New Releases

In historian Tabitha Stanmore’s beguiling account, we meet lovelorn widows, dissolute nobles, selfless healers, and renegade monks. We listen in on Queen Elizabeth I’s astrology readings and track treasure hunters trying to unearth buried gold without upsetting the fairies that guard it. Much like us, premodern people lived in a bewildering world, buffeted by forces beyond their control. As Stanmore reveals, their faith in magic has much to teach about how to accommodate the irrational in our allegedly enlightened lives today.

In honor of the one hundredth anniversary of George H. W. Bush’s birth, this visually stunning chronicle features never-before-published photos and memories celebrating the forty-first president’s vision of leadership as service to country—curated by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham.

Alexander Hamilton has become a global celebrity. Millions know his name and imagine knowing the man. But what did he really want for the country? What risks did he run in pursuing those vaulting ambitions? Who tried to stop him? How did they fight? It's ironic that the Hamilton revival has obscured the man's most dramatic battles and hardest-won achievements—as well as downplaying unsettling aspects of his legacy.

More than its many adventures, the Peking-to-Paris Motor Challenge took place on the precipice of a new world. As the twentieth century dawned, imperial regimes in China and Russia were crumbling, paving the way for the rise of communist ones. The electric telegraph was rapidly transforming modern communication, and with it, the news media, commerce, and politics. Suspended between the old and the new, the Peking-to-Paris, as bestselling historian Kassia St. Clair writes, became a critical tipping point.

On June 4, 1984, Columbia Records issued what would become one of the best-selling and most impactful rock albums of all time. An instant classic, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. would prove itself to be a landmark not only for the man who made it, but rock music in general, and even the larger American culture over the next 40 years.

In the spring of 1983, massive flooding along the length of the Colorado River confronted a team of engineers at the Glen Canyon Dam with an unprecedented emergency that may have resulted in the most catastrophic dam failure in history. In the midst of this crisis, the decision to launch a small wooden dory named “The Emerald Mile” at the head of the Grand Canyon, just fifteen miles downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam, seemed not just odd, but downright suicidal.

In the dark days after the devastating Pearl Harbor attacks during the spring of 1942, the United States was determined to show the world that the Axis was not invincible. Their bold plan? Bomb Tokyo. On April 18, 1942, sixteen B-25s, known as the Doolittle Raiders, hit targets across Japan before escaping to China. The eighth plane, however, did not follow the other raiders. Instead, Plane 8's pilots, Captain Edward "Ski" York and Lieutenant Bob Emmens, never attacked Tokyo, but headed across Japan to the Soviet Union, supposedly due to low fuel.

America is full of inspiring heroes. Greatness is not a chance—it is a choice. George Washington didn’t simply wake up as one of the greatest men in human history. His greatness was the sum of a lifetime of difficult and consequential choices. In Lessons in Liberty, Jeremy S. Adams distills inspiring advice from the lives of extraordinary Americans from our past.

Americans are more familiar with his signature than with the man himself. In this spirited account of John Hancock's life, Brooke Barbier depicts a patriot of fascinating contradictions—a child of enormous privilege who would nevertheless become a voice of the common folk; a pillar of society uncomfortable with radicalism who yet was crucial to independence. Orphaned young, Hancock was raised by his merchant uncle, whose business and vast wealth he inherited—including household slaves, whom Hancock later freed. By his early thirties, he was one of New England's most prominent politicians.

In this strange and wonderful book, thirty elders of the ancient Hopi tribe of Northern Arizona—a people who regard themselves as the first inhabitants of America—freely reveal the Hopi worldview for the first time in written form. The Hopi kept this view a secret for countless centuries, and anthropologists have long struggled to understand it. Now they record their myths and legends, and the meaning of their religious rituals and ceremonies as a gift to future generations.

Esta es una historia real, llena de aristas y sombras, sobre la condición humana. A fines de los sesenta, con trece años, la argentina Silvia Labayru era una adolescente tímida, lectora, amante de los animales, entusiasta de John F. Kennedy, hija de una familia de militares que incluía a su padre, miembro de la Fuerza Aérea y piloto civil. A esa edad ingresó en el Colegio Nacional Buenos Aires, una institución pública de gran prestigio, donde entró en contacto con agrupaciones estudiantiles de izquierda y se transformó en una militante aguerrida.

From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions.

In the turbulent world of Chicago politics, Boss dives deep into the captivating life and legacy of Richard J. Daley, the influential politician and mastermind behind the city's Democratic Party machine. Mike Royko's scathing and meticulously researched account follows Richard J. Daley's rise to power, from his inauspicious youth on Chicago's South Side through his rapid climb to the seat of power as the city's mayor. This engrossing biography brings to life the most powerful political figure of his time.

Captured and imprisoned by the Germans three months after landing in the second wave at Normandy during World War II, William (Bill) Bonsall later escaped to Poland and ultimately competed on the 1948 U.S. Men’s Gymnastics Olympic Team. Forty years later, he recorded his life experiences in a series of audio tapes that cover the decade between 1940 and 1950, a period he called “violent” because of the tumultuous upheavals of the times.

A born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after the Pearl Harbor attack. By 1944, he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. This first-person account of his harrowing missions—chronicling deadly flights through skies of red-hot flak bursts and airmen bailing out with parachutes aflame—will leave listeners staggered by the determination and grit of World War II aviators.

This narrative presents a firsthand account of a Marine who played a small role in the Afghan War. It begins with his enlistment in the Marine Corps immediately after high school, driven by dreams of earning the prestigious title of United States Marine and serving his country in combat. The story culminates with his reentry into the civilian world, marked by the challenging task of making sense of the profound experiences he underwent.

The complicated life and legacy of John Trumbull, whose paintings portrayed both the struggle and the principles that distinguished America's founding moment.

Dive into the heart of the Middle East's enigmatic history with "The Gate of the Red Sea." A spellbinding tale unfolds, weaving together the threads of geopolitics, external intrigues, and the rise of extremist forces in the ancient land of Yemen. Brace yourself for an enthralling journey through the labyrinth of power plays as mighty nations vie for supremacy, their moves echoing through time, shaping the destiny of a nation caught in the crossfire. In the shadow of Yemen's strategic importance, external forces play a dangerous game that transforms the region into a geopolitical ...

Covering the whole of the ancient Greek experience from its beginnings late in the third millennium BCE to the Roman conquest in 30 BCE, Out of One, Many is an accessible and lively introduction to the Greeks and their ways of living and thinking. In this fresh and witty exploration of the thought, culture, society, and history of the Greeks, Jennifer Roberts traces not only the common values that united them across the seas and the centuries, but also the enormous diversity in their ideas and beliefs.

Gunflint Burning is a comprehensive account of the dramatic events around the Ham Lake fire of 2007, one of the largest wildfires in Minnesota history. In sharp detail, Cary J. Griffith describes the key events of the fire as they unfold, transporting listeners to the front lines of an epic struggle that was at times heroic, tragic, and sublime.