• HISTORY

Grant's Final Victory

An examination of the once-mighty general's tumultuous last year, 1884-85.

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  • HISTORY

Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War

A doomed plan with a momentous legacy.

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  • HISTORY

The Friar of Carcassonne

In a corner of medieval France, one man's stand against the Inquisition.

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  • HISTORY

The Last Gunfight

The real story behind the storied showdown in a Tombstone, Arizona vacant lot.

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  • HISTORY

Berlin 1961

In one of the Cold War's most resonant skirmishes, Nikita Khruschev  put the new American leadership to the test.

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  • HISTORY

Moral Combat

A noted historian of the Third Reich offers "a moral history of the Second World War."

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  • history

Fur, Fortune, and Empire

A new history of the fur trade in America puts the trapper at the center of our nation’s emergence onto the world stage.

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  • history

Dreamers of a New Day

A new look at the pioneers of women's rights, from Emma Goldman to Ida Tarbell, and their lasting legacy.

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  • history

John Brown's Trial

After his failed raid on Harper's Ferry, the man some called a traitor and others a hero was brought to a final, sensational trial. Read more...

May 24: Joseph Brodsky was born on this day in 1940 in Leningrad. Brodsky's constitutional skepticism was not compatible with the official Soviet alternatives, and by age twenty-five he was in prison, wrapped in cold, wet sheets as…

Angry robots! Aren't they all? Well, not the line of fine science fiction and fantasy books that comes to readers under the rubric Angry Robot. In fact, their offerings…

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Books, CDs, DVDs to know about now
The Philadelphia Chromosome

Expounding the well-known link between genetics and cancer, this scientific history recounts the initial discovery of a gene mutation that eventually led to enormous breakthroughs in the fight against leukemia. 

She Left Me the Gun

Emma Brockes' mother Paula escaped from South Africa with a smuggled pistol and a dark secret.  A daughter unravels her family's covert past -- and a suspenseful legal drama -- in this hard-boiled memoir of survival.

Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking

Expand your memory, puzzle-solving skills, and sense of metaphysical wonder with philosopher Daniel C. Dennett's tasting menu of user-friendly neuroscience and poetic lingual pursuits.