Nonfiction

In Kingdom of Devils, historian Katherine Grandjean examines the terrifying crimes of the Harp brothers, often considered America's first serial killers. During the late 1790s, Wiley and Micajah Harp carried out a brutal series of murders across the frontier regions of Tennessee and Kentucky, leaving communities terrified and authorities unable to stop them. Beyond recounting the crimes themselves, Grandjean explores how the upheaval and economic hardships following the American Revolution created anger, instability, and violence in the young United States, offering a deeper look at the darker side of early American history.

Since its opening in 1910, the Hotel Lutetia has been a grand Paris institution, a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, musicians, and politicians. André Gide took his lunch here, James Joyce lived in one of its rooms, Picasso and Matisse were regular guests. But the hotel has a darker history, too--from the years before, during, and after the second World War. In this short period, the Lutetia witnessed some of the most dramatic and terrible events in recent history. In Hotel Exile, Jane Rogoyska evokes in novelistic prose the emotions, dilemmas, and fates of the hotel's patrons. In the 1930s, Europe's bohemian artists and political activists, forced to flee their homes when Hitler came to power, met at the Lutetia with the hope of forming an alternative government. But when war came, Paris was occupied, and the hotel became the headquarters of the German military intelligence service--and the center of their operation to root out enemies of the Reich. In 1945, the Lutetia was requisitioned once more, this time transformed into a reception center for Holocaust survivors who sought refuge after the Liberation. Rogoyska explores what it meant for these three profoundly different groups to live in exile, under the shadow of the dark ideology that dictated the course of their lives. A masterpiece of empathy and concision, Hotel Exile is about what happens at the edges of a war, passing through the doors of a normally functioning hotel, a site under occupation, and, finally, a shelter and place of healing.

Rebecca Wright is a defense attorney living in the Lower 48 when she suddenly finds herself a widow and an empty nester. In need of a radical change, she accepts a public defender position in Utqiagvik on Alaska's North Slope, an oil-rich area the size of Wyoming where the Inupiat community holds great cultural, political, and economic power.Though she'll always be a tanik--an outsider--she works hard to gain the trust and friendship of the folks who call this singular place home. When two well-known sisters, Bernice and Wanda Ipalook, are found murdered, Wright is tasked with representing Amos Lane, a drifter on the short-list of murder suspects. Criminal charges are looming. But this is summer in northern Alaska, the season of the midnight sun, when twenty-four-hour sunlight makes it difficult for witnesses to confirm the time--or even the day--they last saw the sisters, Amos, or anyone else. Wright must navigate an unreliable client, a prosecution willing to entrap her to get a conviction, a budding romance, and a community that believes Amos might deserve a different form of justice from what the tanik legal system can provide.

From beloved Indigenous chef Nephi Craig, a searing personal and cultural reckoning about the power of food to heal intergenerational wounds. When Nephi Craig enrolled in the culinary program at Scottsdale Community College, it was out of necessity--his DUI conviction had left him with three years' probation with either full-time employment or education. He chose school, expecting little more than a means to an end. But what he encountered on his first day was a profound dissonance: not a single other Indigenous person in the room and European recipes that, beneath their French and Italian names, echoed the flavors of his own Apache roots. Calling to mind his roaming childhood on the White Mountain Apache and Navajo reservations, that moment sparked a lifelong pursuit, not just of culinary mastery, but also of cultural rediscovery. Craig began tracing the buried histories of Indigenous cultivars such as the acorn, the squash, and the cacao bean, each one a portal into the violent legacy of colonization. He was hungry to not only better understand the way this history embedded itself in Native foodways but to also build Indigenous food sovereignty and to reconnect people with this rich cuisine. His mission led him around the world, from high-end kitchens in Japan, Germany, and England, to Executive Chef roles across the US. All the while, though, Craig wrestled in the shadows of his alcoholism and substance abuse, entering one addiction treatment center after another in the hopes that he could get--and remain--sober. Unexpectedly, in the heat and rhythm of professional kitchens and in the collaborative energy of top fine dining restaurants, Craig found a lifeline. However, it wasn't until he was faced with the difficult decision of choosing between a career in culinary prestige and one serving the Native communities at home that he found his true vocation. Interweaving personal reflection with searing cultural insight, Craig lays bare the ongoing traumas wrought by colonial violence, from systemic poverty and poor mental health to addiction and suicide within Native communities. At the same time, he offers a vision of hope: one where food is decolonized, history is honored, and healing is possible.

Our dogs are no longer just pets--they're family. This means, according to celebrity dog trainer Jaime Goodrich, that the way we train them needs to change. Unleashed argues that behavior problems worsen, not improve, with heavy discipline. If you instead address the source of a dog's anxiety or fear, problematic behaviors will naturally and permanently disappear. Goodrich provides techniques rooted in kindness and understanding rather than punishment and dominance. She addresses attachment in dogs--what normal attachment looks like and what it looks like when things go south. She teaches you how to identify your dog's particular coping strategy and how to identify stress signals your dog is giving you. You'll be able to recognize your dog's particular triggers and desires, and, most importantly, be able to figure out how to work within your dog's particular neurological level to make substantial change in their behaviors.

Languages can be killed in many ways: war, the climate crisis, nationalism, and even quiet choices made at the dinner table. Around the world, an unprecedented shift is drawing speakers toward national and global lingua francas. For some, that means losing the language of parents or grandparents; for many, it is a permanent farewell to systems that carry knowledge, culture, and belonging. With half of our 7,000 languages due to disappear this century, linguicide is one of the most pressing cultural emergencies of our age. In How to Kill a Language, journalist Sophia Smith Galer travels across continents and generations to chart this phenomenon. In Ecuador, she sees firsthand how shame deters parents from passing Kichwa onto their children. In Oman, she learns about languages with roots older than Arabic but never officially recognized. And in Italy, she searches for her Nonna's dia︠lt, which is vanishing from diaspora communities and Italy itself. But languages can also be reclaimed: We meet the Karuk tribe of California, pioneering a grassroots language immersion program, and the storytellers challenging the criminalization of Kurdish. And in her discussion of Hebrew, Smith Galer reckons with the unintended consequences of raising a language seemingly from the grave. Part investigation, part travelogue from a disappearing world, How to Kill a Language exposes the true costs of this mass extinction event. Brought to life by vivid storytelling and Smith Galer's own experience with language loss, it's a fierce rallying cry for a multilingual future.

A new lens on human history outlining data's powerful role in governance and exploitation.

A collection of reported stories that explore the relationship between mothers and daughters by the award-winning author of Strangers to Ourselves.

This work examines the historical development of vaccine skepticism from the introduction of smallpox inoculation in the eighteenth century to the present. Through three essays, Thomas Levenson explores recurring concerns about the safety, effectiveness, and social implications of vaccination, tracing how these ideas emerged in different historical contexts and influenced public attitudes and public health policy. The book discusses the relationship between scientific evidence, public trust, and the spread of vaccine misinformation.

Step into the world of history's most legendary mystery and crime writer--Agatha Christie! Through one hundred short entries, you'll get an intimate glimpse into the life, mind, and works of the mother of the cozy mystery. Featuring quotes about--and from--the literary genius and excerpts from her suspenseful stories, this beautifully crafted biography celebrates Christie's literary brilliance and timeless creations. With each page, you'll discover the experiences that shaped her classic detective novels, short stories, and plays, from her early years to her lasting impact on popular culture. Whether you're a longtime Christie admirer or just beginning your literary adventure, uncover the unexpected mysteries behind the "Queen of Crime" with Agatha Christie!

At approximately 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945, Kiyoshi Tanimoto was on the outskirts of Hiroshima when a flash in the sky signaled the birth of a horrifying new world. In an instant, tens of thousands of Hiroshima residents had been vaporized or crushed to death. As Tanimoto, a thirty-six-year-old Methodist minister, raced back to the city center in search of his wife and infant daughter, he encountered unimaginable devastation: structures leveled; fires everywhere; uncountable injured suffering from burns, broken bones, and the effects of radiation. In the days, weeks, and months that followed this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, he invested body and soul in helping his living congregants obtain food, shelter, and medical care, as well as identifying and burying with as much dignity as possible those who had perished. He dedicated himself to rebuilding not only his church, but his city and his nation. Tanimoto went on to gain renown as one of the survivors featured in John Hersey's New Yorker piece and book, Hiroshima, which changed the American public's understanding of the event. But Tanimoto also wrote his own story. Hiroshima, 8:15 is Tanimoto's never-before-published firsthand account of the bombing of Hiroshima, written in the immediate aftermath, in his own words. This singular memoir is both an invaluable addition to the historical record and an urgent eyewitness testimony of one of the most calamitous events to befall humanity. At a time when the threat of nuclear war still looms, Tanimoto's message of peace, and his vision of a better path forward for humankind, is of vital importance. --

Three of Europe's greatest rivers share the same geological cradle: one fertile patch of Alpine ice in the jagged heights of central Switzerland. Coursing down through the peaks, the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po gave birth to three different European cultures--German, French, and Italian--as they flowed across the continent. From this shared geological cradle, these waterways have shaped the landscape, influenced the pattern of towns and cities, laid the foundation for economies and created an intricate network of transport, trade, and agriculture. From the Romanesque buttresses and vines of Provence to the Wagnerian music of the Rhine and the artistic miracles of Lombardy, the heart of Western Europe--its languages, religion, philosophy, science, politics, and art--has been nourished by these waters. Setting off in the dramatic mountain landscape where this story begins, acclaimed historian Robert Winder traces the rivers' journeys from their increasingly fragile glacial sources, revealing in shimmering detail their impact on Europe's rich history as they flow toward the sea.

The riveting story of a charismatic doctor who evangelized a transformative psychedelic treatment, leading to the global spread of "the god molecule" while leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. The Sonoran Desert is a place of extremes: inhospitable climate, rampant cartel violence, severe drug addiction, and, strangely, a humble toad that possesses an unbelievable power. In 2012, a Mexican doctor claimed to have revived an ancient, forgotten Mesoamerican ritual that involved smoking the Sonoran Desert toad's toxic secretions, which he contended could cure intractable drug addiction and other mental health disorders, while temporarily dissolving the ego and rocketing users to transcendence. But as he gained international notoriety as an administer of "toad medicine," harrowing stories of nightmarish trips and even deaths began to surface, complicating the picture of a benevolent physician rehabilitating an indigenous cultural practice. What lies beneath the surface is a tale of cult-like manipulation and the unshakeable allure of psychedelics. Circling around this powerful substance is a bizarre set of interested parties: psychonauts seeking spiritual awakening; pharmaceutical companies who are racing to cash in on the drug's psychiatric potential; opportunistic toad collectors chasing after dwindling populations in cartel territory; and indigenous groups integrating toad smoking into their cultural practices both to attract tourist dollars, and to treat the drug addiction that is rife in their communities. With sensitivity, insight, and verve, Kimon de Greef draws us in to this kaleidoscopic world and unpacks the mysterious and exhilarating story of this drug. Gripping, deeply reported, and full of twists and turns, The Ego Trip is a chronicle of the rise and fall of a messianic figure, but it is also an investigation into a larger truth about our age of spiritual desolation. No matter the lengths we go to in order to attain a more cosmic understanding, this story illustrates that we will forever remain inescapably human.

Over the past two decades, platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok have revolutionized how we document and share our lives. We once archived our experiences in photo albums, and now we capture our most significant moments in reels and photo dumps. Whether we prefer to admit it or not, social media is where our history lives now. In The Story of Your Life, journalist and New York magazine columnist Kathryn Jezer-Morton examines how these algorithm-driven platforms not only change the way we share information but also shape the content itself. What stories do we choose to tell, and how do these choices reflect and shape our evolving identities? Through rigorous research and intimate interviews with everyday people, Jezer-Morton explores how the platforms on which we have told our life stories for the past twenty years have determined what those stories have come to look and sound like. Today our attention spans are short, and our stories reflect that, with spectacle and exaggeration playing ever-larger roles in our accounts of everyday life. By examining how we share, talk, and post about our milestones, vacations, homes, relationships, hardships, politics, and more, Jezer-Morton shows just how pervasive and influential our social media platforms have become in how we view ourselves and what we consider to be a life well lived.

When Silicon Valley says it is 'moving fast and breaking things,' the world interprets the chaos as a necessary cost of innovation. Gil Durán reveals something far more sinister: a decades-long campaign to replace elected governments with corporate rule. Drawing on insider political experience and new investigations, Durán traces this ideology from its philosophical roots in The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. He introduces its modern apostles - some of Silicon Valley's biggest names - and shows how the promise of technological liberation has transformed into a global movement for digital feudalism, powered by cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and the algorithmic propaganda of social media. The Nerd Reich explains the origins, strategies, and ambitions of Silicon Valley's war on democracy for the first time. From San Francisco's weaponized elections and secret billionaire projects to the White House, Dur̀n exposes how the world's richest men are building a new political order. The Nerd Reich is more than a hidden history, it's an urgent warning: democracy is being dismantled not by coups or tanks, but by code, capital, and the illusion of innovation. Dur̀n insists there is still time to fight back--if we act now.

In 1990, a youthful Earl Swift backpacked the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, a transformative experience that colored every aspect of his later life. He emerged from his hike across the rugged, sky-high roof of fourteen eastern states a sharper and more organized thinker, a better problem solver, and a committed outdoorsman. But he also left the AT with baggage: Early in his odyssey, he spent time with a couple of other southbounders, who were friendly, capable, and doing everything right, but who were nonetheless murdered weeks later at a mountaintop campsite in Pennsylvania--a fit of violence that the killer never explained. Half a lifetime later, Swift returned to the trail to find out whether he was still, in his sixties, equal to the AT's roller-coaster terrain. Driving him, too, was a quest for answers that had nagged at him since that first hike: What had happened at that campsite to turn two smart, bighearted people into prey? Why had fate chosen them, when other hikers--Swift included--seemed more likely candidates? And how could such a grisly episode have unfolded in the backcountry's sylvan loveliness, not to mention one of the safest places around?

In This Book May Cause Side Effects, Dr. Helen Pilcher explores the "nocebo" effect--the shadow side of the placebo--and shows how our convictions can sometimes quite literally harm us. Take the COVID vaccine. If you experienced side effects from your COVID vaccine, there is a 76 percent chance that these were caused by your belief that you would experience them--not by the mRNA circulating in your system. Or, even more extreme, take the case of Sam Shoeman: Although his diagnosis of late-stage esophageal cancer turned out to be erroneous, he was nonetheless dead in months. The power of words, especially from health-care providers, is so formidable that even a wrong diagnosis can actually kill. Our health, or lack of it, is as much about our expectations of illness and its causes as it is about damaged cells or wayward hormones. And because we can never fully step outside our cultural context, it's only by understanding these effects that we can hope to prevent them. From "hex deaths" to TikTok "illfluencers" to mysterious disorders with very real symptoms but no obvious physical cause, This Book May Cause Side Effects explores the many ways expectations can shape our health. Although the nocebo effect has always existed, the internet age has helped it spread faster than ever. Thankfully, Dr. Pilcher also explains what we can do about it. She walks us through steps we can take individually and collectively to avoid invoking the nocebo, like reevaluating our relationship with technology, setting up risk-minimizing guidelines in health-care settings, and even crowbarring open-label placebo therapies and nocebo-blocking medicines into the pharmacological toolkit.

"Much in history is headlong but few grand transformations have been more precipitate or more heedless than the rise of... the Artificial State," writes Jill Lepore in this passionate account of how rule by machine has ravaged the world. Inspired by Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, which argued in 1951 that the machinery of modern life was reshaping the very fundamentals of human existence, Lepore, profoundly disturbed by the technology revolution and by the soulless inundation of artificial intelligence, unfurls a new history for our own twenty-first century. Building on an essay in The New Yorker in 2024, Lepore's clarion call traces our increasing dependence on and strangulation by data. Political campaigns, awash in an avalanche of fake bots, have been reduced to attention-mining algorithms, while multinational media corporations dictate public discourse, and the era of the liberal nation-state seems to be coming to a rapid end, replaced by billionaire technocrats reliant on autocracy and the tools of AI. With Orwellian overtones, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State demonstrates how technology has corroded global democracy, leading to the destruction of both human community and capacity for self-government, creating a new form of AI government, a digital citizen's assembly, where AI will recommend the course of action to humans in place of human-run legislatures. Especially sobering with this proliferation of "dizzying, ever-changing schemes, prophesies, and predictions" is that the Artificial State has come at the expense of the natural world, leading to catastrophic loss of wildlife habitat and biodiversity. Deliberately alarming, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, despite its abundance of dire facts, is not a funeral dirge; rather, it's an inspiring wake-up call, written in Lepore's typically elegiac prose, which demonstrates that nothing about the Artificial State was inevitable, for it is a "government without consent, even government without humans." It can, Lepore asserts, be dismantled. Other heinous systems, like feudalism, fascism, and slavery, have also been dismantled, but disassembly requires identifying the parts, tracing the sources. It requires telling a new history. This is the purpose of The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.

Have you ever swapped stories on a porch with Amish snowbirds in Florida? Searched for reindeer with the Siberian Yupik in Alaska? Been a guest on a houseboat deep in the Louisiana bayou? Peter Santenello hadn't either until, after years spent traveling through eighty-five countries and living abroad, he realized the most unfamiliar territory was often his own American backyard. And so, with a camera in hand and an open mind, he began visiting communities across the country, places that most media overlooks or misrepresents, from tiny towns in Appalachia to the streets of East LA. What began as curiosity became--one story at a time--an intimate, revealing portrait of America today. From road trips and chance encounters to dinners shared in locals' homes, Your Fellow Americans captures what makes this country so dynamic, so resilient, and most of all, so very human. Because what Peter discovered on his travels wasn't a nation torn in two. He found something more complex and more powerful: People who want to be seen, who are willing to listen, and who still believe we're more alike than we are different

The vivid account of a world-leading conservationist's efforts to find, study, and protect snow leopards, revealing the challenges facing a beautiful, fragile world in the midst of a major transition Snow leopards have a special grip on the human imagination, a symbol of the mysteries that still exist on our planet. These elusive predators live solitary lives in the highest reaches of the Himalaya, moving along rock faces like smoke. They are also the flagship species of Himalayan conservation, key to the efforts to preserve this austere, delicate ecosystem. Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi (or Kullu, as he is widely known) is one of the world's leading snow leopard scientists. In The Ghost of the Mountains he offers an evocative and personal account of his decades of work in this field, from his exhilarating adventures on the high peaks to his efforts to build a community-based, collaborative model for protecting the snow leopards and their remaining habitat. That habitat is increasingly under threat as encroaching development, ongoing armed conflict, and rapidly intensifying climate change transform this region. Thrilling, illuminating, and filled with transporting storytelling, this is an important work from a gifted new voice. Kullu brings deep scientific and cultural knowledge to his depiction of this idyllic, remote region. As he describes his work as a conservationist in a rapidly changing world, he conveys an infectious sense of wonder. For Kullu, every snow leopard encounter is still a transcendent experience, offering a renewed sense of meaning and purpose.

Annie Lowrey's The Time Tax examines the burdensome paperwork, bureaucracy, and administrative hurdles Americans face when accessing government benefits and everyday services. It traces the historical roots of administrative burdens, including their use as tools of discrimination, and shows how they perpetuate poverty and erode trust in government. Lowrey argues that these burdens are unnecessary and advocates simplifying public administration to give citizens back their time.

The story of the making, loss, and recovery of some of the greatest treasures of antiquity, raising questions about ancient mosaic art and its creation, the work of archaeology, and museum practice.

Amid the fervent protests over police killings in 2020, the reporter Wilbert L. Cooper returned to his hometown of Cleveland to profile the president of a Black police organization called the Black Shield. The group had aligned itself with activists calling for reform, but its president was notorious for having shot a young unarmed Black man years earlier. As Cooper explored the question of whether Black cops can create the kind of radical changes in policing that Black people are calling for, he was also welcomed by the members of the group in a different, more complicated capacity: as Sergeant Will Cooper's son. For Cooper, this assignment was personal. His parents are retired Black Cleveland cops; his sister was a Cleveland cop; on his mother's side, there has been a Cleveland cop in the family since 1950. In unearthing the dramatic histories of the Black Shield and his own family, Cooper tells the intertwined stories of the two: his relatives, whose lineage traces back to the Great Migration and who chose policing because it was one of the few stepping stones to economic security and status in a segregated city; and an organization that, over decades of cultural and political upheaval, has cycled endlessly between rebellion and acquiescence. An intimate, bold work of literary nonfiction, The Black Shield is an urgent exploration of the complex duality of the Black cop. Cooper grapples with a knot of contradictions: Is the Black officer a sign of progressive change, or of a system that shifts its appearance without changing its outcomes? How to reconcile the fact that policing helped lift his family out of poverty while it has kept its knee on the necks of his people? Fearless and singularly powerful, The Black Shield gives us an American story about race and power that has never been told before.

Can one person change the world? In his acclaimed and influential books Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings, he studies leaders throughout time to answer the question: do the actions of individuals truly influence history? Or is humanity subject to larger historical, technological, cultural, geographical forces, far beyond the influence of individuals, no matter how powerful they may seem?

His only child is lured to a mysterious castle in the forests of New England late one night, sending Jon Ronson on an extraordinary adventure into a dark world of unmoored men desperately searching for purpose and control--whatever the cost. With zero warning, the crisis of masculinity and its bizarre, wrecking-ball manifestations had crashed into Jon's life. As his investigation deepens, urgent questions come to light: What exactly is "Princessing"? Why did a lawn care influencer dress as a baby in front of billions of online viewers? How did a paid-up member of the Skeptic Society derail his life in the name of a warped vision of chivalry? And, more pressingly, why are two recently released murderers on their way to pay Jon a visit? In our rapidly changing society, many men have become detached from reality; some are behaving like separatists, while others have fallen deep down ideological rabbit holes. Is this a complete fracturing of society, a new era of disinhibition where anything goes? Drawing on his trademark brand of humor, psychological insight, and unrivaled prescience, The Castle marks Jon Ronson's long-awaited return to the written page in his darkest and most insightful book yet--one where he throws open the doors to the Castle and reveals a new lost generation of men.

You know the lively exclamation mark, the controversial semicolon, and the often-omitted apostrophe, but would you recognize a percontation point? How about an obelus? Florence Hazrat argues that all punctuation marks, from the most forgotten to the most ubiquitous, are worthy of our attention. After all, the history of punctuation is the history of humankind. The first punctuation mark was a triangular symbol pressed into clay somewhere in Mesopotamia. Spaces between words were unknown for millennia, until a group of Irish monks pioneered them in the eighth century. Across ages and cultures, amid technological revolutions and radical changes in communication, these dots and dashes have reshaped the societies that created them. From the papyruses of the ancient world to our sprawling internet ecosystem, one thing has remained constant: Punctuation is powerful. These tiny marks can move markets, shift elections, topple political systems, and decide the fate of a precious human life on death row. Weaving together anthropology, the history of writing, the philosophy of language, psychology, literature, and more, On the Mark proves that punctuation is at the heart of human communication.

New AI applications demonstrate what technology can replicate--but they also illuminate what it cannot: the capacity of human interaction to build not just children's skills but their very capacity for human connection. Human Raised reveals the possibilities and perils of using AI and related technologies for child-rearing. From monitors that decode cries, to smart cribs that soothe babies to sleep, to interactive chatbots designed to engage an inquisitive toddler, the parenting landscape is shifting fast--and Dr. Suskind helps parents navigate this uncharted territory with clarity and confidence. Readers will learn four guiding principles for raising children alongside AI: Human connection is irreplaceable ; Own your imperfections ; Protect the early years ; Enhance--don't replace--connection. Drawing from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and the lived experience of countless families, Human Raised prepares parents to act as essential guardians to the gateway between AI and their children's developing minds--keeping human connection, in all its beautiful imperfection, at the center of childhood.

In 1872, a new Japanese government's first diplomatic delegation to the United States was greeted with rapturous welcome in San Francisco. For over ten days of lavish parties, the city's elite admired the emissaries' silk robes and noble bearing and began forging what they expected would be a special relationship between ascendant Pacific nations. Three decades later, a young Japanese immigrant disembarked at the very same waterfront to a different reception. "I was baptized with horse dung," Nisuke Mitsumori recalled. "This was my very first impression of America." Mitsumori arrived in the first angry days of America's war on Japanese immigrants, a populist convulsion that became one of the nation's darkest episodes of ethnic strife. In the early 1900s, Japanese immigrants faced mob violence and property destruction. Exclusionary laws restricted Japanese immigrants' rights to own property, vote, and marry outside their race. Tensions intensified until 120,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned in camps during World War II. The Distance Between Our Names is the story of the early battles over Japanese immigration--the less dramatic, more insidious chapter. Esteemed journalist Paul Richter researched hundreds of memoirs, public records, news reports, and oral histories to deliver an urgent account of immigration history. This highly relevant book is enlivened by intimate stories of the newcomers--high and humble--such as the children banned from public schools, farmers struggling in a system rigged against them, the women who were swindled into marriages resulting in lifetimes of hardship, immigrant leaders battling to forestall punitive laws. Taken together, The Distance Between Our Names is a stunning narrative of resilience and struggle, a gripping story of one community's brave fight for dignity in the face of savage discrimination.

Fourth graders doing Google-branded coding lessons. Amazon schooling seventh graders on its warehouse robots. Advanced Placement computing courses from Microsoft and Apple. Many educators and parents would object if Exxon wrote their school's climate curriculum--or if schools assigned nutrition lessons from Coca-Cola and McDonald's. Yet today, tech giants influence nearly every step of the education supply chain. They provide the classroom devices and software many students use to do assignments. They sell schools on the latest artificial intelligence tools. And increasingly, tech companies are launching their own corporate-branded school curricula, shaping how and what millions of children learn. In recent years, the tech industry has helped spread computer science and AI education in schools at astonishing speed and scale. In Coding Kids, award-winning New York Times journalist Natasha Singer draws on a decade of reporting to reveal how tech titans used the promise of coding (high-paying jobs! change the world!) to weave rosy industry visions of technology into the very fabric of American education, sometimes sidelining crucial ideas like civics and critical thinking. Along the way, Singer takes readers through the powerful playbook Big Tech used to scale coding lessons nationwide. Then she shows readers how tech companies are now applying the same playbook to mainstream their AI tools in schools. A revelatory account of the powerful forces shaping education and our kids' futures, Coding Kids also offers hope. It tells the compelling stories of pioneering teachers fighting for a broader vision of tech education--one that not only teaches kids algorithms and app-making, but also asks students to grapple with the societal impacts of tech giants and their disruptive digital tools.

An exuberant exploration of why the stuff we use (mostly) works--and a celebration of the unsung engineers who ensure it does.

The acclaimed author of How Asia Works brings his "pithy, well-written and intellectually vigorous" (Financial Times) reporting to Africa, revealing essential, promising lessons about the engines of economic growth across the continent. In the 1980s, countries across Asia stunned the world with meteoric economic growth-- but when eyes turn to Africa today, it is often to lament corruption, violence and poverty rather than to scout the next developmental frontrunners. Yet some African nations, even in the face of challenging geography and the crippling legacies of colonialism, have found remarkable success. In How Africa Works, Joe Studwell draws on extensive research and travel across the continent to explore what's worked and what hasn't, and shows how the rapidly rising population--seen as alarming by so many--will be foundational to Africa's flourishing. Studwell's book is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the next chapter of global development.

From evolution to capitalism, 'survival of the fittest' has shaped our view of the world. But we got it wrong - and our mistake has brought us to the brink. For the history of life on Earth is much more than a story of competition. The natural world has been forged and sustained by small miracles of co-operation between animals and plants, insects and fungi, fish and bacteria - these partnerships are ubiquitous, lifelong and are an essential guide for a better future. In 'Togetherness', Rowan Hooper reveals the intimate connectedness of nature through these remarkable stories of symbiosis. From the female wasp venturing deep inside a fig and the intricate relationship between corals and the algae that sustain them to the symbiotic gut microbes that influence our moods, he explores how co-operation is fundamental to life itself and to protecting our shared future.

On September 25, 1930, Adolf Hitler appeared before Germany's Supreme Court and outlined his plans to destroy the Weimar Republic through democratic process. The judge asked, "So, only through constitutional means?" Hitler replied, "Jawohl!" Barely two years later, on January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed the fifteenth chancellor of the Weimar Republic. Within 53 days of that date, he had effected one of the most astonishing transformations in modern democracy, using the provisions of the Constitution to turn a democratic republic into an authoritarian state. Drawing from his 800-page political playbook, Mein Kampf, Hitler banned or neutered the print press and radio; purged the civil service and installed party loyalists; suspended civil liberties; compromised the courts; imposed Reich government control over the country's seventeen federated states; slapped draconian tariffs on trading partners; co-opted, imprisoned, or drove political opponents into exile; assumed control over the central bank; and then compelled the Reichstag, the country's legislative body, to pass an Enabling Act granting Hitler dictatorial power. Charting the key events of those dramatic days in taut and compelling prose, Timothy W. Ryback evokes the raw political power and increasing inevitability of Hitler's state capture, amid heroic efforts by journalists and social democrats to save the republic, underscoring the alarming observation in Joseph Goebbels' collected essays: "The big joke on democracy is that it provides its mortal enemies with the means to its own destruction."

For thirty-seven seconds on May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg lit up the sky over Lakehurst, New Jersey in an indelible conflagration that shocked the world and brought the airship era to a close. In this definitive account, acclaimed historian Catherine Grace Katz brings together little-known research that unveils the disaster as a pivotal moment in time, at the crossroads of the rising tension between Germany (where the Hindenburg's fateful trip began) and the US in the 1930s, as well as a rapidly changing age of aviation in which the airship had been deemed the future of air travel, a technology that would connect the world. While thirty-six people died in the explosion, many others crawled from the wreckage and survived to tell the tale. Katz traces the experiences of a captivating cast of characters: an heiress, a world-renowned acrobat, a German Jew working to save his family from the clutches of Nazism, a young cabin boy on his first voyage with the crew. Meanwhile, on the ground were two intrepid journalists whose reporting on the Hindenburg would invent breaking news as we now know it. In a deeply researched yet gripping, ticking-clock narrative, Shadow Before the Flame offers a portrait of an era-that brief suspended moment in time before war became an inevitability-- tracing the rapid rise of fascism and march toward World War II. It is a story that begins with the promise of a future made bright by technological innovation and ends with caskets draped in swastikas in New York City.

We all have an 'invisible list' of things that we say we'll do when we finally have the time: learn guitar, take up tennis, write a book, plant a butterfly garden. But life--jobs, families, the obligations of being a person--always gets in the way. The Invisible List is a blueprint for making those goals real. And the first step? Giving yourself permission. From educator and civic entrepreneur Ravi Gupta comes a bold, inspiring approach to resurrecting your passions, no matter how limited your time or money. After realizing that he had stopped doing anything for the sheer love of it, Gupta shifted course and decided to dedicate a full year to becoming competent in one of his long-deferred hobbies. No quitting allowed. It soon became a yearly pursuit that has included taking on screenwriting, surfing, and powerlifting--and has led him to find new friends and a new focus and to discover that he is never too old to learn new things.

A unique biography of a place, encompassing architecture, history, politics, popular culture, and race in a fascinating exploration of our Capitol's secret past, one rife with political intrigue, assassination attempts, thwarted bombings, and gunmen on the run. Never mind ghostly cat prints, mysteriously bloodstained steps, and charming 'fairy doors' that have delighted visitors for hundreds of years. Spanning three centuries of American history, the book focuses on iconic and notable names and personalities from the past--from George Washington to Davy Crockett to Ronald Reagan--as well as countless colorful characters readers may not have heard of before, with a focus on restoring the narratives of enslaved people and recognizing their contributions.

Throughout history, authoritarian regimes have always employed the same tactics to undermine democracy. Recognize and resist these hallmarks of authoritariansim: assuaulting truth; politicizing independent institutions; consolidating the executive; silencing dissent; scapegoating the vulnerable; hijacking faith; indoctrinating youth; controlling knowledge; corrupting elections; plundering wealth; stoking chaos. With action plans in every chapter, you can take meaningful steps to defend democracy today!

A revisionist, passionate history of the pharmaceutical industry, detailing how the nascent industry discovered an abundance of treatments, vitamins, and cures--and reminding us of the revolutionary power of modern medicine.

Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons dives deep into his encounters over the last six decades with the best in the sport, revealing a trove of behind-the-scenes stories about the fascinating and inspiring individuals at the heart of our national pastime. Peter Gammons is the preeminent baseball writer of his generation. Born and raised in New England, Gammons was mentored by the revered basketball coach Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina. Smith told him that being a good listener was not only the key to journalism but to life--and Gammons has long taken that to heart. His early calling card was his Sunday notes column in the Boston Globe, which combined baseball and pop culture to deliver a weekly joyride through the sport. His story from Game 6 of the 1975 World Series is still considered the greatest game story ever written on deadline, and led to his hiring by Sports Illustrated in 1976. He moved to ESPN in 1990, becoming the first sportswriter the network ever put on TV. Nearly every significant figure in the game has shared stories with Gammons. It's All About the Players reveals what Gammons has learned from those greats about baseball and life. He details the emergence of Latin and Asian players in Major League Baseball and the symbiotic relationships between manager and general managers, catchers and pitchers, and second basemen and shortstops. He recalls his chance childhood meeting with Roger Maris as he was falling in love with baseball. He speaks to the marriage between rock n' roll and baseball, and, yes, tells the story of how Ted Williams claimed he could smell the wood burning on his bat after smoking line drives to the outfield. Now Gammons has put it all down on the page for baseball fans to treasure.

A captivating, compassionate account of a moral panic that swept across Britain during the English Civil War, leaving hundreds of so-called witches dead in its wake. Moving across England and Scotland, Witchland shows how the chaos and economic deprivation of wartime can exacerbate existing divides within communities, leaving those already without power particularly vulnerable. Drawing on newly discovered historical documents, Gibson gives voice to the accused and defenseless--telling stories that have been hidden for centuries. With each chapter focusing on a different town and the lives and deaths of the people within it, Witchland is a gripping historical drama that plays out on both the small scale of the town square and the large scale of the nation.

Everywhere you turn, Americans are getting ripped off: Online ticket sellers hide behind exorbitant extra fees. Landlords use software to band together and organize artificial rent hikes. Ride-sharing apps spike their fares when it rains. And car companies install software that reports your driving behavior to auto insurance companies so that they can hike your premiums. Surveillance pricing, algorithmic price fixing, and other high-tech forms of price gouging are the latest frontiers in corporate profiteering--and they're gutting the American economy and your wallet. In Gouged, economic expert and veteran consumer advocate Lindsay Owens takes us inside the corporate boardrooms where pricing decisions are made, uncovering the tricks, traps, and grifts corporations use to jack up the price you pay at checkout. From data collection to drone surveillance, modern technology provides companies a staggering arsenal of sophisticated tools to squeeze as much money out of consumers as possible, resulting in record profits. Drawing on original reporting, shareholder meeting transcripts, and rigorous economic analysis, Owens takes aim at Big Tech behemoths, airlines, health insurance companies, and others to pull back the curtain on how price gouging is coming for almost every line item in your household budget, from doctor visits to rent, groceries to diapers, and even your summer vacation. Gouged arms us with the essential knowledge we need to first recognize, and then sidestep, the traps that corporations try to conceal from us. In a world where price gouging has become ubiquitous, Gouged is necessary reading for anyone looking to stay an informed consumer, save money rather than surrender it to greedy CEOs, and stand up for fair prices in America.