Everyone wants to live a full and healthy life--and every day brings a tidal wave of attention-grabbing misinformation, faddish ideas from "wellness" influencers, and bizarre advice from news outlets over-extrapolating the results of tiny, outlier...

In imagining a Viking, a certain image springs to mind: a barbaric warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorize the hapless local population of a northern European town. Yet while such characters define our imagination of the Viking...

Friction, the force that resists motion, has shaped technological progress for millennia. Jennifer Vail shows how the quest to master friction has driven innovation, culture, and even human evolution. Now, scientists are learning that friction influences...

An accessible introduction to mathematical infinity for the endlessly curious Infinity has traditionally been a topic for philosophers, physicists, and artists, and it can be large, scary, or highly metaphorical. For mathematicians, however, infinity...

Hokusai (1760-1849) created sublime works during the last thirty years of his life, right up to his death at the age of almost ninety. This book presents fresh scholarship on the paintings and prints created by the artist during his final three decades,...

A defense of individual judgment as the core of humanistic study Why do some works of art and thought speak to us for generations while the vast majority are quickly forgotten? What insights do we gain from our experience of exceptional literature,...

Simone de Beauvoir's gripping classic of a woman striving for perfection Laurence lives what appears to be an ideal existence. Her life features the trappings of 1960s Parisian bourgeoisie: money, a handsome husband, two daughters, and a lover. She...

Seventeen-year-old Jean, a troubled Jewish boy caught in the countercultural swirl of 1970s London, arrives at Compton Manor, a rural alternative boarding school for boys with "problems." Dyslexic, antisocial, and prone to violent outbursts, Jean has...

Robert Crumb's first iconic character -- and still possibly his most -- was Fritz the Cat: the horny, high, hipster feline whose wild adventures and sexual escapades captivated countercultural audiences from the mid-'60s until 1972, when Ralph Bakshi...

From a leading expert on child development, a radical evolutionary perspective on how childhood experiences shape later life. Children who grow up in troubled circumstances--experiencing deprivation or instability, living in a dangerous neighborhood or...

Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for his humility, but readers often find him arrogant and condescending. We parrot his claim that "the...

Biologically, race does not exist. Scientists have proven that human DNA is 99.9 percent identical. But we know that racism and its structural impacts shape our health, opportunities, and lives in profound ways. What is the true relationship between...

A devastating critique of our failure to prepare students for citizenship--and a roadmap to a better way. America's Founders placed great confidence in schools, which they believed would teach young people to understand our political system and to engage...

Fifty years ago, a government investigation led by US senator Frank Church uncovered some of the darkest state secrets of the twentieth century. The Church Committee confirmed the nation's worst fears about the unchecked power of its intelligence...

An award-winning historian reconstructs the life of Francis of Assisi, uncovering the man behind the myths "Refreshing. . . . Complex, multilayered, and ambitious."--Costica Bradatan, Times Literary Supplement One of the most famous figures in...

"Epic. . . . More than two millennia after its destruction, Carthage now has its?Iliad." ?Martyn Rady, author of The Habsburgs A landmark new history of ancient Rome's most famous rival--home of Hannibal, jewel of North Africa, and foundational power of...

A Financial Times Best Book of the YearThe definitive biography of Zhou Enlai, the first premier and preeminent diplomat of the People’s Republic of China, who protected his country against the excesses of his boss—Chairman Mao.Zhou Enlai spent...

A human history of one of the planet's most iconic lakes, and the civilizations that surrounded its shores The Dead Sea is a place of many contradictions. Hot springs around the lake are famed for their healing properties, though its own waters are...

This first truly global history of the suppression of piracy links maritime raiding to empire building in the nineteenth century In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, imperial powers around the world came into direct confrontation with...

Drawing on cutting-edge work in biblical studies and ethics, David Dault explores how bibles shape and are shaped by contemporary culture The recent rise in Christian nationalism and religious violence demands new approaches to scriptural...