Book cover of For Profit: A History of Corporations by William Magnuson
Biography & History

For Profit: A History of Corporations 

A history of how corporate innovation has shaped society, from ancient Rome to Silicon Valley 
 
From legacy manufacturers to emerging tech giants, corporations wield significant power over our lives, our economy, and our politics. Some celebrate them as engines of progress and prosperity. Others argue that they recklessly pursue profit at the expense of us all. […Learn More]

Book cover of Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity by Theodore M. Porter
Biological Sciences

Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity

The untold story of how hereditary data in mental hospitals gave rise to the science of human heredity

In the early 1800s, a century before there was any concept of the gene, physicians in insane asylums began to record causes of madness in their admission books. Almost from the beginning, they pointed to heredity as the most important of these causes. […Learn More]

Book cover of Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare by Paul Lockhart
History

Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare

How military technology has transformed the world 

The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare but also the very structure of power in the West, from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era.  […Learn More]

Book cover of Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom by Spencer McBride
Biography & Autobiography

Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom

By the election year of 1844, Joseph Smith, the controversial founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had amassed a national following of some 25,000 believers. Nearly half of them lived in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith was not only their religious leader but also the mayor and the commander-in-chief of a militia of some 2,500 men. In less than twenty years, Smith had helped transform the American religious landscape and grown his own political power substantially. […Learn More]

Book cover of 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C Mann
Biological Sciences

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

From the author of 1491—the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas—a deeply engaging new history of the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs.

More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, he ended that separation at a stroke. […Learn More]

Book Cover of Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II by Adam Makos
History

Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II

From the author of the international bestseller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy. 

When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner’s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He’s a natural-born shooter. […Learn More]

Book cover of Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire by Sujit Sivasundaram
Asia

Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire

This is a story of tides and coastlines, winds and waves, islands and beaches. It is also a retelling of indigenous creativity, agency, and resistance in the face of unprecedented globalization and violence. Waves Across the South shifts the narrative of the Age of Revolutions and the origins of the British Empire; it foregrounds a vast southern zone that ranges from the Arabian Sea and southwest Indian Ocean across to the Bay of Bengal, and onward to the South Pacific and the Tasman Sea. As the empires of the Dutch, French, and especially the British reached across these regions, they faced a surge of revolutionary sentiment. […Learn More]

Biography & History

Americana: A 400 – Year History of American Capitalism

From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana takes us on a four-hundred-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things — the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the twenty-first century. […Learn More]