History

A memoir and cultural history the World's End, a West London area once home to bohemian artists and punk rock and now an outpost of neoliberalism. Charlie Gere's account of growing up in the World's End area of West London during the Cold War combines...

George VI's biographer, Sir John Wheeler Bennett wrote "The actual turning of the tide in the 2nd World War may be accurately determined as the first week of July 1942." This book argues that it is possible to be even more exact: the tide turned at about...

In the tradition of Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation by way of Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, this is the inspirational true story of the Ugandan boy soldier who became a world-renowned runner, then found his calling as director of a...

From the author of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim comes an important book, unlike any other, that looks at the crisis in Darfur within the context of the history of Sudan and examines the world's response to that crisis. In Saviors and Survivors, Mahmood...

A book as rich and sprawling as the seductive metropolis it evokes, Rio de Janeiro builds a kaleidoscopic portrait of this city of extremes, and its history of conflict and corruption. Luiz Eduardo Soares tells the story of Rio through the everyday lives...

In 2009, the United States was hit broadside by Somali pirates who attempted to capture the U.S. flag ship Maersk Alabama. Suddenly, the pirates were no longer a distant menace. They had thrust themselves onto the American stage. Are the Somali pirates a...

From bestselling author and beloved New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, a deeply resonant, career-spanning collection of articles on race and racism, from the 1960s to the present In the early sixties, Calvin Trillin got his start as a journalist covering...

The most comprehensive collection of writing by and about African-Americans ever to appear in one volume Never before has such an impressive and far-reaching mix of writings by African-Americans been gathered together into a single anthology. Combining...

A comprehensive examination of the rituals and philosophies that created and sustained medieval troubadour culture - Debunks the myth of the platonic nature of courtly love, showing the many sexual similarities to the Tantric practices of India - Reveals...