Publicaffairs: 825 books

One of the most influential living psychologists looks at the history of his life and discipline, and paints a much brighter future for everyone. When Martin E. P. Seligman first encountered psychology in the 1960s, the field was devoted to eliminating misery: it was the science of how past...

In 1918, the Italian-Americans of New York, the Yupik of Alaska and the Persians of Mashed had almost nothing in common except for a virus--one that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times and had a decisive effect on the history of the twentieth century. The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was...

Food, Inc. is guaranteed to shake up our perceptions of what we eat. This powerful documentary deconstructing the corporate food industry in America was hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “more than a terrific movie-it's an important movie.” Aided by expert commentators such as Michael Pollan and...

“If there was a price placed on clean water we might start treating it like it has value. Maybe when it’s gone we'll realize we can’t drink oil or money.” —Dave Matthews Less than 1 percent of the world’s water is fresh and potable—and no more will ever be available. Thanks to...

The long and storied career of Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. one of the nation's finest speakers, has carried him from work on the civil rights front lines in the South to the National Urban League to positions of influence at the highest level of business and politics. A friend and confidant to presidents,...

Deaths from epidemic disease are rare in the developed world, yet in our technically and medically advanced society, an ever-present risk of disease has created an industry out of fear. As Philip Alcabes persuasively argues in Dread, our anxieties about epidemics often stray from the facts...

With a Foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the bestseller In the Heart of the Sea If you need an appendectomy, he can do it with a stone scalpel he carved himself. If you have a condition nobody can diagnose—“creeping eruption” perhaps—he can identify what it is, and treat it....

The first book of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq's descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality, and anarchy, No End In Sight is a shocking story of wholesale incompetence, recklessness, and venality. Culled from over 200 hours of footage collected for the film, the book...

The sensational story of the last two centuries of the papacy, its most influential pontiffs, troubling doctrines, and rise in global authority In 1799, the papacy was at rock bottom: The Papal States had been swept away and Rome seized by the revolutionary French armies. With cardinals scattered...

Not just another day at the office … or is it? The surgical technician ducks as a stapler flies past his head during the concluding moments of a lengthy and difficult operation…. The high-powered, internationally known finance guru seeks to turn fortunes around at the university of...

The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's...

Shiver-inducing science not for the faint of heart. No one studies fear quite like Margee Kerr. A sociologist who moonlights at one of America's scariest and most popular haunted houses, she has seen grown men laugh, cry, and push their loved ones aside as they run away in terror. And she's...

In the 1980s in California, New Jersey, and New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, and elsewhere, daycare workers were arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of committing horrible sexual crimes against the children they cared for. These crimes, prosecutors said,...

Robin Harvie was a fairly ordinary runner. He ran his first marathon after a bet. Then he found that although he couldn’t run fast, he could run long distances—very long. A casual hobby turned into a 120-miles-a-week obsession, and a training route along the River Thames morphed into a promise...