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“A deeply researched and finely delivered look at what can best be described as a counterintuitive slice of American history.”—Washington Post From the 1830s onward, a succession of well-born Britons headed west to the great American wilderness to find adventure and fulfillment. They...

The late Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Bruce Catton is known to millions of readers for his absorbing works on the Civil War. In this book, he turns to his native Michigan to tell a story of what happened when a primitive wilderness changed into a bustling industrial center so fast that it was...

The comprehensive biography of the iconic twentieth-century American photographer Berenice Abbott, a trailblazing documentary modernist, author, and inventor. Berenice Abbott is to American photography as Georgia O’Keeffe is to painting or Willa Cather to letters. She was a photographer of...

“Lahr creates a book worthy of its title: It is a living celebration of theater itself.”—Caryn James, New York Times Book Review Joy Ride throws open the stage door and introduces readers to such makers of contemporary drama as Arthur Miller, Tony Kushner, Wallace Shawn, Harold Pinter,...

Filled with dramatic revelations, The Lost Spy may be the most important American spy story to come along in a generation. For half a century, the case of Isaiah Oggins, a 1920s New York intellectual brutally murdered in 1947 on Stalin's orders, remained hidden in the secret files of the KGB...

The classic portrait of a vanished people. Every few decades a book is published that shapes Jewish consciousness. One thinks of Wiesel's Night or Levi's Survival in Auschwitz. But in 1927, years before these works were written, Joseph Roth (1894-1939) composed The Wandering Jews. In these...

A master historian shows us a new side of the Victorian Era--the role of the Bourgeois as reactionaries, revolutionaries, and middle-of-the-roaders in the passage of high culture toward modernism. The Victorians in this richly peopled narrative maneuvered through decades marked by frequent...

“Jack’s Life feels true. . . . Fascinating.”—Entertainment Weekly Jack Nicholson has lived large on and off the screen. Patrick McGilligan, one of America’s outstanding film biographers, has plumbed research and interviews to expand his definitive biography since its publication twenty...

The best of short literary memoirs, essays, and reflections, many of which were written expressly for this collection. Also available The late Judith Kitchen, editor of the perennially popular anthologies Short Takes, In Short, and In Brief, was greatly influential in recognizing and establishing...

“A gripping political thriller readers may find hard to put down.”—Dallas Morning News Keita Ali is an elite runner living in Zantoroland, a poor, fictional island that is erupting in political violence. When his father, a journalist, is murdered, Keita escapes to the wealthy nation of...

An exposé of pseudoscientific myths about our evolutionary past and how we should live today. We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football—or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern...

“Does an excellent job of using evolutionary biology to discuss the origins of religion, music, art, and . . . morality.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review A unique trait of the human species is that our personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews are shaped by an accident of birth—namely,...

“Deftly weaving together science and personal observation, Lee proves an engaging, authoritative guide… of the human condition.” —Kate Wong, editor at Scientific American What can fossilized teeth tell us about our ancient ancestors’ life expectancy? Did farming play a problematic...

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. So why do we persist in dismissing the nose as a blunt instrument? Smell is our most seductive and provocative sense, invading every domain of our lives. We can identify our relatives, detect the availability of a potential mate, sniff out danger, and...