Harry N. Abrams Archives

The Oldest Cure in the World: Adventures in the Art and Science of Fasting

A journalist delves into the history, science, and practice of fasting, an ancient cure enjoying a dynamic resurgence.

When should we eat, and when shouldn’t we? The answers to these simple questions are not what you might expect. As Steve Hendricks shows in The Oldest Cure in the World, stop eating long enough, and you’ll set in motion cellular repairs that can slow aging and prevent and reverse diseases like diabetes and hypertension. […Learn More]

Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men

An illuminating and maddening examination of how gender bias has skewed innovation, technology, and history

It all starts with a rolling suitcase. Though the wheel was invented some five thousand years ago, and the suitcase in the nineteenth century, it wasn’t until the 1970s that someone successfully married the two. What was the hold up? For writer and journalist Katrine Marçal, the answer is both shocking and simple: because “real men” carried their bags, no matter how heavy.
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The King’s Painter: The Life of Hans Holbein

From a distinguished art historian, a dramatic reappraisal of Renaissance master Hans Holbein, whose art shaped politics and immortalized the Tudors

Hans Holbein the Younger is chiefly celebrated for his beautiful and precisely realized portraiture, which includes representations of Henry VIII, his advisors Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, his wives Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, and an array of the Tudor lords and ladies encountered during the course of two sojourns in England. […Learn More]