Undaunted Courage is a riveting tale of adventure and exploration, chronicling the epic journey of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his expedition across the uncharted American frontier.

In 1803, under the directive of President Thomas Jefferson, Lewis embarked on a pioneering voyage across the Great Plains and into the Rockies. This was not just any expedition; it was a military mission into hostile territory, a land vast and wild, ruled by Native American tribes.

Charismatic and brave, Lewis was the perfect choice for this daring journey. He experienced the savage North American continent in its pristine beauty, encountering vast herds of buffalo and indigenous tribes who had never seen a white man before.

The book vividly portrays colorful characters such as William Clark, the rugged frontiersman; Sacagawea, the young Indian girl who accompanied the expedition; and Drouillard, the skilled French-Indian hunter.

This story is not only about heroism but also tragedy. Despite receiving a hero's welcome in Washington in 1806, Lewis felt his expedition was a failure, as it did not fulfill the president's dreams of fertile lands and easy passageways. This disappointment led to his tragic downfall, marked by debts and depression.

Undaunted Courage combines drama, suspense, danger, and diplomacy, making it an outstanding work of scholarship and a thrilling adventure that captures the spirit of exploration and the complexities of the human spirit.

From the fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne—the "dark ages"—learning, scholarship, and culture disappeared from the European continent. The great heritage of western civilization—from the Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works—would have been utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of unconquered Ireland.

In this delightful and illuminating look into a crucial but little-known "hinge" of history, Thomas Cahill takes us to the "island of saints and scholars," the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book of Kells. Here, far from the barbarian despoliation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserved the west's written treasures.

With the return of stability in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning. Thus, the Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on western culture.

The Railway Man is a gripping and intense memoir by Eric Lomax, detailing his harrowing experiences during the Second World War. As a prisoner of war, Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and endured brutal torture by the Japanese for constructing a crude radio.

Emotionally scarred and struggling to form normal relationships, Lomax suffered for years. With the support of his wife, Patti, and the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, he began to come to terms with his past.

In an incredible story of innocence betrayed, survival, and courage, Lomax recounts how, fifty years later, he was able to confront one of his tormentors. This powerful narrative is a testament to the enduring strength of the human spirit and the possibility of forgiveness even in the face of unimaginable horror.

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in a Jewish firm in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account.

No Ordinary Time is an extraordinary chronicle of one of the most vibrant and revolutionary periods in US history. With an astonishing collection of details, Doris Kearns Goodwin weaves together a number of storylines — the Roosevelts' marriage and partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, and FDR’s White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war.

Goodwin masterfully melds these into an intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and of the time during which a new, modern America was born. This work provides a detailed and personal look at the lives of two pivotal figures in American history and how their relationship shaped the nation during the Great Depression and World War II.

In the Appalachian community of Dark Hollow, Tennessee, some believe that the ghost of Katie Wyler, kidnapped by the Shawnee two hundred years ago, is once again roaming the hills. Only an old woman gifted with "the Sight" and policewoman Martha Ayers can put the superstitions to rest—and stop a flesh-and-blood predator as elusive as the whistling wind...

The ghost of a murdered pioneer woman wanders the Appalachian hills, searching for a way home. But others, including a city-bred scholar and an escaped killer, also roam these hills, each undertaking a very personal journey. When their paths cross, a long-hidden mystery is revealed, and with it a secret that will rock the Appalachians to their very core.

Historian Jeremy Cobb is backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, attempting to retrace the tragic journey of 18-year-old Katie Wyler, who was captured by the Shawnee after the massacre of her pioneer family.

Here for the first time, in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan.

Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly — or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers — Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and von Neumann — stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.

Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step by step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man's most awesome discovery and invention.

The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler's Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler's Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe's historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war's bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come.

Cornelius Ryan's compelling account of this final battle is a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, "to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win."

It is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison is a brilliant work by Michel Foucault, one of the most influential philosophers since Sartre. This provocative study explores the evolution of the justice system, focusing primarily on France.

Foucault challenges existing ideas surrounding prison reforms from the late 1700s and early 1800s, even into the twentieth century. He suggests that the shift away from public executions towards incarceration was a means of reframing the power dynamics between society and the individual.

The book delves into how the focus of punishment has shifted from the prisoner's body to the soul. It provides a highly provocative account of how penal institutions have become integral to societal control.

Through this work, Foucault offers an in-depth analysis of how modern penitentiaries emerged and how they reflect broader social structures and power relations.

According to ancient Black Forest legend, on the Night of the Seventh Moon, Loke, the God of Mischief, is at large in the world. It is a night for festivity and joyful celebration. It is a night for singing and dancing.

And it is a night for love. Helena Trant was enchanted by everything she found in the Black Forest -- especially its legends.

But then, on the Night of the Seventh Moon, she started to live one of them, and the enchantment turned suddenly into a terrifying nightmare...

The Street of Crocodiles in the Polish city of Drogobych is a street of memories and dreams where recollections of Bruno Schulz's uncommon boyhood and of the eerie side of his merchant family's life are evoked in a startling blend of the real and the fantastic.

Most memorable - and most chilling - is the portrait of the author's father, a maddened shopkeeper who imports rare birds' eggs to hatch in his attic, who believes tailors' dummies should be treated like people, and whose obsessive fear of cockroaches causes him to resemble one.

Bruno Schulz, a Polish Jew killed by the Nazis in 1942, is considered by many to have been the leading Polish writer between the two world wars. This volume brings together his complete fiction, including three short stories and his final surviving work, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.

Illustrated with Schulz's original drawings, this edition beautifully showcases the distinctive surrealist vision of one of the twentieth century's most gifted and influential writers.

From the winner of the Catherine Cookson Fiction Prize, this mesmerizing, suspenseful, and richly atmospheric tale of time travel draws us into the heart of a heroine we won't soon forget...

The first time Julia Beckett saw Greywethers she was only five, but she knew that it was her house. And now that she's at last become its owner, she suspects that she was drawn there for a reason.

As if Greywethers were a portal between worlds, she finds herself transported into seventeenth-century England, becoming Mariana, a young woman struggling against danger and treachery, and battling a forbidden love.

Each time Julia travels back, she becomes more enthralled with the past...until she realizes Mariana's life is threatening to eclipse her own, and she must find a way to lay the past to rest or lose the chance for happiness in her own time.

In an ancient Arab nation, one woman dares to be different. Buran cannot—Buran will not—sit quietly at home and wait to be married to the man her father chooses. Determined to use her skills and earn a fortune, she instead disguises herself as a boy and travels by camel caravan to a distant city. There, she maintains her masculine disguise and establishes a successful business.

The city's crown prince comes often to her shop, and soon Buran finds herself falling in love. But if she reveals to Mahmud that she is a woman, she will lose everything she has worked for.

In Means of Ascent, Book Two of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro brings alive Lyndon Johnson in his wilderness years. Here, Johnson’s almost mythic personality—part genius, part behemoth, at once hotly emotional and icily calculating—is seen at its most nakedly ambitious.

This multifaceted book carries the President-to-be from the aftermath of his devastating defeat in his 1941 campaign for the Senate—the despair it engendered in him, and the grueling test of his spirit that followed as political doors slammed shut—through his service in World War II (and his artful embellishment of his record) to the foundation of his fortune (and the actual facts behind the myth he created about it).

The culminating drama—the explosive heart of the book—is Caro’s illumination, based on extraordinarily detailed investigation, of one of the great political mysteries of the century. Having immersed himself in Johnson’s life and world, Caro is able to reveal the true story of the fiercely contested 1948 senatorial election, for years shrouded in rumor, which Johnson was not believed capable of winning, which he “had to” win or face certain political death, and which he did win—by 87 votes, the “87 votes that changed history.”

Telling that epic story “in riveting and eye-opening detail,” Caro returns to the American consciousness a magnificent lost hero. He focuses closely not only on Johnson, whom we see harnessing every last particle of his strategic brilliance and energy, but on Johnson’s “unbeatable” opponent, the beloved former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, who embodied in his own life the myth of the cowboy knight and was himself a legend for his unfaltering integrity.

Ultimately, as the political duel between the two men quickens—carrying with it all the confrontational and moral drama of the perfect Western—Caro makes us witness to a momentous turning point in American politics: the tragic last stand of the old politics versus the new—the politics of issue versus the politics of image, mass manipulation, money and electronic dazzle.

In the summer of 1969, in Los Angeles, a series of brutal, seemingly random murders captured headlines across America. A famous actress (and her unborn child), an heiress to a coffee fortune, a supermarket owner and his wife were among the seven victims. A thin trail of circumstances eventually tied the Tate-LeBianca murders to Charles Manson, a would-be pop singer of small talent living in the desert with his "family" of devoted young women and men. What was his hold over them? And what was the motivation behind such savagery?

In the public imagination, over time, the case assumed the proportions of myth. The murders marked the end of the sixties and became an immediate symbol of the dark underside of that era. Vincent Bugliosi was the prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, and this book is his enthralling account of how he built his case from what a defense attorney dismissed as only "two fingerprints and Vince Bugliosi." The meticulous detective work with which the story begins, the prosecutor's view of a complex murder trial, the reconstruction of the philosophy Manson inculcated in his fervent followers…these elements make for a true crime classic. Helter Skelter is not merely a spellbinding murder case and courtroom drama but also, in the words of The New Republic, a "social document of rare importance."

Escape from Freedom explores the paradox of freedom and the human tendency towards authoritarianism. If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of this landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time.

Erich Fromm delves into the forces shaping modern society and the causes of authoritarian systems. While the rise of democracy liberated some, it also birthed a society where individuals feel alienated and dehumanized. Using psychoanalysis as a tool, Fromm analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as evidenced by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.

This examination of the roots of Nazism and fascism in Europe also explains how economic and social constraints can lead to authoritarianism. A timeless classic, it offers a profound understanding of the anxiety underlying our darkest impulses.

Nearly five centuries ago, a fleet of boats landed mysteriously on an island in an inland sea. There, an ancient Andean people hid a golden hoard greater than that of any pharaoh, then they and their treasure vanished into history -- until now.

Fast forward to 1998, the Andes Mountains of Peru. DIRK PITT dives into an ancient sacrificial pool, saving two American archaeologists from certain drowning. But his death-defying rescue is only the beginning, as it draws the intrepid Pitt into a vortex of darkness and danger, corruption and betrayal.

A sinister crime syndicate has traced the long-lost treasure -- worth almost a billion dollars -- from the Andes to the banks of a hidden underground river flowing beneath a Mexican desert. Driven by burning greed and a ruthless bloodlust, the syndicate is racing to seize the golden prize...and to terminate the one man who can stop them: DIRK PITT!

Cool. The concept has distinctly American qualities and it permeates almost every aspect of contemporary American culture. From Kool cigarettes and the Peanuts cartoon's Joe Cool to West Side Story ("Keep cool, boy.") and urban slang ("Be cool. Chill out."), the idea of cool, in its many manifestations, has seized a central place in our vocabulary.

Where did this preoccupation with cool come from? How was Victorian culture, seemingly so ensconced, replaced with the current emotional status quo? From whence came American Cool?

These are the questions Peter Stearns seeks to answer in this timely and engaging volume. American Cool focuses extensively on the transition decades, from the erosion of Victorianism in the 1920s to the solidification of a cool culture in the 1960s. Beyond describing the characteristics of the new directions and how they altered or amended earlier standards, the book seeks to explain why the change occurred. It then assesses some of the outcomes and longer-range consequences of this transformation.

Maus raconte la vie de Vladek Spiegelman, rescapé juif des camps nazis, et de son fils, auteur de bandes dessinées, qui cherche un terrain de réconciliation avec son père, sa terrifiante histoire et l'Histoire. Des portes d'Auschwitz aux trottoirs de New York se déroule en deux temps (les années 30 et les années 70) le récit d'une double survie : celle du père, mais aussi celle du fils, qui se débat pour survivre au survivant. Ici, les Nazis sont des chats et les Juifs des souris.

Mensagem é o único livro de poemas de Fernando Pessoa publicado em português durante a sua vida. É também realmente um só poema, como escreveu, dada a unidade perfeita conseguida pelo seu canto das grandezas passadas da nação - que se refletem no futuro, potenciadas pelo Quinto Império.

Sem a simetria de composição nem a vastidão narrativa da epopeia clássica, é a obra minimal de um Supra-Camões concentrado na construção de um mito, o de D. Sebastião, entendido como a síntese da ousadia dos heróis anteriores e como a promessa de um "dia claro" por vir.

Schindler's List is a remarkable work of fiction based on the true story of German industrialist and war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who, confronted with the horror of the extermination camps, gambled his life and fortune to rescue 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers.

Working with the actual testimony of Schindler's Jews, Thomas Keneally artfully depicts the courage and shrewdness of an unlikely savior, a man who is a flawed mixture of hedonism and decency and who, in the presence of unutterable evil, transcends the limits of his own humanity.

Forty years after his Hitler: A Study in Tyranny set a standard for scholarship of the Nazi era, Lord Alan Bullock gives readers a breathtakingly accomplished dual biography that places Adolf Hitler's origins, personality, career, and legacy alongside those of Joseph Stalin—his implacable antagonist and moral mirror image.

Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century.

In a new foreword, noted peace expert and teacher Sissela Bok urges us to adopt Gandhi's attitude of experimenting, of testing what will and will not bear close scrutiny, what can and cannot be adapted to new circumstances, in order to bring about change in our own lives and communities.

All royalties earned on this book are paid to the Navajivan Trust, founded by Gandhi, for use in carrying on his work.

Charles Darwin's Autobiography was first published in 1887, five years after his death. It was a bowdlerized edition: Darwin's family, attempting to protect his posthumous reputation, had deleted all the passages they considered too personal or controversial. The present complete edition did not appear until 1959, one hundred years after the publication of The Origin of Species.

The daring and restless mind, the integrity and simplicity of Darwin's character are revealed in this direct and personal account of his life—his family, his education, his explorations of the natural world, his religion, and philosophy. The editor has provided page and line references to the more important restored passages, and previously unpublished notes and letters on family matters and on the controversy between Samuel Butler appear in an appendix.

With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

Angels in America is a powerful narrative told through two full-length plays: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. In this poignant story, Tony Kushner explores the lives of a handful of people trying to make sense of the world amidst the AIDS crisis.

The central character, Prior, is a man living with AIDS. His lover, Louis, has left him and becomes involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative. Joe's wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown.

These personal stories are woven together with that of Roy Cohn, a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue. Cohn is depicted as struggling to remain in the closet while seeking personal salvation through his beliefs.

Set against the backdrop of America in the mid-1980s, the play addresses themes of life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell, offering a bold and emotional exploration of human experiences.

Postcards is the mesmerizing tale of Loyal Blood, a man who spends a lifetime running from a terrible crime that forever incapacitates him from forming intimate connections. Blood's journey begins in 1944, taking him from his hardscrabble Vermont hill farm across the vast landscapes of America.

From New York to California, passing through Ohio, Minnesota, Montana, British Columbia, North Dakota, Wyoming, and New Mexico, Loyal must live a hundred lives to survive. He delves into mining gold, growing beans, hunting fossils, prospecting for uranium, and ranching. Meanwhile, his family suffers great losses, particularly the hard-won values of endurance and pride, legacies of generations rooted in intimacy with the land.

Postcards chronicles the lives of the rural and the dispossessed, mapping their world with the historical accuracy and narrative skill reminiscent of Cather, Dreiser, and Faulkner. It stands as a new American classic.

Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted by one of its most worldly, knowing, and ironic observers.

To most Americans, Abraham Lincoln is a monolithic figure, the Great Emancipator and Savior of the Union, beloved by all. In Gore Vidal's Lincoln we meet Lincoln the man and Lincoln the political animal, the president who entered a besieged capital where most of the population supported the South and where even those favoring the Union had serious doubts that the man from Illinois could save it. Far from steadfast in his abhorrence of slavery, Lincoln agonizes over the best course of action and comes to his great decision only when all else seems to fail. As the Civil War ravages his nation, Lincoln must face deep personal turmoil, the loss of his dearest son, and the harangues of a wife seen as a traitor for her Southern connections.

Brilliantly conceived, masterfully executed, Gore Vidal's Lincoln allows the man to breathe again.

The Fire Next Time is a powerful and provocative document that galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement when it first appeared in 1963. Written by James Baldwin, this national bestseller provides a searing examination of racial injustice and its consequences.

The book consists of two "letters" written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. In these letters, Baldwin exhorts Americans, both black and white, to confront and attack the terrible legacy of racism. The work is at once a personal reflection on Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a broader commentary on the state of race relations in America.

Described by the The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle… all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of American literature, urging us to confront the oppressive institutions of race, religion, and nationhood itself, while insisting on shared resilience and love as a way forward.

The fables of Aesop have become one of the most enduring traditions of European culture, ever since they were first written down nearly two millennia ago. Aesop was reputedly a tongue-tied slave who miraculously received the power of speech; from his legendary storytelling came the collections of prose and verse fables scattered throughout Greek and Roman literature.

First published in English by Caxton in 1484, the fables and their morals continue to charm modern readers: who does not know the story of the tortoise and the hare, or the boy who cried wolf?

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

Dreadnought is a riveting chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century's first great arms race. Authored by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Robert K. Massie, this book is a richly textured and gripping narrative that brings to life a host of historical figures.

Experience the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz, the young and ambitious Winston Churchill, and the ruthless Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, among others. Their stories, along with the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfold like a Greek tragedy.

Intimately human and dramatic, Dreadnought is history at its most compelling, capturing the essence of extraordinary lives and the complexities of a transformative era.

Russell Baker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography about growing up in America during the Great Depression is a modern-day classic. In this heartfelt memoir, groundbreaking Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist Russell Baker traces his youth from the backwoods mountains of Virginia to a New Jersey commuter town to the Depression-shadowed landscape of Baltimore.

His story is one of adversity and courage, the poignancy of love and the awkwardness of sex, of family bonds and family tensions. We meet the people who influenced Baker’s early life: his strong and loving mother, his bold little sister Doris, the awesome matriarch Ida Rebecca and her twelve sons. Here, too, are schoolyard bullies, great teachers, and the everyday heroes and heroines of the Depression who faced disaster with good cheer as they tried to muddle through.

This is a coming of age story that is filled with perfect turns of phrase and traces of quiet wisdom, making it “the stuff of American legend.”

The vast majority of Americans have, at one point or another, gotten drunk, smoked, dabbled with drugs, gambled, sworn, or engaged in adultery. During the 1800s, "respectable" people struggled to control these behaviors, labeling them "bad" and the people who indulged in them unrespectable. In the twentieth century, these minor vices were transformed into a societal complex of enormous and pervasive influence. Yet the general belief persists that these activities remain merely harmless "bad habits," individual transgressions more than social problems. Not so, argues distinguished historian John C. Burnham in this pioneering study.

In Bad Habits, Burnham traces the growth of a veritable minor vice-industrial complex. As it grew, activities that might have been harmless, natural, and sociable fun resulted in fundamental social change. When Burnham set out to explore the influence of these bad habits on American society, he sought to discover why so many "good" people engaged in activities that many, including themselves, considered "bad." What he found, however, was a coalition of economic and social interests in which the single-minded quest for profit allied with the values of the Victorian saloon underworld and bohemian rebelliousness. This combination radically inverted common American standards of personal conduct.

Bad Habits, then, describes, in words and pictures, how more and more Americans learned to value hedonism and self-gratification—to smoke and swear during World War I, to admire cabaret night life, and to reject schoolmarmish standards in the age of Prohibition. Tracing the evolution of each of the bad habits, Burnham tells how liquor control boards encouraged the consumption of alcohol; how alcoholic beverage producers got their workers deferred from the draft during World War II; how convenience stores and accounting firms pursued profits by pushing legalized gambling; how "swinging" Playboy bankrolled a drug advocacy group; how advertising and television made the Marlboro Man a national hero; how drug paraphernalia was promoted by national advertisers; how a practical joker/drug addict caused a shortage of kitty litter on Long Island; and how the evolution of an entire sex therapy industry helped turn sexual experience into a new kind of commodity. Altogether, a lot of people made a lot of money. But what, the author asks, did these changes cost American society?

This illustrated tour de force by one of the most distinctive and important voices in social history reveals John C. Burnham at his provocative and controversial best.

When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness, and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside favela. Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, Nancy Scheper-Hughes follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage.

It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing – and controversial – is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live.

A rousing call to arms whose influence is still felt today Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom.

This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today.

First published in 1955, A Night to Remember remains a completely riveting account of the Titanic's fatal collision and the behavior of the passengers and crew, both noble and ignominious.

Some sacrificed their lives, while others fought like animals for their own survival. Wives beseeched husbands to join them in lifeboats; gentlemen went taut-lipped to their deaths in full evening dress; and hundreds of steerage passengers, trapped below decks, sought help in vain.

The Shepherd of the Hills is a captivating tale set in the enchanting Ozark hills. Originally published in 1907, this novel by Harold Bell Wright explores themes of strength, weakness, success, and failure.

The story unfolds around a mysterious, learned man who retreats from the bustling city life to find solace in the serene backwoods of Mutton Hollow. Here, he encounters intriguing characters like Jim Lane, Grant Matthews, and Sammy, each adding depth and richness to his journey.

Wright's masterful storytelling captures the essence of human struggles and triumphs, painting a vivid picture of life that is both enchanting and challenging. This is not a mere pastoral fantasy; it is a powerful commentary on the human condition, set against the backdrop of the beautiful yet demanding Ozark landscape.

The Shepherd of the Hills continues to inspire readers with its timeless truths and universal appeal. It's a story that resonates across generations, offering insights into grace, dignity, and the enduring spirit of humanity.

This is the moving and powerful account of two remarkable boys struggling to survive in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex disfigured by crime and neglect.

Alex Kotlowitz provides a meticulous portrait of urban poverty, showing the heroism required to survive, let alone escape.

Glory is the wryly ironic story of Martin Edelweiss, a twenty-two-year-old Russian émigré of no account, who is in love with a girl who refuses to marry him.

Convinced that his life is about to be wasted and hoping to impress his love, he embarks on a perilous, daredevil project—an illegal attempt to re-enter the Soviet Union, from which he and his mother had fled in 1919. He succeeds—but at a terrible cost.

Twenty Years in Siberia is a remarkable memoir by Anița Nandriș-Cudla, capturing one of the most harrowing and incredible stories written in Romania. This book stands out among many, with its authenticity and the powerful narrative of a woman with just three years of primary education but a soul as vast as national history.

The book offers an essential testimony not only about the fate of Romanian deportees in the Soviet Gulag but also about the aristocratic stature of the Bucovinean peasant, a reality almost rendered legendary by the metamorphoses provoked by communism. Through Anița's words, legend becomes reality again, challenging any inferiority complex about our nation.

More than just a narrative, this book deserves a place among the classics, detailing one of the most dreadful destinies with raw honesty and profound insight.

In this icy, knife’s-edge story of a life that progresses backward through time, unfolding into one of the darkest episodes of the 20th century, Amis (“at his intriguing, heedful, and powerful best” —Time Out), finds a chillingly original approach to the Holocaust in fiction.

Tod. T. Friendly is living his life in reverse. Doctor Friendly has just died, but he moves “out of blackest sleep” to find himself surrounded by doctors and on the deathbed of a man in whose body he is imprisoned. After weeks of improving in the hospital, he is sent home to his affable, melting-pot, primary-colors existence in suburban America. As Friendly breaks up with his lovers in a prelude to seducing them and mangles his patients before he sends them home, his life races backward toward the one appalling moment in modern history when such reversals make sense.

From the fresh-cut lawns of his retirement to the hustle of New York, and then back to the boat which reverses his course to the war-torn Europe Friendly came from, Amis brings the steeliest nerve to the job of realizing the novel’s inevitable logic. Trapped in his body from grave to cradle, Friendly’s consciousness can only watch as he struggles to make sense of the good doctor’s most ambitious project yet—the final solution.

Ralph Moody was eight years old in 1906 when his family moved from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Through his eyes, the pleasures and perils of ranching in the early twentieth century are experienced.

Join them in auctions and roundups, family picnics, irrigation wars, tornadoes, and wind storms that give authentic color to Little Britches. These wonderfully told adventures equip Ralph to take his father's place when it becomes necessary.

This book is newly republished in a hardcover edition with a 1950s cover, jacket, and pictorial endpages. Interior illustrations by Edward Shenton.

Killing Mister Watson is a gripping novel by Peter Matthiessen, the acclaimed author of The Snow Leopard and The Tree Where Man Was Born. This fascinating story unfolds around the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of a man in Florida in 1910.

This man, who had long terrorized his community, is rumored to have a criminal past. Set in the lawless Florida Everglades, the novel brilliantly depicts both the fortunes and misfortunes of Edgar J. Watson, a real-life entrepreneur and outlaw of the early 20th century.

Drawing from fragments of historical fact, Matthiessen's masterpiece offers a vivid portrayal of a bygone era, filled with suspense and intrigue. Killing Mister Watson is a must-read for those who enjoy historical adventures and crime tales.

Libra is a powerful, eerily convincing fictional speculation on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Authored by Don DeLillo, this novel chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from a troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history.

When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives, they decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism. The scales are irrevocably tipped, leading to a gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction.

The novel is alive with meticulously portrayed characters, both real and created. Libra is a grave, haunting, and brilliant examination of an event that has become an indelible part of the American psyche.

Coming Into the Country is the story of Alaska and the Alaskans. Written with a vividness and clarity that shifts scenes frequently, it manages to tie the work into a rewarding whole. McPhee segues from the wilderness to life in urban Alaska to the remote bush country.

Explore the wild climate of unknown Alaska in this riveting travel account. This book offers a literary account of Alaska and its people, drawing you into the heart of its untouched landscapes and unique culture.

From her home on the California coast, Dalva hears the broad silence of the Nebraska prairie where she was born and longs for the son she gave up for adoption years before. Beautiful, fearless, tormented, at forty-five she has lived a life of lovers and adventures.

Now, Dalva begins a journey that will take her back to the bosom of her family, to the half-Sioux lover of her youth, and to a pioneering great-grandfather whose journals recount the bloody annihilation of the Plains Indians. On the way, she discovers a story that stretches from East to West, from the Civil War to Wounded Knee and Vietnam—and finds the balm to heal her wild and wounded soul.

The Story of Philosophy offers a brilliant and concise account of the lives and ideas of the great philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Croce, Russell, Santayana, James, and Dewey.

Few write for the non-specialist as well as Will Durant, and this book is a splendid example of his eminently readable scholarship. Durant’s insight and wit never cease to dazzle. The Story of Philosophy is a key book for any reader who wishes to survey the history and development of philosophical ideas in the Western world.