world in which slavery was a commerce carried out without qualms....
How the French Think
An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People
Language: English
Release Date: September 22, 2015
An award-winning historian presents an absorbing account of the French mind, shedding light on France's famous tradition of intellectual life
Why are the French such an exceptional nation? Why do they think they are so exceptional? The French take pride in the fact that their history and culture...
What We Knew
Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany
Language: English
Release Date: July 31, 2008
The horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust still present some of the most disturbing questions in modern history: Why did Hitler's party appeal to millions of Germans, and how entrenched was anti-Semitism among the population? How could anyone claim, after the war, that the genocide of Europe's...
A Wicked Company
The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
Language: English
Release Date: November 2, 2010
The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach's Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach's house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot,...
Arsenal of Democracy
The Politics of National Security--From World War II to the War on Terrorism
Language: English
Release Date: December 29, 2009
It has long been a truism that prior to George W. Bush, politics stopped at the water’s edge—that is, that partisanship had no place in national security. In Arsenal of Democracy, historian Julian E. Zelizer shows this to be demonstrably false: partisan fighting has always shaped American foreign...
Tournament of Shadows
The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia
Language: English
Release Date: March 17, 2009
From the romantic conflicts of the Victorian Great Game to the war-torn history of the region in recent decades, Tournament of Shadows traces the struggle for control of Central Asia and Tibet from the 1830s to the present. The original Great Game, the clandestine struggle between Russia and Britain...
The Flight Of The Romanovs
A Family Saga
Language: English
Release Date: August 5, 2008
A saga of love and lust, personal tensions and rivalries, antagonisms and hatreds, The Flight of the Romanovs describes the last century of the Russian imperial dynasty-a century that saw the greatest social and political upheavals in all of recorded history. Drawing upon a wealth of untapped resources...
We Survived
Fourteen Histories Of The Hidden And Hunted In Nazi Germany
Language: English
Release Date: April 29, 2009
Thousands of Jews and Aryan” Germans opposed to Hitler led illegal lives under the Nazi terror and survived the relentless hunt of the Gestapo, the concentration camps, and the bombing. They survived in various ways; some as ordinary citizens taking part in the work-day life, others with fake...
Getting Personal
Selected Essays
Language: English
Release Date: November 5, 2008
From the man whose name is synonymous with the contemporary personal essay, Getting Personal is a rich and ambitious collection that spans Phillip Lopate's career as an essayist, teacher, film critic, father, son, and husband. Witty, insightful, deeply meditative, and self-revelatory, with his characteristic...
by Christopher Hitchens
Language: English
Release Date: August 6, 2008
Language: English
Release Date: August 6, 2008
"Hitchens presents a George Orwell fit for the twenty-first century." --Boston Globe
In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, the masterful polemicist Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. True...
Bending Toward Justice
The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy
Language: English
Release Date: April 9, 2013
When the Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 granted African Americans the right to vote, it seemed as if a new era of political equality was at hand. Before long, however, white segregationists across the South counterattacked, driving their black countrymen from the polls through a combination of sheer...
Eureka
Discovering Your Inner Scientist
Language: English
Release Date: December 9, 2014
When it comes to science, too often people say "I just don't have the brains for it"--and leave it at that. Why is science so intimidating, and why do people let themselves feel this way? What makes one person a scientist and another disinclined even to learn how to read graphs? The idea...
Promises, Promises
Essays on Psychoanalysis and Literature
Language: English
Release Date: June 16, 2009
As an essayist, Adam Phillips combines the best of two worlds: the mastery of psychotherapy as a practitioner and a theorist-and a reputation as one of the best literary writers around. In this collection of essays, he brings the two gifts to bear upon each other, reaching far beyond the borders of...